@Ray
Can you explain?
I may be wrong or right - that is a different issue. You have every right to disbelieve or call me names - as such is the nature of an internet forum.
I do not know enough about you so I shall make an effort. I accept my mistake.
However the basic issues remain. The basic issue is domestic made goods and imported goods must be kept on the same pedestal. The government must encourage the local industry to produce defence goods. This is only possible when design houses exist in the country who have freedom to operate.
Defence equipment has become so complicated that only large industrial companies are successful in producing viable equipment. The tanks, IFVs, guns, fighter aircrafts are all examples of fairly complex equipment that only the largest industrial groups of the country are capable of making. The government must involve the industrial houses of the country to build the requisite equipment for the forces.
Buy technology from abroad when needed but build locally, should be the objective.
Please if you do not understand English, please do not construe everything and anything as an abuse/ insult. If you don't understand a phrase or word, check the dictionary.
I have no desire to insult you or anyone, but it does get exasperating.
I wanted to find out about Hinduism and you jumped and said I was degrading the Vedas. The aim was dialectic. Dialectic means - philosophy : a method of examining and discussing opposing ideas in order to find the truth. Yes, sir - the truth, the core, the essence - so that all this chaos that is being attributed to religion can be understood better. In fact, the explanation given by
@warriorextreme with meaning, facts and logic was an eyeopener and helped me to understand the quote of the Veda. He was not confrontational or taking umbrage where no reason existed to take umbrage. It was just that he had the knowledge and realised that I require to be explained since I had no clue.
There is no doubt India has to be self reliant in all sphere and not only defence. However, defence self reliance is a priority because defence forces are the first line to ensure India's physical sovereignty. Therefore, no one in his right senses, including in the defence, can be against indigenous products. But given the DRDO's track record, one has little faith that they can deliver and that too in a mutually agreed timeframe and not go into delays after delays, every time ratified because we must give DRDO a chance.
Timeframes are important for the defence. One cannot legislate when the enemy should attack India. Therefore, we must be ready to take them on all the time, and not only take them on, but give the enemy a crushing defeat. That is what the Nation expects and the Defence Forces will damn well have to deliver. No question about that. The Defence Forces have a proud heritage and many classes of troops have ancient Indian martial traditions. They can never return to their villages if they lose. It would be taken that they have sullied the clan, the village and their forefathers. That ignominy none wants to shoulder.
In 1971, I had to raid 9 miles inside Pakistan. Was I scared? You bet it. It was not fear of being killed, but fear of the unknown and will I deliver. What spurred me on was a post card written by my father, who was a retired Army officer, that I read and carried in my pocket. He had just had a heart attack when he wrote. He wrote in a a shaky and laboured handwriting from his sick bed that should I sully the name of the family by any act of cowardice, then I should not return home for there will be no place. He was a decorated Army officer in the Burma campaign. Please understand that if I want the Army to have the best available, it is not that I am enamoured by foreign weaponry. It is just that I should have the right weapon so that I do not let the Nation down, when it expects so much from us and rightly so they expect it of us. That is why, unlike other Armies, in the Indian Army, officers lead from the front, even though that is not what the book prescribe. The book states that the Commander must be so forward as to influence the battle, but not too forward to be embroiled in battle. Sagacious. But the training we get somehow makes us be upfront, beyond the limits of the book's advice. Sometimes, the first man in. Not correct, but that is what tradition makes us do. I assure you that most of us have no regrets to achieve martyrdom for our country and that is well recorded in various annals of our military history, but I wonder if while becoming martyr, whether we regret that we could have done more if only the Nation had equipped us better. Remember 1962, where many units covered themselves with glory but were massacred because we have .303 in comparison to better rifles that the Chinese used? Was it fair to the soldiers and officer who were martyred because the Govt kept them under-equipped for the fear of a coup that was endemic in Pakistan?
It is not correct to state that
the tanks, IFVs, guns, fighter aircrafts are all examples of fairly complex equipment that only the largest industrial groups of the country are capable of making. I always quote the HF 24. It was no doubt designed by Kurt Tank, a German who designed the Focke Fw 190 Würger. The HF 24 team initially consisted of 18 German engineers, three Indian senior design engineers and about 22 other Indian engineers with design experience. Given the small number of Germans in India, local engineers and technicians took responsibility for production engineering, tool design, and manufacturing activity leading to a successful international technology transfer, So note the engineers, scientist and the testing facilities were all INDIAN. The HF 24 featured a small swept wing and excellent maneuverability. It could not get the right engine and so remained under powered, even though its design was a world beater and comparable, if not better than what advanced countries were designing and producing.
Within 22 months glider trials were started to test in free flight the full-scale wings and fuselage which had already been model-tested in wind tunnels. Low-speed behaviour was explored in the tunnel of the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore. The staff had further been increased by this time, the design team having grown to 80 Indians with the same complement of Germans. Assembly of the first prototype was started in April 1960, and it was finished in 11 months - an excellent period considering that HAL were dealing with an aircraft of such advanced design for the first time. In the words of the Indian Government, "It speaks volumes for the enthusiasm and zeal of the production engineers and the workmen."
So, Indian are competent, but the 9 to 5 unaccountably, secured pay and pension, housing, medical benefits, transportation, guaranteed schooling for children leads to a
jo ho, so ho attitude steeped in bureaucratic immobility with red tape as a weapon to cover ineptitude and urgency.
Therefore, given the push Indians can deliver. The PM chastising them and the DM sacking Holy Cows of DRDO with a stroke of a pen, has stirred them and they have got off their haunches or so
@power_monger informs.
May I inform you and others that HAL was not a Govt inspired industry/ company. Seth Lalchand Hirachand established Hindustan Aircraft Limited (HAL) in 1942.
Buy technology from abroad when needed but build locally, should be the objective. That is exactly what India tries to do. TOT. But that is not feasible all the time as we have seen with US weapons where they want to have a hold over their weapons even if we have paid money for the weapons.
The bottom line is the Nation has still great faith in the Defence Forces. We cannot let them down. While we are all for indigenisation, we cannot be saddled with sub standard stuff where we still win, but at a great cost to soldiers lives, as was said by the civilians, for Kargil. It maybe so, but the Army took it in its stride since, to quote Shylock, sufferance is the Badge of all our (Uninformed) Tribe.
