Author: Air Vice Marshal Suryakant Chafekar

In 1984, when the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked the first Indian astronaut in space what India looked like from above, he told her: “Sare jahan se achha (the best in the world).” The astronaut was Sqn Ldr Rakesh Sharma who flew aboard a Soyuz T11 spacecraft on April 2, 1984, and became the first Indian to journey into space. He spent 7 days, 21 hours and 40 minutes aboard the Salyut 7 orbital station along with two Soviet astronauts and till date, remains the only Indian to do so. Since then, it has taken almost 36 years for the country…

Armed with a variety of systems and mechanisms, the country’s air defence is potent enough to guard against enemies from the sky. The successful Balakot surgical strike of February 26, 2019, was important for more reasons than one. Among other things, it highlighted the importance of Air Defence (AD) in the security of a country from aerial attacks. The Balakot surgical strike was successful as India could breach Pakistan’s Air Defence, which is dependent mostly on American equipment and is formidable. Our Intelligence and AD systems had gathered accurate information about their Air Defence. With the use of deception to…