India's missile defence shield ready: Defence Research and Development Organisation

May 7, 2012
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New Delhi, May 7: India has developed its own missile defence shield which can be put in place at short notice to protect at least two cities, bringing the country at par with an elite group of few nations. The shield, developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), has been tested successfully and an incoming ballistic missile with the range of up to 2,000 kms can be destroyed.

"The Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) shield is now mature. We are ready to put phase one in place and it can be put in very short time," DRDO chief V K Saraswat told PTI in an interview.

He said the shield, as part of phase one of the programme, can be put in place in two cities in the country, where the infrastructure is available. However, the two places have not yet been identified and the selection will be made at the political level. The DRDO used variants of Prithvi missiles as simulated targets and successfully intercepted missiles in test-firings.

The system was first test-fired in November 2006 elevating India into the elite club of countries to have successfully developed an Anti-ballistic missile system, after United States, Russia and Israel.

"We have carried out six successful launches and demonstrated the capability for 2,000 km targets. We have demonstrated it in two layers that is endo-atmospheric (inside the Earth's atmosphere) and exo-atmospheric (outside the Earth's atmosphere)," Mr Saraswat said.

The DRDO chief said the Indian missile defence system is comparable with the US Patriot 3 system, which was successfully used during the 1990 Gulf War against Iraq.

He said all the elements such as long-range radars and tracking devices, real-time datalink and mission control system required for the missile system have been "realised" successfully.

Under the phase two of the project, the premier defence research agency would upgrade the system to handle ballistic missiles with range of 5,000 km. This phase is expected to be ready by 2016.

The system required for phase-II of the project is being developed, he said, adding that for this purpose, ships are being built from where the target missiles would be launched.

Talking about the advancement of the system, he said the missile defence shield has been "automated" to an extent where human intervention would be required only if the mission has to be aborted.

As part of its efforts to protect itself from enemy missiles, India is developing this two-tier BMD which can intercept enemy missiles at altitudes of 80 km and 150 km.

The DRDO is thinking of intercepting the missiles at higher altitudes as it would give it more response time in case the first attempt is a miss and the second layer of the system can be put into action.

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News Network
January 18,2020

New Delhi, Jan 18: The Supreme Court Friday refused to entertain a PIL seeking conferment of 'Bharat Ratna' on Mahatma Gandhi saying that people hold the father of the nation in “high esteem”, beyond any formal recognition.

A bench, comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant, however asked petitioner Anil Dutta Sharma to give representation to the central government in this regard.

“Mahatma Gandhi is the father of nation and people hold him in high esteem, beyond any formal recognition,” the bench said.

The issue of directing the government to award Bharat Ratna to the father of the nation was not a “justiciable issue”, it said.

The bench however said that it agreed with the sentiments of the petitioner for granting official decoration to Mahatma Gandhi.

Disposing of the petition, the top court said, “We will allow you to give a representation to the Centre in this regard.”

Sharma, in his PIL, had sought a direction to the government to give “official decoration” to Mahatma Gandhi to honour him for the contribution to the nation.

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Agencies
July 15,2020

New Delhi, Jul 15: Air India has started the process of identifying employees, based on various factors like efficiency, health and redundancy, who will be sent on compulsory leave without pay (LWP) for up to five years, according to an official order.

The airline's board of directors have authorised its Chairman and Managing Director Rajiv Bansal to send employees on LWP "for six months or for a period of two years extendable upto five years, depending upon the following factors - suitability, efficiency, competence, quality of performance, health of the employee, instance of non-availability of the employee for duty in the past as a result of ill health or otherwise and redundancy", the order said on Tuesday.

The departmental heads in the headquarter as well as regional directors are required to assess each employee "on the above mentioned factors and identify the cases where option of compulsory LWP can be exercised", stated the order dated July 14.

"Names of such employees need to be forwarded to the General Manager (Personnel) in headquarter for obtaining necessary approval of CMD," the order added.

In response to queries regarding this matter, Air India spokesperson said,"We would not like to make any comment on the issue."

Aviation sector has been significantly impacted due to the travel restrictions imposed in India and other countries due to the coronavirus pandemic. All airlines in India have taken cost-cutting measures such as pay cuts, LWP and firings of employees in order to conserve cash flow.

For example, GoAir has put most of its employees on compulsory LWP since April.

India resumed domestic passenger flights from May 25 after a gap of two months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the airlines have been allowed to operate only a maximum of 45 per cent of their pre-COVID domestic flights. Occupancy rate in Indian domestic flights has been around 50-60 per cent since May 25.

Scheduled international passenger flights continue to remain suspended in India since March 23.

The passenger demand for air travel will contract by 49 per cent in 2020 for Indian carriers in comparison to 2019 due to COVID-19 crisis, said global airlines body IATA on Monday.

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News Network
February 28,2020

Feb 28: The best economic tonic for the coronavirus shock is to contain its spread and worry about stimulus later, said Raghuram Rajan, former head of the Reserve Bank of India.

There’s little central banks can do, and while more government spending would help, the priority should be on convincing companies and households that the virus is under control, he said.

“People want to have a sense that there is a limit to the spread of this virus perhaps because of containment measures or because there is hope that some kind of viral solution can be found,” Rajan told Bloomberg Television’s Haidi Stroud Watts and Shery Ahn.

“At this point I would say the best thing that governments can do is to really fight the epidemic rather than worry about stimulus measures that comes later,” said Rajan, who is currently a professor at the Chicago Booth School of Business.

The spread of coronavirus is pushing the world economy toward its worst performance since the financial crisis more than a decade ago.

Bank of America Corp. economists warned clients Thursday that they now expect 2.8% global growth this year, the weakest since 2009.

“We have moved from extreme confidence in markets to extreme panic, all in the space of one week,” said Rajan, who previously was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

The virus outbreak will force companies to rethink supply chains and overseas production facilities, he said.

“I think we will see a lot of rethinking on this, coming on the back of the trade disruption, now we have this,” Rajan said. “Globalization in production is going to be hit quite badly.”

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