Bharat Rakshak

kumar

i am using "group think" to signify pre-filtering of an incoming idea, you are using it to mean post-filter. so when i say BRF allows a view to emerge, i mean post filter, consensus/shared view after different thoughts have arrived

anyway - not worth the bandwidth...

Jagan/BRAdmins:

While on the topic of Indian lifafas, did you get a chance of giving some gyan to this seeker of knowledge
http://media.bharat-rakshak.com/aero/ma ... temId=4230

Atleasht shome Gyan should be vishibul in his next series (hatchet job?) on DRDO.

Is Ajai Shukla the guy who quoted some teenage Jihadi forum's views on DRDO in one of his articles and spun it as the views of a "reputed internet forum"?

Shukla is not the only one on BRF who has served in the military. We have RayC who served in an even more senior position, and his posts are quite enlightening to those of us who have not served. He often corrects us when we are wrong, with cogent arguments. And we accept, and correct ourselves.

OTOH Shukla's manner is "I served in the Army and I am a paid journalist, so I know everything and you guys know nothing". He expresses opinions and makes generalizations. The only facts or figures he quotes are the general ones known to any layman. I see no evidence of any specialized knowledge or exhaustive research. So why should we put him on a pedestal, which he wants us to do, when he has not earned it?

On BRF you have to earn respect. It is never handed to you on a platter.

Lalmohan there are certain rules of etiquette that are followed on any active ongoing internet forum.

Anyone who has any experience of fora realises that and chooses his words carefully before writing anything.

Shuklaiji posted that article and clearly admitted (later) that he wants to discuss an alternate viewpoint. He knew that his viewpoint was different and he writes well enough to be scathing, but his rhetoric is good enough to be unquestionable (see his logic about the LCA) - and need reams of arguments to be taken down (as has been done by many on here over hundreds of discussions)

In a forum, Shukla's behaviour could be termed disruptive behaviour - that of a troll. But only people who have no idea of how fora work or don't care tend to do this.

Nothing that Shuklaji said is new. A lot of what he says is being said even now by many. But he needs to have his views heard and now. He does not have the patience to find out that there have been and are people who agree with him. There are different viewpoints - but, as is rumored of many well known "personalities", Shukla seems to be coming here with an "It's all about me and what I say" viewpoint.

Any person who does that on a forum like this gets his ass whupped - whether is name is genuinely Ajai Shukla or not.

That is a lesson that many great contributors on this forum have learned.

Ajai Shuklaji, I have been following this threads very long and mostly learning and rarely commenting. However, I had to comment on your following statement:



I guess you do not remember the history of HF-Marut. It was abandoned because GOI went in for the bread and butter argument and did not underwrite the development of the Jet Engine. The abandonment led to the dispersion of skills and rest is history.

The same bread and butter argument you are making now. Honestly, if all our Hon'ble MPs donate their "entitlements" of Rs. 2 Crores per year for 2 years, it will pay for the Tejas here and now.

You sure must be aware that you cannot pull out a "flying platform" and a "Jet Engine" out of somebody's wazoo. It does take patience and lots of failure before a semblance of a flying platform is achieved. You point to eurofighters etc. but remember, Europe and US had a head start by over 70 years over India. Of course since you are from armed forces, you must be aware of the history of air based war fare since WWI.

Also if you take time to read [or learn] you would know the history of the Arrow and how the American companies thwarted a threat to their hegemony.

The bottom line is for India, it is imperative to break the shackles of technological denial by putting money in technology development. Even if LCA is a "failure", its spin offs are far more important and can be built over.

Permit me to be a little nostalgic. When ISRO's ASLV failed repeatedly, I saw a swarm of R&D articles (Rona and Dhona (TM) articles) from all and sundry. One article even claimed that the Indians do not have in their genes to develop rockets. In my opinion, you are indulging in a similar R&D [again Rona & Dhona (TM)]. Anybody can come up with such an article and I challenge you to do some footwork and some reading and come up with a balanced article.

Shiv's brilliant piskology analysis got me thinking about this term.



This could only mean some deep atavistic experience. When Musharraf made that famous U-turn post 9/11 and offered his service to the US infidels he probably meant to kiss up and be buddy-buddy. But the US had other ideas and instead gave him a lip service of another kind, GUBO, administered ably by Amritrage. Probably the lifafa journalists are used to this service and sub-consciously slip in phrases to connote the experience.

What is really meant by such question is that the race is over. India will become a subservient of outside powers and there is really no need for inhouse R&D.
India will never have an independent base.

Folks Ajai Shukla is an ignorant fool. His posts and his blogspot are a method to acquire knowledge and information and then use it in his writings.

A Tank man commenting on a fighter. Hmmmmm.................!

Among the Indian 'defence journalists', I read Huma Siddiqui's columns with interest. Ramchandran (of the Hindu) also packs a lot of reasearch and facts that make his columns interesting reading.

OTOH people like Shukla, Aroor, Raghuvanshi, Rahul Bedi, Praveen Sawhney et al write mostly cr@p that I find not worth wasting my time on.

Think about it. With all the resources and advertising of the newspaper he writes for, why does Shukla have to come here on BRF to peddle his 'alternate viewpoint'?

Good journalists get read. They don't need to get on an internet forum to advertise. If you are good, the internet forum members by themselves will post links to your writings.

Folks,

How much it costs to start a magazine from BRF and publish articles specifically relating to defence, and it ofcourse should contain a bit of counter-analysis of peoples on exported charas?

Sorry if my idea sounds lame.

DRDO means to me Dekh te Raho Dare Ojhayega bhayya! Any praise on DRDO sounds bombastic. Sure ,there are only a handfull of all time greats who have run the programmes of IGMDP. How long will they continue? If the news reports are true, none other than the defence minister has stated that DRDO must move on to making high technology products than mil approved juices and mil qualified musquito repellants. some of the DRDO bosses , i came to know through some friends are so egostic ,that to satisfy their bloated egos, they kick their own colleagues out of important programmes, with out caring a hoot for the contributions made by the individuals.A proto type is made and is given young scientist award and ofcourse foreign trips,fast promotions. And you try to mass produce the same proto, hell is a better place to live in, than work on these things. Very important programmes have been screwed up. i can't tell you more than this.

Acharya - try this: "how long should the R&D guys be given?"

interpretation one: R&D is a waste of time, buy foreign

interpretation two: how long should one invest in some technology before taking a realistic look at what has been achieved and what potential remains?

Wow.. This is hard to believe.. What dept were you in ??

rrao please explain us bit "more",

If Criticism regarding DRDO is needed "never" i have seen a article that criticises where it should do.

I'm sure not "all" labs are like the one you've experienced.

I am sorry Shiv, but there are many juvenile posters on the forum who are allowed to remain here because they are jingos. To me they are no different to a Shukla just from a different angle. They drown out the rational and intelligent posters who may disagree, but who do so cogently.

There is ass whupping and there is emotional hysteria

(and yes, as an NSN reporter I am as juvenile as they come!)

Hello All

One of the topics that I was really interested on with regards to Aero India, was:
What do people here think, should be the ideal choice for IAF, among:
1> Mig 29 OVT
2> Grippen
3> F-16
4> F18
Which were displayed on the show.
My 2 cents:
Mig 29 OVT: Some body was talking about build quality, I think russian have still have a long way to go in this area. As all the aerobatics were performed, in a clean config, I would love to see the Manoeuvres, she can pull off with a few aam's and a couple 1000lb's.
Also these manoeuvres increase the wear and tear of the airframe tremendrously.
One more point, I could see the black smoke.

Grippen: A wonderfully build fighter, but I guess range and load carrying capacity are an issue. But I was really impressed with the landing of this swedish love, man I guess the driver bought it to a halt in some 500m or so.
Think about it, we already have this golden quadrilateral road project going on, if we are smart, we could build Stretches, that could be used for such landings. I read it the other day in f16.net, “A good bombing run on a major air base during war, can render all air assets useless (at-least till the runway is repaired), Grippen in my opinion adds a totally new dimension to this. What do the you guys think?


3> F-16: It's an old airframe; also on almost all parameter the Mirage 2000 beats this one. Be it AOA, turn rates or a sustained acceleration. But I think F-16 can get really interesting with the right weapons and electronic package. If we can get what Israel has, then I think this aircraft would definitely be contention.

4> F-18: I just felt, we need a lighter aircraft to complement the the MKI's that we already have. I also read range and fuel consumption is a problem with this aircraft.

My choice: Grippen.

What bout you?

1> TOTAL LAME choice.

Reasons,

1> You got impressed with the "flashy" paintjob on Gripen while Actually true carbon composite body isnt so flashy.

2> Gripen versus Tejas,



That is with the older engine, newer IN20 will change numbers.

Get this in your head, GRIPEN C/D IS NOT FOR MRCA as it is TOO much similar to LCA.

Its indeed unfortunate and extremely sad that peoples "like" you are carving for Gripens Greatness in F16.net when there lies a very own LCA which is "by no means" less than Gripen.

Why do we need a Pukie Farce concept of takeoff/landing from a Golden Quad highway. We have the SU-30MKI to toast any two-bit Air Force, even the competent ones are afraid of it.

Grippen is poor choice. The LCA would beat it anytime. By the time the Swedish Blonde is inducted LCA would be ready to go and it is ours.

Don't you just love these Shuklas and Aroors?

On one hand, you have BR spending $5000 in order to bring the public, 1000s of pics, for FREE. Then you also have many other jingos spending a lot of money, suffering the torture of bureaucratic hurdles, security checks and delay, once again to bring loads of content to the public, for FREE.

On the other hand, you have these Shuklas and Aroors who have full access to defence sources and are even getting paid to cover these but what they do at the end, is write false and malicious crap about these subjects.

Vivekiyer

So lets say you have a patch of straight highway and the Gripen lands. Then what.

What happens to or needs to happen for that aircraft.

you will then see that it does not buy you that much.

Bull Shiite!. This is no different from what happens in any work environment. You can word it to make it sound as bad as you want.

I have first hand acounts from close relatives working in DRDO labs, who bitch about office politics which can be worded like this. I listen to it and go, hey, that sort of stuff happens in my hi tech work place too. Wording depends on who is on the receiving end.

To me this is akin to folks finding it tolerable to swear effortlessly in "french", but similar meaning (or even less gutterlike) words in native tongues being taboo

Realistic and Pragmatic look has to be there at all times and in all project spheres. Asking for a realistic look at what has been achieved at DRDO is nothing but applying a cliche very narrowly. It is futile to even discuss it.

I can say the same cliche needs to be applied to:

1. All the commissioned officers in the Army, Air Force and the Navy
2. Acquisition of Rambhas by Airforce
3. Acquisition of Vikramaditya by Navy
4. The need of the army itself! Why not sign an agreement with <insert your fav. country> to not to attack India and respect its borders
5. The need of the navy itself! Why not sign several international treaties to protect the littoral waters of India!

Do we see how ridiculous it gets?

The questions I have for resident R-and-D experts [Rona & Dhona (TM)] is why do not they question:

1. The NASA space shuttle program? It has managed to kill on an average 1 astronaut every year over its operational lifetime?

1a. What about the Brazilians? They have managed to kill off several of their people even without launching a proper rocket. And guess what they are a member of ISS!!!

2. Why not question the EuroFighter itself? Why do those Europeans need those fighters. They have been at peace since half a century.

3. Why does the US need the JSF and F/22? Why is it pushing the boundaries on the latest R&D? Why is two separate development contract awarded for building the JSF? One to Boeing and one to LM! Wasn't that waste of "precious resources"?

I remember the day when Deve Gowda went down to Bangalore and approved Rs. 600 Cr. to LCA!!! That was a good thing, at least it is attracting several people to show up for AI 07 today and paying several thousand dollars to the local industry. Heck if AI 07 generated 600 Cr. for Bangalore localites, and if LCA was a catalyst too it, may be we need more such LCA programmes!

The thing with real R&D is that it is very difficult to put a straight cost and benefit analysis over it. Classically, the drive for moon resulted in better ICs and that has provided jobs for millions. The bottomline is, India needs to not just spend money behind the R&D both basic and applied but also needs to increase it.

India needs to start not just the LCA programme but also the MCA programme and to give a shot in arm to HAL, should start I say BAL [Bharat Aeronautics Ltd (TM)] with LCAII and MCA-II programmes and ask them to square off. That may be a solution.

And one spin off will be, it will definitely provide post-retirement benefits to several Ajai-jis right from their armchair!!!

There is a Chinese saying-"When you point a finger four fingers are pointed at you". So same with DRDO. Those who point fingers at it are also having a tleast some fingers pointed at them. The biggest disadvantage that DRDO has is the end users can buy most stuff elsewhere if the price is right. After the declining arms budgets with the end of Cold War is forcing the traditional supplier to seek newer markets. India with its large amrs procurement budget provides a good market. However the catch is there are already local programs run by DRDO which have to be discredited before they can buy foreign.

The US has a law that requires the stuff for the US armed forces has to be made in USA. Time for India to have a similar law.

ramana, how literally is that law interpreted ??

USA has quiet a few foren pieces in its kitty e.g rhinemettal guns for abrams, naval guns
and some small arms, ejection seats etc.

can we have what exactly it says??

Rahul

The odd phoren maal is then produced in theUS.

the only time they purchase it directly - is for deployment overseas

eg Roland SAMs for US air bases in Germany although that whole thing was probably a political gimmick

No one found this argument terribly amusing?



Dear me.

How unimportant is BR folks! So unimportant that even those who loathe BR and its "Maha Bharat" worldview are forced to come here and engage all of the clueless unimportant nobodies of BR, posting under fake names of course, in a desperate search for relevance.

Unimportant? Indeed. It seems BR and its worldview becomes more and more "unimportant", as unimportant as the views of our aam janata is to a pollitician apparently, as the time rolls by.

LOL

Couldn't help take the bait and peek at Ajai Sukleha (real name) blog. Its as disappointing as his articles, literally, therefore no need to look and add more hits....

What I found funny was one of the viewer's comment:

[quote]
chacko ã

Not to mention this,



Don't worry, we'll post the interesting bits here so that you don't have to visit that blog.

That Chacko dude has to stop writing such hilarious comments. He is adding value to ASjee (giggle.... must stop giggling) blog and making people visit the useless site to have a good laugh
____________
PS - that blog's comments section is a Vivid Entertainment interpretation of Friedrich August Kekulé dream - Blogger, Aroor and "Hi, in my opinion" forming a ring of pleasure.... <shudder>

Yes yes boss. Stupidity, jingogiri or lack of that are not crimes. But if you choose to stick out like a sore thumb - you really do get your ass whupped as many have done.

Recall that this is an internet forum - and even your way of disagreeing with me is polite and an expression of a viewpoint, understanding that there can be many. I could at this juncture choose to say that you are wrong because you live in "New Yawk", wear your flag on you sleeve and post under a nom de plume. But hey my name's not Ajai.

Ajai Shukla has the choice of making his communication one sided or two way. Two way communication suffers from the drawback that you have to accept that there are other sides to a story.

Mental De-ossification process is never easy or pleasant.

Nincompoops forget it was the New Yawk Indians who provided 5 Billion Dollars in few hours in 1998 while earlier shooo many Shuklas were doing "shukals' after ransoming all the gold of India to UK.
The New Yawk folks do have stake in Indian matters.

This is an Indian military forum. You don't expect it to attract jingos?
You think JNU types care about military matters, hardware etc?
There is a certain mindset that causes one to light candles at Wagah. Another one that causes folk to practically salivate at a picture of Agni-3 on the launch pad.



Yep. This was then picked up by Pakistani reporters. It is an example of "laundering". The totally worthless view of some teenage pakis was given credence by a retired IA colonel. The Paki journalist could then claim that Indians refer to the organization as "dodo". Presumably this was supposed to stick and be used ad nauseum in media reports - "dodo" failing yet again... "dodo" wasting taxpayers money.

Then the PAD ABM test hit these morons for a six... a missile launch is one thing.. even Iraq used to launch missiles.. but an ABM test is something totally different. When you can do that you're in a different league.
With foreign reporters commenting on the ABM test, the third rate DDM had to shut up about "dodo"..they'll just look like fools in front of their foreign idols.

They're still trying of course..



So unimportant that "bots" from Virginia (and other places) visit every day and download the contents of every single thread.

Cybaru - there have been others who have pointed to this sort of behavior in PSUs and articles have been written on it. Of course that is inexcusable - but I recall discussing that the seniority rules that apply in government service often ensure that crap gets deposited on top of diamonds merely because the crap joined earlier. And the "permanent job" etc create dynamic of their own.

However - this time some conversations I had with PSU people in stalls indicate that some pressure is on them to clean up the Augean stables. At least at the Bharat Dynamics stall I met a senior man who was proud of his work - but it is easy to see how such a man can get frustrated by an idiot boss and how a man may want to shift from BDL to MBDA for job satisfaction and 20 times the salary.

Gosh.. After all this, he is just an attention hog and a "web site traffic wh**e" ..Sure.. in addition to getting paid for what he writes, payments from Google and other online advertising sites are always welcome of course.

I really dont know what is it about these media monkeys that makes them think that contrived controversies (NDTV Big Fight, the recent Shilpa Shetty episode) are the next best thing to sliced bread. While they give you a short term boost in terms of traffic (internet) or ratings (TV) and that gets monetized (google paybacks and TV ad revenues), beyond that magic instant you come across as a blaberring nitwit, especially if you are one of the "fighters/ controversy creators" ..Remember, the truth, attention spans are very limited and the shelf life is limited as well. You become stale bread the next day.

Well, Shuklaji , since you seem to have had a career change and gone into a new profession, a bit of advice and of course welcome to the "Civil" world..(I always used to needle my grandpa that especially in the civilian world that Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms and he probably had more stars , while you were probably still a toddler) : Eschew these new fangled "Big Fight" style contrived controversy kind of strategy to build traffic.. There is no substitute for excellence in what you do and in builidng credibility in your new field.. Research well, thing well and write intelligently and honestly with high ethics, which unfortunately you have not done at all until now. Do that and people will beat their way to your door (a better mouse trap thing really).. Keep doing the "shilpa shetty " thing and you will have a shelf life of just Jane Goody and even poorer other party opinions about you.

On another note, if you want site for your traffic , why dont you advertise online and get people to go there. Dont start flame wars in BR for that. This is not a commercial forum and if you keep doing that, the admins might give you the chop!

It is not as if we do not criticize the DRDO and other organizations affected by the ills of public sector. The OFB and Avadi suck, and we have discussed that several times.

I want India to have a world-class mil-ind complex, and I don't think it can happen with Public Sector alone. Not unless we can send non-performers to the Gulag as the Soviet Union could.

But the answer to DRDO's problem is not 'buy foreign' as Ajai Shukla contends. To come up with a credible answer, AS will have to do a lot of reasearch and thinking, which he does not do. All he does is repeat BWT every time he shows up on BRF.

My intent was for the poster to respond so I could point out that this happens everywhere in this world... No utopian work place.. But you responded and he has only one posting ( drive by shooting at behest of Ajai I take it ).

Yes, I agree that crap like he says happens, but where does it not happen. Shit floats on water man, many a non deserving people make it to the top everywhere and their only way of holding on is to drown out anything else that might challenge them.. So what ?? Does it mean you shut down free enterprise, R&D depts, corporations ?? heck no..

For a industry with no experience we have
LCA/IJT/SARAS/DHRUV/Nishant/Lakshya/IGDMP-missiles/More unnamed stuff and yet these folks want gold plated stuff to arrive out of the labs in their first attempt...

In the US you go from pure research labs ( 1st stage ) where crap gets validated ( I forget the term now) all the way to prototype level stuff ( 7th stage ) and only the funding for the 7th stage comes from defence budget.. All others have their own budget and a bazzilion things dont make it to the end or are only proof of concept for some unnamed stuff..

Ajai is and always will be a user. His writings and arguments reflect it. No strategic level thinking present anywhere in his system.. All he can ever evaluate is what was promised and what was provided with no inliking to what it takes to produce any of things he has ever used.. That crappy T-72s he drove came out of 60 years of russian experience of designing tanks all the way from world war I.

He has no clue that the same stuff happens even with the largest Army in the world with infinite budget.. Their stuff always doesnt work as designed but the user knows the challenges and works with the OEM to make things work as designed not trash em and refuse delivery.. Its just not a drdo phenomenon.. it happens everywhere..

Can we move all this discussion to another thread so that AI-2007 threads don't lose their value with all this drivel ??

Really?I find it very hard to believe that.I happened to chat with an AVM and according to his opinion the IAF is looking to induct Tejas as fast as possible.The people are a bit worried that its late,but the Tejas will have a role of its own to play in the force structure.Interestingly enough,he also said that the value of an asset is halved if the strings are in different hands.And so indigenization is a must.

And so,please dont lump your own opinion(which you are rightly entitled to) with the opinion of others,so that you can make them more acceptable.There might be some people who think like you,but to say that "9 out of 10 persons" think like you would be a very faulty generalization.

And another thing,prefixing or suffixing your arguments and conversely trashing other people's arguments by your military records and service,that you sip beer with generals and Commodores,others' usernames are false etc,DOES NOT increase the validity of your arguments.

If you are actually interested in "debate" I think you should allow your arguments to counter others on their merit instead of giving below the belt blows such as usernames etc.

Just a suggestion.

And lastly before you jump onto my username,an username is just a username,it doesnt change the person sitting behind the computer.

But.. But.. Saar.. He wants to talk big..big. things like "Strategy" and "Economics" saar and you say that all he can do is be a "user" and "evaluate stuff" and "drive" T-72s.

Truth is, much as you have to be absolutely respectful of his service record and his mastery and skill over the aspects of his profession in the Army, i respectfully doubt that he really reached the levels there and gained real world hands on experience bigg.. bigg. things like "Strategy" and "Economy". The army does teach you many things including military strategy, but however I doubt strategy as in business strategy and economics is not one of them.



Yeah.. I guess it is best we cease and desist on the thread hijack attempt and get focus back on AI-2007.