Indian Air Force

The IAF will get  35 omni-role Rafale aircraft by the end of 2021 while the last fighter jet will  make a solo flight to the soon-to-be-activated Hashimara air base in north Bengal in January 2022. Twenty-six fighter jets have already been delivered, with 24 landing in India and two remaining in France for IAF pilot and for the purpose of technician training. Indian Rafales are equipped with specially adapted Hammer missiles.

BDL is the prime production agency for projects under India's Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP). Akash is one of the missiles under IGMDP being manufactured by BDL, both for Indian Army and Indian Air Force. The missile has been successfully test-fired on several occasions and is regarded as one of the best missiles in its category.

Even IAF veterans have come out in support of Bhadauria, terming Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat talk about the IAF's air defence charter as well as its role as a supporting arm to the ground forces as 'controversial'. Speaking at a webinar organised by a defence think-tank on Friday, Rawat had termed the Air Force as a supporting arm, while Bhadauria later said: "it is not".

Three helicopters flew into the Naval Air Station, INS Dega, to signal their induction as '322 Dega Flight'. The ALH MK III helicopter is equipped with an array of systems, making it an all-weather, multi-role helicopter of the Indian Navy. The first helicopter was commissioned in the Indian Navy in April this year.

Air Commodore Hilal Ahmed Rather is a resident of the Bakhshiabad neighbourhood of the Anantnag township in southern Kashmir. Air Commodore Kirti Khajuria is from Tikri, Jammu. Both the officers are from the 1978 batch of Sainik School Nagrota, Jammu.

The first set of four containers coming from Singapore will land in Panagarh later Saturday evening. IAF said that one C-17 got airborne at 2 a.m. from Hindon Air Base for Changi International Airport, Singapore. The aircraft arrived at Singapore at 7.45 am. "After loading 4 containers of cryogenic oxygen tanks, it will depart from Singapore, land at Panagarh air base and offload these containers by this evening," IAF said.

Hasimara is a strategic base for IAF operations because of its proximity to Bhutan, the Chumbi Valley where lies a tri-junction between India, Bhutan and China, and Doklam where a standoff took place in 2017. The tri-junction has been a matter of concern for all the three countries.

It is only because a startup company Tonbo Imaging has come up with solution challenges thrown up during Defence India Startup Challenge under government's iDEX (Innovation for Defence Excellence) initiative. The force stated that dust, smoke, fog, camouflage and even darkness used hamper vision of BMP-II Sarath on battlefields. They placed the challenge before the startups.

The Aero India-2021 which is India's premier defence and aerospace show was inaugurated in Bengaluru in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Manufactured by government-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), Tejas is a single-engine and highly agile multi-role supersonic fighter aircraft which is capable of operating in high -threat air environments.

Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria also asserted that India has made adequate deployments along China border to deal with any conflict with the neighboring country. Bhadauria said that though the talks are going on with China, India has deployed its forces as required. Now it depends on how the talks go, he said and . added it would be good if de-escalation and disengagement start.