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Vijay Kumar wins Silver in London Olympics

Indian Shooter Vijay Kumar has won Silver in 25m Pistol shooting at Olympics held in London 2012. He was placed second after a Cuban shooter. He is a Subhedar in Indian Army.

China 'warns' India with border drill

NEW DELHI\BEIJING: China is back to flexing its muscles close to the Indian border. The People's Liberation Army has conducted a major "live fire" exercise, testing its multi-role J-10 fighters armed with laser-guided and other bombs, in the high-altitude Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Chinese official media on Thursday described the exercise as "the first operation of its kind" on the 3,500-metre high plateau, which saw the fighter jets being fuelled and loaded with bombs for ground attack missions during sub-zero temperatures.

The rare publicity given to the exercise comes at a time when China is getting ready for a change of guard, including the election of a new president and secretary general of the Communist Party.

It's also meant as a strong signal to India, which has belatedly taken to strategically counter China's massive build-up of military infrastructure all along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control over the last two decades.

This is, of course, not the first time PLA has undertaken combat exercises in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), having tested its Sukhoi-27UBK and Sukhoi-30MKK fighters as well as rapid reaction forces and airborne corps there over the last two-three years.

But China-watchers in the Indian defence establishment say the latest exercise, with fighters conducting both day and night sorties, seems to be "several rungs higher" than the ones conducted in the past. It comes barely five months after another major PLA exercise, involving air force, tanks and artillery, was held in the region.

"China usually deploys fighters in TAR only during summers from March onwards because of the thin air and tough operating conditions there. But last year for the first time, PLA kept the J-10 jets deployed at Gongar (Lhasa) throughout the winter," said a senior officer.

China, apart from nuclear missile bases in Qinghai province that unmistakably target India, has built five fully operational airbases at Gongar, Pangta, Linchi, Hoping and Gar Gunsa, an extensive rail network and over 58,000-km of roads in TAR.

This makes it possible for PLA to move around 30 divisions (each with over 15,000 soldiers) to the LAC within 30 days to outnumber Indian forces by at least three-is-to-one. The Chengdu military region and the PLA airbases in TAR are mainly tasked for an anti-India role, as earlier reported by TOI.

India, in turn, has based its most potent fighters Sukhoi-30MKIs, which can go deep into China, at Tezpur and Chabua in Assam, apart from planning to deploy six C-130J "Super Hercules" strategic airlift aircraft in the eastern sector.

"We have a slight advantage over China in the sense that its TAR airbases are located at an average height of 10,000 to 12,000-feet. This restricts the weapon loads their Sukhois and J-10s can carry. PLA Air Force, of course, is almost triple our size" said an IAF officer.

India is also now upgrading eastern sector ALGs (advanced landing grounds) like Pasighat, Mechuka, Walong, Tuting, Ziro and Vijaynagar as well as several helipads in Arunachal Pradesh. This comes after the reactivation of western sector ALGs like Daulat Beg Oldi, Fukche and Nyama in eastern Ladakh.

Moreover, Army is now planning a mountain strike corps (70,000 soldiers) after raising two new mountain infantry divisions, with 1,260 officers and 35,011 soldiers, in Assam and Nagaland. There are also plans to base Akash and BrahMos missile regiments in the North-East for conventional deterrence against China.

Should India Revalue the Rupee?

Indian Rupee INR has fallen again now to a new historic low of Rs. 52.76/ 1 USD$. At this rate it will touch Rs 58/$ by end of 2012. Now as we say that India is growing as an economic power is it possible to allow its currency to fall at this rate. Currently Indian Rupee is one of the weakest currencies of the top 10 economic powers. How can we say India as an economic power when its actual power i.e. its currency is one of the weakest in the world. Indian government is fuelling inflation by not revaluing the rupee as it says that it will hurt IT and Exports? How? Is India an export oriented country? Then let me point out that Chinese Yaun and Thai Bhat are both stronger than the rupee and both countries export far more goods than India. India imports large amount of cured oil which cost us USD to pay our vendors. Why can't Indian Government force these countries to accept Rupees rather than USD to pay for our oil requirements. Iran recently agreed for the same, but our government made the payments in Euros rather than Indian Rupee. Do we print Euros or USD to give these countries? No so the best option is to make payments in Indian Rupee. We should make agreements with all our trade partners for a currency Swap program which will allow these countries to buy Indian Rupees and pay in them for goods imported from us. This will also revalue our currency and allow it to be accepted world wide. 

Indonesia invites Indian investments in infrastructure

CHENNAI: Indonesia has invited Indian industrialists to invest in infrastructure sectors and also look at it as a source of many other products apart from coal in order to expand bilateral trade and investments between the two countries, its envoy said on Saturday.

"Indonesia is not just a large coal producer. We have other national resources which India can look at. We would like to grow the bilateral trade between India and Indonesia to $25 billion by 2015 from the current $13 billion," Indonesian Ambassador to India Andi M. Ghalib said here at a meeting with industrialists organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Referring to the 32 memorandums of understanding (MOU) signed between India and Indonesia early this year, he said 18 are business-to-business with an investment/business potential of around $16 billion.

Inviting Indian industrialists to invest in infrastructure sectors in Indonesia, Ghalib said the discussions between the two countries on signing a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) will be held.

Investment cooperation between the two countries is also increasing by the year. India's investment in Indonesia has increased from $11.6 million in 2007 to $44 million in 2010.

Indian investment is present in various industries including mining, automotives and machinery, clothing, agriculture and chemicals.

India is also Indonesia's largest buyer of crude palm oil and an importer of its mining, petroleum and paper products.

On its part, India exports refined petroleum products, wheat, rice, sugar and steel to Indonesia.

According to Ghalib, the two countries are in the process of setting up an Eminent Persons' Group (EPG) to develop 'Vision Statement 2025' for the Indonesia-India strategic partnership.

The EPG would guide the future progress and prepare a blue print of Indonesia-India relations over the next 15 years.

Ghalib said Garuda Airlines is in discussion with India in securing landing rights in couple of major Indian cities.

Is Afghanistan ready to decide its own destiny?

Is Afghanistan ready to decide its own destiny?


US President Barack Obama's announcement of the start of American troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, and his administration's increasing emphasis on reconciliation with the Taliban, have been studied attentively in one capital that has a large stake in the outcome — New Delhi.

India has no troops in Afghanistan, but it has invested roughly $1.5 billion to help reconstruct the country, with projects ranging from maternity hospitals to Kabul's electricity grid. During his visit toAfghanistan in May, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced additional assistance of $500 million, over and above India's existing commitments. This is by far India's largest foreign aid program, because Afghanistan — separated from India only by its hostile neighbour Pakistan — remains a country of vital strategic significance for India.

So, what does the looming US withdrawal mean for India's role in Afghanistan? India has largely focused its aid efforts on building institutional capacity and developing human resources, so that Afghans can stand on their own feet before long. One ongoing project is the construction of a new parliament building in Kabul, a symbol of India's desire to see representative institutions flourish. But it is no secret that India does not believe that Afghanistan is ready to dispense with the foreign forces that have been shoring up domestic peace.

India is not a member of the United States led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a largely Nato operation to which it was not invited to contribute, given Pakistani sensitivities about a possible Indian military presence in Afghanistan. But India regards the foreign military presence as indispensable to promoting political stability and economic reconstruction. Without the security provided by a serious troop presence, the kind of development projects in which India is engaged would become impossible.

No one in India's government really expects US forces to disappear overnight from Afghanistan, despite the elimination of Osama bin Laden. The plan is to withdraw only 10,000 US troops by the year-end. Later, when winter sets in (traditionally the season when military activity declines ), America will withdraw another 5,000. But Obama says that he intends to bring the 30,000 "surge" troops back home by next summer, after the Afghan snows melt and the US election season starts heating up. Even if he does, 68,000 US troops would remain — twice the number deployed in Afghanistan when he became President.

By 2014, the US intends to reduce its operational presence to a role largely confined to supporting Afghan forces. Even that does not imply full withdrawal. After all, the rationale for the original US intervention was to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for the next Bin Laden. Indications are that the US will maintain about 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, even in the most modest scenario. Indians have every reason to be relieved. An Afghanistan without ISAF will be prey to the machinations of Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which created, trained, financed, and directed the Afghan Taliban in the 1990s.

As a result, America's interest in reconciliation with the Taliban is viewed with concern in India. After long rejecting this approach (on the reasonable grounds that there can be no such thing as a good terrorist), India has come around to accepting dialogue with those Taliban elements that are prepared to renounce violence.

Obama speaks of dealing with Taliban members who agree to break with al-Qaida and abide by the Afghan Constitution. But India is wary of those who, under Pakistani tutelage, might pretend to be reborn constitutionalists, but seize the first opportunity after a US withdrawal to devour the regime that compromises with them.

This is why India stresses the importance of improving the Afghan government's capacity to fight and overcome terrorism. The role of Pakistan — whose over-ambitious military has made no secret of its desire to control the government in Kabul in order to gain "strategic depth" — remains of serious concern, particularly given China's recent progress in making Pakistan its own zone of "strategic depth," with access from the Karakoram mountains to the Arabian Sea.

India shares America's commitment to what Obama described last December as the "longterm security and development of the Afghan people." But, for India, any process of reconciliation should be Afghan-led, inclusive, and transparent. India fully supports the "red lines" affirming Afghan leadership and ownership of the negotiating process laid down by President Hamid Karzai's government in its London and Kabul communiqués.

The bottom line for India remains the Afghan people's right to decide their own destiny. It views the international community's role as being to help Afghans accomplish that. And it doesn't believe that Afghanistan is ready for the world to give up on it yet.