India’s defence is very vital for warding off its enemies China and Pakistan. Though Pakistan is a country which can be defeated by India in any war, the combined might of Pakistan and China offers a stiff challenge to India, notwithstanding its nuclear capability. India should be prepared to press the nuclear button against China and Pakistan at a very short notice. It should have its missiles with nuclear warheads pointing at Chinese and Pakistani cities kept ready for use at any time – even in split seconds. It should also equip well with conventional weapons with latest technology.

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Replace MiG aircrafts

The repeated crashes of MiG aircrafts are causing concern to Indian defence. Russia is refusing to share data on crashes in their own country. Even Russia is phasing out MiG-27 aircrafts from its defence arsenal. India should reconsider its decision and should replace these aircrafts with more advanced aircrafts. Accident rate is high with 476 MiG aircrafts. There are 470 existing MiG aircrafts with Indian Air Force. India has the fourth largest airforce in the world. But in terms of quality, much needs to be done with rusty fleet and operational maintenance problems. The new Air Force Chief Norman Anil Kumar Browne should concentrate on revamping our Airforce and bring in quality. His top priorities should be to enhance operational capability, continue with the modernisation drive and motivate the people with him. There is also a move to induct 120 Tejas aircrafts in 2013. Tejas are indigenous aircrafts to replace MiG 21 aircrafts. Each jet will cost Rs.200 crore. Overall cost will be Rs.30000 crore.

Fighter aircrafts

Indian Airforce will also be getting 126 fighter aircrafts from French Rafale or Britain’s Eurofighter Typhoon from December 2014 onwards. It will cost $10.4 billion. IAF will also induct 132 more Sukhoi-30MKI aircrafts from Russia (already it has inducted 140 such aircrafts) at a cost of $12 billion. It is the most potent fighter in combat fight. India is jointly developing with Russia fifth generation fighter aircrafts with their super manoeuvrability, supersonic cruising ability, long range strike and high endurance air defence capabilities. But it may be ready only in 2020. IAF is also upgrading Mirage-2000 with French help and this will be ready in 2021. IAF has also inducted 3 Israeli Phalcons and 2 more are planned. IAF will also acquire 22 attack helicopters armoured with guns, rockets and missiles in 2014 at a cost of $1.4 billion. India is also looking for advanced Surface-to-Air Missiles to detect and destroy hostile aircrafts at a cost of Rs.35000 crore in about 7 years time.

Strong nuclear capability

Former Air Chief P.V. Naik stated just before his retirement that India’s nuclear strikes will be heavy and hard and that he was not unduly worried about Pakistan stockpiling of nuclear weapons. He was right. Pakistan could destroy a few cities in India massively by its nuclear first strike. But India’s retaliation will wipe out Pakistan out of the world map. Even China has to dread India’s nuclear capability. But it will be to India’s advantage to have USA on its side in the changing global situation so that China is really deterred. Moreover, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons will ultimately fall into Islamic terrorists’ hands and they will use it against China and USA also in addition to targeting them against India. For reading my article about the effects of Pakistani nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of terrorists, please click the following link or copy and paste the URL:

http://newsflavor.com/world/asia/if-the-terrorists-capture-pakistani-nuclear-arsenal-what-will-happen/

Prahaar is very sophisticated missile

India successfully launched its surface-to-surface tactical missile Prahaar. The multi-barrel Pinaka has a strike range of 40 km and nuclear capable Prithvi ballistic missile can strike upto a range of 350 km. Prahaar has a range of 150 km which is in between Pinaka and Prithvi. Prahaar is a world class missile with greater manoeuvring capability, acceleration and can be deployed in different kinds of terrain. Preparations are already going on to launch Agni-V in December. Agni-V will be India’s most powerful missile with a range of 5000 km and capable of carrying one tonne nuclear warhead. It will give to India’s nuclear deterrence programme. Agni-III has a range of 3500 km.

Eurofighters perform well in Libyan operations

In the meanwhile, Britain is claiming that its Eurofighters have shown extraordinary capabilities during the Libyan operations and wants to sell these planes to India as well. As regards the army, the Indian Army is procrastinating over its requirements of main battle tank that it will use against Pakistan and China. DRDO’s Future Main Battle Tank (FMBT) project is getting delayed. DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) is doing a yeomen job for Indian defence. It is working to make BrahMos missiles to attain hypersonic speed in 5 years. Ordnance Factory wants to invest Rs.6000 crore over the next five years to expand its manufacturing capability. DRDO scientists are also working on coming out with an affordable laptop for civilian use.

India should sign military agreements with USA

There is a dispute between vacating spectrum between defence and telecom. Government should intervene in this matter and take a decision, not sacrificing defence requirements. With strong enemies surrounding India, defence is more important than telecom. Defence land amounts to 17 lakh hectares and the government should prevent any misuse of this land as happened in Adarsh Housing Society scam. India rejected two US companies from Rs.11000 crore IAF tender for fighter aircrafts. With this, Boeing and Lockheed Martin were knocked out of the race at one stroke. India is also unwilling to sign military pacts with USA. US want to sign three military agreements with India, namely Logistics Sharing Agreement (LSA), Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) and Basic Exchange & Cooperation Agreement for Geo-spatial Cooperation (BECA). India should re-evaluate its defence strategies. If it refuses to sign a military agreement with USA today, tomorrow USA could refuse to come to its assistance in the event of a combined onslaught by China and Pakistan on India.

Drones are the future in fighter aircrafts

US proved its military capabilities with its attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan to dislodge Saddam Hussein and the Talibans. Now it is proving the same with its drone attacks on Pakistan to eliminate terrorists. It tasted success with the prize catch of Ilayas Kashmiri’s death recently. The drone fighter planes can turn war into a video game, inflict civilian causalities and with no Americans directly at risk, attack its targets with gusto. Drones are unmanned aerial vehicles that navigate through various targets set through computers. China has expanded its drone surveillance in the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. US House panel has okayed spending $690 billion in 2012 military budget. Newer technologies will be used to manufacture more sophisticated aircrafts and other military armouries by the US.

Don’t trust China

China has expressed its willingness for defence exchanges with India. India should not believe China. China is India’s enemy. China stealthily attacked India in 1962 and captured 32000 square km of its Territory. Had USA not intervened on the side of India, China would have swallowed entire India as it swallowed Tibet. Jawaharlal Nehru made a crucial mistake of inviting Chinese Prime Minister Cho En Lai to India and showed him some of India’s military installations. Cho En Lai attacked India on going back to China. China has the ambition of grabbing other countries to feed for its expanding population. Wikileaks cables reveal that US wants to use India in missile shield against Russia and China. Russia is not India’s enemy. But India should avail US plans with respect to China. US military is working on software to manipulate social media websites.

Don’t trust Russia

India’s outstanding success in test firing missile interceptor has raised its defence stocks. Its enemies are taking a note of it. India should be careful with its defence ties with Russia also because Russia is a friend to both India and China. Moreover, Russia does not have the same level of technology as USA has.

Should God always be seen as Male?
 
Is God always a man? Or should the question be “Do humans always see God as a man?” This practice of attributing human characteristics to animals, plants, natural forces, abstract ideas and symbols is called anthropomorphism, also called personification or prosopopeia. In ancient Greek, ανθρωπος, anthrōpos, meant human, and μορφη, morphē, meant shape or form.

How Animals See Divinity?
Would a dog imagine or visualize divinity as a superdog with canine attributes?
After being in close contact with humans for millennia, dogs are rather used to humans and would hardly imagine humans as divine. At least our family dog doesn’t behave as if we were divine, fortunately.
Similarly, would a cow visualize divinity as a supercow, a parrot as a superparrot and a mouse as a supermouse?
Now, you can of course argue that animals don’t think and they are incapable of imagining or visualizing. You can start quoting other “learned” people or even religious scriptures that animals are lower life forms, so they are not quite as smart as yourself and thus they do not think or visualize.
Another argument often thrown to prove the lower hierarchy of animals is that animals don’t create art. Well, how many of us humans create music like Mozart and paint like Rembrandt? One last argument for animals being devoid of higher “human” faculties is that they can’t express themselves using languages. Well, what about the endless battles, fights and bitter divorce cases among biped primates who pride themselves on their civilized language skills? 
But do we really know what kind of inner mental activity the animals have? Animals observe and interpret natural phenomena, can solve complex problems and make distinct rational choices. Animals build nests in their own style and preference. If a bird needs to build a nest from scratch, the bird first needs to visualize a nest, then plan it’s construction, start gathering twigs and branches. As the construction progresses, the bird needs to check the progress of the construction by comparing it with the model of the nest in the head like any other human house construction engineer would check by comparing with drawings or plans.

Photo source: Wikimedia Commons

Other Forms of DivinityIn recorded human history before the age of patriarchy, we have had other forms of divinity such as mother Goddesses (the Hurrian Mother Goddess “Kheba” from which Eve supposedly gets her name), fire (Agni in Hinduism), thunder (Zeus in ancient Greece) or other ideas of divinity beyond the human capacity of description (Nirguna Brahman in Hinduism).

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Animals used to be very common as forms of deities incarnate in almost all religions earlier. With the spread of Christianity and Islam, animals have become less visible in cult religion and rituals even among African cultures.
With all our technology and science, we know precious little about the real mental activity between our own ears. Observing that inner universe is, however, an endless source of fascination and inspiration. Maybe we could get glimpses of their inner states if we started respecting animals a bit more.

Is it possible that animals are not burdened with elaborate ideas and mythologies, over which they can fight endlessly by claiming their own interpretation as the only legitimate one fighting for? Maybe dogs, cows and mice don’t even need superdogs, supercows or supermice! Could it be that, in their own way, animals are closer to the divine than biped “higher” primates, humans!

Once Ushinor planned to hold a sacrificial rite for the welfare of his subjects. When everything had been arranged, the Gods felt a bit ruffled. Among them Lord Agni (the God of Fire) and Lord Indra (the king of the Gods) were most worried. They thought that if Ushinor, the pious and munificent person, got the benefit of his sacrificial rite, their divinity would come to a naught. So they had a dark design in their mind.

Agni took the disguise of a beautiful white dove and Indra disguised as a hawk. We all know that hawk preys upon dove. So disguised Indra chased Agni disguised as a dove. Thus they reached the kingdom of Ushinor. They flew up to the place where Ushinor sat to begin his sacrificial rite. The endangered dove resorted to the king for shelter. He wanted the king to protect him from the attack of the hawk.

The kind hearted Ushinor gave the dove shelter and assured him to save his life from the attack of the hawk. At the very next moment the hawk arrived and asked the king to give back his prey. But the king would not. The hawk then told him that he had been chasing the dove quite a long way and was too tired and hungry. If the king refuses to give him the dove he and his family would die out of starvation.

The king understood the demand of the hawk. But he had promised to the dove to save his life from the threat of the hawk. So the king assured the hawk that he would give him a lot of other food. He could take anything he liked except the dove. But the hawk would not listen. He only wanted his prey, the dove. On the other hand, the king would not shift from his promise. He was ready to give him his treasures, several delicious foods, even his kingdom, but not the dove.

Then the hawk demanded the flesh of same weight of the dove from the body of the king. That would only satisfy his hunger. The king promptly accepted the proposal. Now he could both save the dove from danger and satisfy the hunger of the hawk.

Then a pair of scales was brought to weigh the flesh of the king. The king himself cut his flesh and started to weigh. But how strange! It never weighed the same as the dove. So the king cut more and more pieces of flesh from his body. At last he remembered Lord Vishnu and got up into the scale to make it equal to the weight of the dove.

At this point Indra and Agni left their disguises and introduced themselves to the king, Ushinor. They also told that they had come to spoil his sacrificial rite. But now they were quite satisfied with his pious and bountiful nature. So he would surely get the good result of his sacrificial rite despite not being able to perform it.

Then the chariot of the Gods came down from the heaven. Lord Vishnu asked him to come up and took him into the heaven. Thus the king Ushinor gave a celestial honor to piousness, generosity and bountifulness of man.