New Delhi: China's all-weather fighter base in Tibet is now widening its range of options in the event of a conflict with India. Intelligence intercepts and satellite monitoring has confirmed that China may have to some extent overcome Tibet's extreme altitude and temperatures to operationalise an all-weather airfield near the Tibetan capital Lhasa.
The airfield is Gonkar, where China has deployed Su-27 fighters. Sources told CNN-IBN that the Gonkar airfield will enable Chinese fighters to widen their selection of Indian targets from Ladakh to Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Sources say Gonkar is a direct response to the Indian Air Force stationing Su-30MKI fighters in Chabua and Tezpur in Assam. These fighters with a combat radius of about 1,000 km can hit targets deep in Tibet and mainland China.
"I would say the development of Gonkar airfield started well before the upgradation by us of our defence infrastructure, which has taken off only in the past five to seven years. Gonkar started off much earlier, they had started building underground hangars and defence and began positioning their fighter aircraft there," former RAW officer Jaidev Ranade said.
The Chinese Air Force Su-27 fighters were observed in the winters and now with the onset of summer, they are still there, which suggests that China has built up infrastructure for their support....
more
11:52 AM, May 20, 2013
Bangalore: In the battle for Karnataka, Congress, the party with the upper hand, is facing problems like never before. Ambarish has been a Lok Sabha member, a union minister and is now the chosen one for the Mandya Assembly seat. Rebel star Ambarish, as he is known in film circles, has been rebelling in real life though. He refused to file his nomination on Monday, angry that the Congress did...
10:28 AM, Apr 17, 2013
Lahore: Eight decades after Bhagat Singh's execution by the British, a petition has been filed in a Pakistani court seeking the reopening of the freedom fighter's case so that he can be declared innocent. Imtiaz Rasheed Qureshi of the Save The Judiciary Committee filed the petition in the Lahore High Court. He said Bhagat Singh, who was sentenced to death by the British government and hanged in Lahore in March...
03:08 AM, Apr 11, 2013
New Delhi: The Congress has trashed the latest WikiLeaks revelation naming late former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi as mere 'sensation with no substance'. Reacting to the revelation, Congress leader Janardhan Dwivedi said, "I do not know on what grounds such a story was published." "Right below this article, is an article which names an NDA leader, does it mean there is truth to that article as well? That he took...
03:16 PM, Apr 08, 2013
New Delhi: The Congress has rejected the WikiLeaks revelation that named late former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in a scandal. Reacting to the allegations, Congress said, "The credibility of WikiLeaks is questionable and any case the author is planning a political party. We don't give importance to the allegations and the cables." The Bharatiya Janata Party, has, meanwhile, demanded that the Congress comes clean on it. "Today, the WikiLeaks revelations...
09:54 AM, Apr 08, 2013
New Delhi: The latest WikiLeaks revelations from US Embassy cables have named former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in a scandal. National daily The Hindu has published their findings of the Kissinger cables, which claim that Rajiv Gandhi may have been a middleman for a Swedish Company before he became the Prime Minister. This, during the 1970s when Swedish company Saab-Scania was trying to sell its Viggen fighter aircraft to India....
08:20 AM, Apr 08, 2013
Washington: A staggering 94 per cent of fresh recruits of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) see Jammu and Kashmir as a "fighting front" and hail mostly from Pakistan's Punjab province from families having links with the powerful army and intelligence network, according to a US military report. The report from the US Military Academy in West Point is result of a multi-year research effort conducted by a lead team of five eminent authors...
05:40 PM, Apr 05, 2013
The United States sent F-22 stealth fighter jets to South Korea on Sunday to join military drills aimed at underscoring the US. commitment to defend Seoul in the face of an intensifying campaign of threats from North Korea. ...
10:35 AM, Apr 01, 2013
A demand was made in the Rajya Sabha to set up a monument in Parliament House at the spot where Bhagat Singh had thrown bombs inside the Central Legislative Assembly in 1929. Making the demand during Zero Hour, KC Tyagi (JD-U) said there should be a monument in place to commemorate the bomb throwing incident by Bhagat Singh, which is an important event in India's freedom struggle. ...
10:08 AM, Mar 23, 2013
It is Martyrs' Day today and we remember Bhagat Singh on his 82nd death anniversary. ...
09:50 AM, Mar 23, 2013
As part of its "rebalance" in the Asia Pacific region, the US is all set to deploy additional military resources, including more aircraft careers and fighter jets, a top Pentagon official has said. ...
02:21 PM, Mar 22, 2013
Russia's Ufa-based engine-maker will deliver the first 10 of 920 AL-31FP engines for the Su-30MKI Flanker-H to India before the end of March 2013, the manufacturer said. ...
06:58 AM, Mar 16, 2013
A Special Task Force jawan was killed and another injured in a gun fight with Maoists in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district on Tuesday, police said. "Special Task Force jawan Angad Kumar was killed and another jawan Yashwant injured in an exchange of fire between a joint party of security forces and ultras in the forests of Chintagufa and Dornapal police station area," a police official told PTI over phone. ...
02:55 AM, Mar 13, 2013
Dr Neerja Bhatla, gynecologist and obstetrician at AIIMS, joined IBNLive readers for an interaction on fighting cervical cancer. ...
07:22 PM, Mar 08, 2013
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday that India and France reviewed major deals for fighter jets and nuclear reactors during French President Francoi Hollande's first day in the country. The Prime Minister also discussed Afghanistan and Pakistan issues with the French President who is currently on a two-day visit. ...
02:30 PM, Feb 14, 2013
India and France are speeding up negotiations on a $10 billion deal for 126 Rafale aircraft following months of delays because of disagreements over the cost of building them in India, two Indian Defence Ministry officials said. India started exclusive talks with French Dassault Aviation's Rafale for a 126-plane order in January 2012, over the competing Eurofighter Typhoon. ...
12:42 PM, Feb 14, 2013
French President Francois Hollande, who arrived in New Delhi on Thursday to begin his two-day trip, will hope to seal a multi-billion dollar contract with India on Rafale fighter jets. President Pranab Mukherjee hosted a ceremonial reception for Hollande at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. ...
12:30 PM, Feb 14, 2013
Iran on Saturday unveiled its newest combat jet, a domestically manufactured fighter-bomber that military officials claim can evade radar. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony broadcast on state TV that building the Qaher F-313, or Dominant F-313, shows Iran's will to "conquer scientific peaks." ...
12:20 AM, Feb 04, 2013
A minor scuffle between two groups of neighbours in Meerut turned violent leading to death of one person in Bhawanpur Thana area, police said on Sunday. 40-year-old Sushil, a resident of Pratap Nagar, got seriously injured in the brawl which broke out when his neighbour Sumit's pet dog entered his house, police said. ...
02:50 PM, Feb 03, 2013
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday unveiled a new indigenous fighter jet, media reports said. Iran's advancement in military sector does not aim at "expansionism and violating others' rights", however, it will be utilized for "defensive and deterrence" purposes, Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by semi-official ISNA news agency in a ceremony held in Tehran. ...
09:42 AM, Feb 03, 2013
