HAL’s Role to Play in the Future of the IAF

I WAS CLEANING UP THE PC WHEN I STUMBLED UPON THESE TWO ARTICLES WRITTEN BY ME WHAT SEEMS TO BE LIKE A LONG TIME AGO...TWO YEARS AGO, IN FACT.SO HERE ARE MY TWO HIGHLY IDEALISTIC WRITE-UPS; THIS ONE BEING SENT TO THE CHAIRMAN OF HAL AND THE ONE BELOW FAILING TO GET PUBLISHED IN ANY MAGAZINE. THIS ONE WAS MY OWN CREATION AND THE OTHER WAS PARTLY (READ 30-40%) CUT-PASTED.         

The picture below, to many Indians, is the pride of their nation’s defense. However, to me, this image shows me just how weak our Hindustan is at her security. We depend on the other countries like Russia, United Kingdom and Ukraine for our own security. We want to be self-sufficient in our food, self-sufficient in our clothes, and self-sufficient in our culture. Then why not be self sufficient in our defense?

 

 

 

Even as I write now, British Aerospace in Europe is busy building us a shipment of Hawks. In the past, India has had bitter experiences of this policy. Remember when all of our Sea King helicopters had to be grounded due to the shortage of an American-built part that the nation in question refused to supply us?

 

 

And that’s where the HAL comes in. We need indigenous aircraft, missiles and air defense systems to be independent of foreign countries in terms of security. This can only be done by talented staff from our own India.

 

The MiGs, Mirages, Sukhois, etc. cannot do the following that our Swadeshi aircraft can do:

Ø      Invoke a sense of patriotism among our pilots and the general public.

Ø      The manufacturers can carefully evaluate the needs of the Air Force and design planes to suit the needs of it.

Ø      They can also build planes to suit the natural conditions of India.

 

Thus I conclude that the planes built by India for India are better than planes built by someone, somewhere, no matter how technically superior they are.

 

Thank you,

BALAJI.S

What I Learned From This Trip

This is what I learned from my trip to Himachal from 19th Dec 2008 to 2nd Jan 2009

 

 

1. Always take a train only as a last resort because, trust me, a flight is any day better, especially on long journeys.
2. If you do have the misfortune of being in a train, and the further misfortune of traveling Second Class, let me tell you Two Wise Words: YOU’RE DOOMED.
3. Now that I’ve told you that, let me offer you some advice.
1. Carry a nice, thick blanket, and a bed sheet, too(a fig for light packing!)
2. Carry at least 4 paper cups. Don’t ask why, you’ll figure it out in the train.
3. Shun away pantry food like they’re cups of well-packed poison.
4. Carry home-packed food as much as possible.
5. Always wear a pair of shorts below your trousers. If it’s too warm for two layers, dump the trousers. Trust me, this really helps simplify things
4. If you’re traveling north from a warm area down south, you’d better keep a pair of trousers out of your bag, and wear it over your shorts before getting out of the train.
5. If you have a connecting train to or from Delhi in winter, the minimum safety time gap you must have is 3 hours. Period. (Funny, that’s three periods in the same sentence and it’s still grammatically correct…hehehe)
6. Having a schedule and trying your best to stick to that schedule while visiting a new location is worse than having no schedule and visiting places that catch your fancies.
7. If you still want to prepare an itinerary, plan it so that the places you would want to visit are prioritized very high. For example, I am a plane freak, so I decided to visit the radar station at Kasauli, though it was a detour from our original plan.
8. If you go to North India as a Hindi student, you invariably end up learning colloquial spoken Hindi, whether you like it or not.
9. VERY VERY IMPORTANT: Impossible is nothing. No, not if you're wearing Adidas. If you have the right connections.
10. If you have a digital camera, then take its USB cable and put its driver in your pen drive. It really helps.
11. Pawan Hans will accommodate any number of people in their helicopter services if you manage to get hold of any Bombay office staffer and tell him that his sister is like a sister to you, too. Yes, I mean it, because that’s how I got my first chopper ride.
12. Langar food is not bad at all. You get to taste the local fare, not to mention the amazing variety.
13. If you happen to finish a trip anywhere and write a travelogue, get someone to type it as you dictate, for example, your mother.
14. Never, ever try to go up and/or down Vaishno Devi by walk. It could be injurious to health, especially if you are from a metro.
15. If you want to buy souvenirs or anything of the kind, be aware that the shopkeeper makes at least a 40% profit. That gives you a healthy 30% to bargain about. And if you don’t know exactly what to buy, get into the first air-conditioned shop you see. If you don’t see one, then a fruit shop is just as good. If you know the art of “sampling” the produce, that is.
16. When you go on the Kullu-Mandi highway in Himachal and happen to see a fruit resembling a plump red tomato, keep moving. It is an abomination of nature that is called Japani Phal, and you would do well not to pollute your taste buds with it.
17. Half the views from hill-tops in Himachal are red. No, not red with blood; red with the millions of Vodafone billboards plastered in the valleys.
18. The river Beas is best viewed when you're on the road parallel to it, with mountains on either side and the sun setting in front of you.
19. Paragliding in Khajiar must be left only to those who weigh below 30 kilograms and those who want to throw away their money.
20. The Indian Armed Forces can create catchy punch lines if they want to