Aero

Bird Sleep

2010-02-11T16:56:00.001+05:30

Sleep is one thing that comes naturally to me and with ease. The best sleep is on a moving bus on a hot summer day with no seat, tightly packed. It has always amazed me, why we get a nice sleep in moving bus on a hot summer, Your head banging against the window, seat bar. And strangely no sleep in your comfy home, with a neat mattress. Indeed strange.

But how do birds manage sleep, with all predators lurking around, no bed. I had never thought about this, till i saw one duck sleeping on one of its leg, during my trip to my village. At the end find some snapshots of the duck enjoying its sleep on a single leg, alternatively shifting it, and plummaging its beak in its feathers.

Worst in everyone: WorldWar 2

2010-02-11T15:22:00.002+05:30

The Myth of the Good War: America in World War II

60 Years Ago, February 13-14, 1945: Why was Dresden Destroyed

by Jacques R. Pauwels

Global Research, February 9, 2010

In the night of February 13-14, 1945, the ancient and beautiful capital of Saxony, Dresden, was attacked three times, twice by the RAF and once by the USAAF, the United States Army Air Force, in an operation involving well over 1,000 bombers. The consequences were catastrophic, as the historical city centre was incinerated and between 25,000 and 40,000 people lost their lives.[1] Dresden was not an important industrial or military centre and therefore not a target worthy of the considerable and unusual common American and British effort involved in the raid. The city was not attacked as retribution for earlier German bombing raids on cities such as Rotterdam and Coventry, either. In revenge for the destruction of these cities, bombed ruthlessly by the Luftwaffe in 1940, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and countless other German towns big and small had already paid dearly in 1942, 1943, and 1944. Furthermore, by the beginning of 1945, the Allied commanders knew perfectly well that even the most ferocious bombing raid would not succeed in terrorizing [the Germans] into submission,[2] so that it is not realistic to ascribe this motive to the planners of the operation. The bombing of Dresden, then, seems to have been a senseless slaughter, and looms as an even more terrible undertaking than the atomic obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which is at least supposed to have led to the capitulation of Japan.

In recent times, however, the bombing of countries and of cities has almost become an everyday occurrence, rationalized not only by our political leaders but also presented by our media as an effective military undertaking and as a perfectly legitimate means to achieve supposedly worthwhile objectives. In this context, even the terrible attack on Dresden has recently been rehabilitated by a British historian, Frederick Taylor, who argues that the huge destruction wreaked on the Saxon city was not intended by the planners of the attack, but was the unexpected result of a combination of unfortunate circumstances, including perfect weather conditions and hopelessly inadequate German air defenses.[3] However, Taylors claim is contradicted by a fact that he himself refers to in his book, namely, that approximately 40 American heavies strayed from the flight path and ended up dropping their bombs on Prague instead of Dresden.[4] If everything had gone according to plan, the destruction in Dresden would surely have been even bigger than it already was. It is thus obvious that an unusually high degree of destruction had been intended. More serious is Taylors insistence that Dresden did constitute a legitimate target, since it was not only an important military centre but also a first-rate turntable for rail traffic as well as a major industrial city, where countless factories and workshops produced all sorts of militarily important equipment. A string of facts, however, indicate that these legitimate targets hardly played a role in the calculations of the planners of the raid. First, the only truly significant military installation, the Luftwaffe airfield a few kilometres to the north of the city, was not attacked. Second, the presumably crucially important railway station was not marked as a target by the British Pathfinder planes that guided the bombers. Instead, the crews were instructed to drop their bombs on the inner city, situated to the north of the railway station.[5] Consequently, even though the Americans did bomb the station and countless people perished in it, the facility suffered relatively little structural damage, so little, in fact, that it was again able to handle trains transporting troops within days of the operation.[6] Third, the great majority of Dresdens militarily important industries were not located downtown but in the suburbs, where no bombs were dropped, at least not deliberately.[7]

It cannot be denied that Dresden, like any other major German city, contained militarily important industrial installations, and that at least some of these installations were located in the inner city and were therefore wiped out in the raid, but this does not logically lead to the conclusion that the attack was planned for this purpose. Hospitals and churches were also destroyed, and numerous Allied POWs who happened to be in the city were killed, but nobody argues that the raid was organized to bring that about. Similarly, a number of Jews and members of Germanys anti-Nazi resistance, awaiting deportation and/or execution, were able to escape from prison during the chaos caused by the bombing,[8] but no one claims that this was the objective of the raid. There is no logical reason, then, to conclude that the destruction of an unknown number of industrial installations of greater or lesser military importance was the raison dêtre of the raid. The destruction of Dresdens industry like the liberation of a handful of Jews was nothing more than an unplanned by-product of the operation.

It is frequently suggested, also by Taylor, that the bombing of the Saxon capital was intended to facilitate the advance of the Red Army. The Soviets themselves allegedly asked their western partners during the Yalta Conference of February 4 to 11, 1945, to weaken the German resistance on the eastern front by means of air raids. However, there is no evidence whatsoever that confirms such allegations. The possibility of Anglo-American air raids on targets in eastern Germany was indeed discussed at Yalta, but during these talks the Soviets expressed the concern that their own lines might be hit by the bombers, so they requested that the RAF and USAAF would not operate too far to the east.[9] (The Soviets fear of being hit by what is now called friendly fire was not unwarranted, as was demonstrated during the raid on Dresden itself, when a considerable number of planes mistakenly bombed Prague, situated about as far from Dresden as the Red Army lines were.) It was in this context that a Soviet general by the name of Antonov expressed a general interest in air attacks that would impede enemy movements, but this can hardly be interpreted as a request to mete out to the Saxon capital which, incidentally, he did not mention at all or to any other German city the kind of treatment that Dresden received on February 13-14. Neither at Yalta, nor at any other occasion, did the Soviets ask their Western Allies for the kind of air support that presumably materialized in the form of the obliteration of Dresden. Moreover, they never gave their approval to the plan to bomb Dresden, as is also often claimed.[10] In any case, even if the Soviets would have asked for such assistance from the air, it is extremely unlikely that their allies would have responded by immediately unleashing the mighty fleet of bombers that did in fact attack Dresden.

In order to understand why this is so, we have to take a close look at inter-Allied relations in early 1945. In mid- to late January, the Americans were still involved in the final convulsions of the Battle of the Bulge, an unexpected German counter-offensive on the western front which had caused them great difficulties. The Americans, British, and Canadians had not yet crossed the Rhine, had not even reached the western banks of that river, and were still separated from Berlin by more than 500 kilometers. On the eastern front, meanwhile, the Red Army had launched a major offensive on January 12 and advanced rapidly to within 100 kilometers of the German capital. The resulting likelihood that the Soviets would not only take Berlin, but penetrate deep into Germanys western half before the war ended, greatly perturbed many American and British military and political leaders. Is it realistic to believe that, under those circumstances, Washington and London were eager to enable the Soviets to achieve even greater progress? Even if Stalin had asked for Anglo-American assistance from the air, Churchill and Roosevelt might have provided some token assistance, but would never have launched the massive and unprecedented combined RAF-USAAF operation that the bombing of Dresden revealed itself to be. Moreover, attacking Dresden meant sending hundreds of big bombers more than 2,000 kilometers through enemy airspace, approaching the lines of the Red Army so closely that they would run the risk of dropping their bombs by mistake on the Soviets or being fired at by Soviet anti-aircraft artillery. Could Churchill or Roosevelt be expected to invest such huge human and material resources and to run such risks in an operation that would make it easier for the Red Army to take Berlin and possibly reach the Rhine before they did? Absolutely not. The American-British political and military leaders were undoubtedly of the opinion that the Red Army was already advancing fast enough.

Towards the end of January 1945, Roosevelt and Churchill prepared to travel to Yalta for a meeting with Stalin. They had asked for such a meeting because they wanted to make binding agreements about postwar Germany before the end of the hostilities. In the absence of such agreements, the military realities in the field would determine who would control which parts of Germany, and it looked very much as if, by the time the Nazis would finally capitulate, the Soviets would be in control of most of Germany and thus be able to unilaterally determine that countrys political, social, and economic future. For such a unilateral course of action, Washington and London themselves had created a fateful precedent, namely when they liberated Italy in 1943 and categorically denied the Soviet Union any participation in the reconstruction of that country; they did the same thing in France and Belgium in 1944.[11] Stalin, who had followed his allies example when he liberated countries in Eastern Europe, obviously did not need or want such a binding inter-allied agreement with respect to Germany, and therefore such a meeting. He did accept the proposal, but insisted on meeting on Soviet soil, namely in the Crimean resort of Yalta. Contrary to conventional beliefs about that Conference, Stalin would prove to be most accommodating there, agreeing to a formula proposed by the British and Americans and highly advantageous to them, namely, a division of postwar Germany into occupation zones, with only approximately one third of Germanys territory the later East Germany being assigned to the Soviets. Roosevelt and Churchill could not have foreseen this happy outcome of the Yalta Conference, from which they would return in an exultant spirit.[12] In the weeks leading up to the conference, they expected the Soviet leader, buoyed by the recent successes of the Red Army and enjoying a kind of home-game advantage, to be a difficult and demanding interlocutor. A way had to be found to bring him down to earth, to condition him to make concessions despite being the temporary favourite of the god of war.

It was crucially important to make it clear to Stalin that the military power of the Western Allies, in spite of recent setbacks in the Belgian Ardennes, should not be underestimated. The Red Army admittedly featured huge masses of infantry, excellent tanks, and a formidable artillery, but the Western Allies held in their hands a military trump which the Soviets were unable to match. That trump was their air force, featuring the most impressive collection of bombers the world had ever seen. This weapon made it possible for the Americans and the British to launch devastating strikes on targets that were far removed from their own lines. If Stalin could be made aware of this, would he not prove easier to deal with at Yalta?

It was Churchill who decided that the total obliteration of a German city, under the noses of the Soviets so to speak, would send the desired message to the Kremlin. The RAF and USAAF had been able for some time to strike a devastating blow against any German city, and detailed plans for such an operation, known as Operation Thunderclap, had been meticulously prepared. During the summer of 1944, however, when the rapid advance from Normandy made it seem likely that the war would be won before the end of the year, and thoughts were already turning to postwar reconstruction, a Thunderclap-style operation had begun to be seen as a means to intimidate the Soviets. In August 1944, an RAF memorandum pointed out that the total devastation of the centre of a vast [German] citywould convince the Russian alliesof the effectiveness of Anglo-American air power.[13]

For the purpose of defeating Germany, Thunderclap was no longer considered necessary by early 1945. But towards the end of January 1945, while preparing to travel to Yalta, Churchill suddenly showed great interest in this project, insisted that it be carried out tout de suite, and specifically ordered the head of the RAF Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, to wipe out a city in Germanys east.[14] On January 25 the British Prime Minister indicated where he wanted the Germans to be blasted, namely, somewhere in their [westward] retreat from Breslau [now Wroclaw in Poland].[15] In terms of urban centres, this was tantamount to spelling D-R-E-S-D-E-N. That Churchill himself was behind the decision to bomb a city in Germanys east is also hinted at in the autobiography of Arthur Harris, who wrote that the attack on Dresden was at the time considered a military necessity by much more important people than myself.[16] It is obvious that only personalities of the calibre of Churchill were able to impose their will on the czar of strategic bombing. As the British military historian Alexander McKee has written, Churchill intended to write [a] lesson on the night sky [of Dresden] for the benefit of the Soviets. However, since the USAAF also ended up being involved in the bombing of Dresden, we may assume that Churchill acted with the knowledge and approval of Roosevelt. Churchills partners at the top of the United States political as well as military hierarchy, including General Marshall, shared his viewpoint; they too were fascinated, as McKee writes, by the idea of intimidating the [Soviet] communists by terrorising the Nazis.[17] The American participation in the Dresden raid was not really necessary, because the RAF was undoubtedly capable of wiping out Dresden in a solo performance. But the overkill effect resulting from a redundant American contribution was perfectly functional for the purpose of demonstrating to the Soviets the lethality of Anglo-American air power. It is also likely that Churchill did not want the responsibility for what he knew would be a terrible slaughter to be exclusively British; it was a crime for which he needed a partner.

A Thunderclapstyle operation would of course do damage to whatever military and industrial installations and communications infrastructure were housed in the targeted city, and would therefore inevitably amount to yet another blow to the already tottering German enemy. But when such an operation was finally launched, with Dresden as target, it was done far less in order to speed up the defeat of the Nazi enemy than in order to intimidate the Soviets. Using the terminology of the functional analysis school of American sociology, hitting the Germans as hard as possible was the manifest function of the operation, while intimidating the Soviets was its far more important latent or hidden function. The massive destruction wreaked in Dresden was planned in other words, was functional not for the purpose of striking a devastating blow to the German enemy, but for the purpose of demonstrating to the Soviet ally that the Anglo-Americans had a weapon which the Red Army, no matter how mighty and successful it was against the Germans, could not match, and against which it had no adequate defenses.

Many American and British generals and high-ranking officers were undoubtedly aware of the latent function of the destruction of Dresden, and approved of such an undertaking; this knowledge also reached the local commanders of the RAF and USAAF as well as the master bombers. (After the war, two master bombers claimed to remember that they had been told clearly that this attack was intended to impress the Soviets with the hitting power of our Bomber Command.)[18] But the Soviets, who had hitherto made the biggest contribution to the war against Nazi Germany, and who had thereby not only suffered the biggest losses but also scored the most spectacular successes, e.g. in Stalingrad, enjoyed much sympathy among low-ranking American and British military personnel, including bomber crews. This constituency would certainly have disapproved of any kind of plan to intimidate the Soviets, and most certainly of a plan the obliteration of a German city from the air which they would have to carry out. It was therefore necessary to camouflage the objective of the operation behind an official rationale. In other words, because the latent function of the raid was unspeakable, a speakable manifest function had to be concocted.

And so the regional commanders and the master bombers were instructed to formulate other, hopefully credible, objectives for the benefit of their crews. In view of this, we can understand why the instructions to the crews with respect to the objectives differed from unit to unit and were often fanciful and even contradictory. The majority of the commanders emphasized military objectives, and cited undefined military targets, hypothetical vital ammunition factories and dumps of weapons and supplies, Dresdens alleged role as fortified city, and even the existence in the city of some German Army Headquarters. Vague references were also frequently made to important industrial installations and marshalling yards. In order to explain to the crews why the historical city centre was targeted and not the industrial suburbs, some commanders talked about the existence there of a Gestapo headquarters and of a gigantic poison gas factory. Some speakers were either unable to invent such imaginary targets, or were for some reason unwilling to do so; they laconically told their men that the bombs were to be dropped on the built-up city centre of Dresden, or on Dresden tout court.[19] To destroy the centre of a German city, hoping to wreak as much damage as possible to military and industrial installations and to communication infrastructures, happened to be the essence of the Allied, or at least British, strategy of area bombing.[20] The crew members had learned to accept this nasty fact of life, or rather of death, but in the case of Dresden many of them felt ill at ease. They questioned the instructions with respect to the objectives, and had the feeling that this raid involved something unusual and suspicious and was certainly not a routine affair, as Taylor presents things in his book. The radio operator of a B-17, for example, declared in a confidential communication that this was the only time that [he] (and others) felt that the mission was unusual. The anxiety experienced by the crews was also illustrated by the fact that in many cases a commanders briefing did not trigger the crews traditional cheers but were met with icy silence.[21]

Directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, the instructions and briefings addressed to the crews sometimes revealed the true function of the attack. For example, a directive of the RAF to the crews of a number of bomber groups, issued on the day of the attack, February 13, 1945, unequivocally stated that it was the intention to show the Russians, when they reach the city, what our Bomber Command is capable of doing.[22] Under these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that many crew members understood clearly that they had to wipe Dresden from the map in order to scare the Soviets. A Canadian member of a bomber crew was to state after the war to an oral historian that he was convinced that the bombing of Dresden had aimed to make it clear to the Soviets that they had to behave themselves, otherwise we would show them what we could also do to Russian cities.[23]

The news of the particularly awful destruction of Dresden also caused great discomfort among British and American civilians, who shared the soldiers sympathy for the Soviet ally and who, upon learning the news of the raid, likewise sensed that this operation exuded something unusual and suspicious. The authorities attempted to exorcize the publics unease by explaining the operation as an effort to facilitate the advance of the Red Army. At an RAF press conference in liberated Paris on February 16, 1945, journalists were told that the destruction of this communications centre situated close to the Russian front had been inspired by the desire to make it possible for the Russians to continue their struggle with success. That this was merely a rationale, concocted after the facts by what are called spin doctors today, was revealed by the military spokesman himself, who lamely acknowledged that he thought that it had probably been the intention to assist the Soviets.[24]

The hypothesis that the attack on Dresden was intended to intimidate the Soviets explains not only the magnitude of the operation but also the choice of the target. To the planners of Thunderclap, Berlin had always loomed as the perfect target. By early 1945, however, the German capital had already been bombed repeatedly. Could it be expected that yet another bombing raid, no matter how devastating, would have the desired effect on the Soviets when they would fight their way into the capital? Destruction wreaked within 24 hours would surely loom considerably more spectacular if a fairly big, compact, and virginal i.e. not yet bombed city were the target. Dresden, fortunate not to have been bombed thus far, was now unfortunate enough to meet all these criteria. Moreover, the British American commanders expected that the Soviets would reach the Saxon capital within days, so that they would be able to see very soon with their own eyes what the RAF and the USAAF could achieve in a single operation. Although the Red Army was to enter Dresden much later than the British and the Americans had expected, namely, on May 8, 1945, the destruction of the Saxon capital did have the desired effect. The Soviet lines were situated only a couple of hundred of kilometers from the city, so that the men and women of the Red Army could admire the glow of the Dresden inferno on the nocturnal horizon. The firestorm was allegedly visible up to a distance of 300 kilometers.

If intimidating the Soviets is viewed as the latent, in other words the real function of the destruction of Dresden, then not only the magnitude but also the timing of the operation makes sense. The attack was supposed to have taken place, at least according to some historians, on February 4, 1945, but had to be postponed on account of inclement weather to the night of February 13-14.[25] The Yalta Conference started on February 4. If the Dresden fireworks had taken place on that day, it might have provided Stalin with some food for thought at a critical moment. The Soviet leader, flying high after the recent successes of the Red Army, would be brought down to earth by this feat of his allies air forces, and would therefore turn out to be a less confident and more agreeable interlocutor at the conference table. This expectation was clearly reflected in a comment made one week before the start of the Yalta Conference by an American general, David M. Schlatter:

I feel that our air forces are the blue chips with which we will approach the post-war treaty table, and that this operation [the planned bombing of Dresden and/or Berlin] will add immeasurably to their strength, or rather to the Russian knowledge of their strength.[26]

The plan to bomb Dresden was not cancelled, but merely postponed. The kind of demonstration of military potency that it was supposed to be retained its psychological usefulness even after the end of the Crimean conference. It continued to be expected that the Soviets would soon enter Dresden and thus be able to see firsthand what horrible destruction the Anglo-American air forces were able to cause to a city far removed from their bases in a single night. Afterwards, when the rather vague agreements made at Yalta would have to be put into practice, the boys in the Kremin would surely remember what they had seen in Dresden, draw useful conclusions from their observations, and behave as Washington and London expected of them. When towards the end of the hostilities American troops had an opportunity to reach Dresden before the Soviets, Churchill vetoed this: even at that late stage, when Churchill was very eager for the Anglo-Americans to occupy as much German territory as possible, he still insisted that the Soviets be allowed to occupy Dresden, no doubt so they could benefit from the demonstration effect of the bombing.

Dresden was obliterated in order to intimidate the Soviets with a demonstration of the enormous firepower that permitted bombers of the RAF and the USAAF to unleash death and destruction hundreds of kilometers away from their bases, and the subtext was clear: this firepower could be aimed at the Soviet Union itself. This interpretation explains the many peculiarities of the bombing of Dresden, such as the magnitude of the operation, the unusual participation in one single raid of both the RAF and USAAF, the choice of a virginal target, the (intended) enormity of the destruction, the timing of the attack, and the fact that the supposedly crucially important railway station and the suburbs with their factories and Luftwaffe airfield were not targeted. The bombing of Dresden had little or nothing to do with the war against Nazi Germany: it was an American British message for Stalin, a message that cost the lives of tens of thousands of people. Later that same year, two more similarly coded yet not very subtle messages would follow, involving even more victims, but this time Japanese cities were targeted, and the idea was to direct Stalins attention to the lethality of Americas terrible new weapon, the atomic bomb.[27] Dresden had little or nothing to do with the war against Nazi Germany; it had much, if not everything, to do with a new conflict in which the enemy was to be the Soviet Union. In the horrible heat of the infernos of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War was born.

Flight Training experience

2010-02-09T21:15:00.002+05:30

In our final semester we aerobians were supposed to get familiar with certain basic things of flight and conduct some experiments during flight. (Challo acha tha or else people used to ask us, u guys are from aero, have you guys ever flown an aircraft)

On the first day the morning session there was a lecture. In the afternoon session there was a familiarization flight nick named Joyride in a glider. The pilot cum instructor was a retired airforce experienced person. I happened to be the volunteer for the first flight.

Before the start of flight we had to sign two documents.

1) One was normal that if during flight or anything related to it we get injured or die IIT Kanpur is not responsible for it.

2) It was the second one which was a bit strange. It precisely said that in case of any injury or death, once cannot sue President of India or hold him responsible for it. What were the guys expecting, we were going to sue President of India or gherao him?

Soon the two technicians present helped me in strapping the buckles. Soon after receiving the go signal from the pilot the winch was released and i felt a jerk and we were racing on the runaway. within some few seconds we were airborne. After reaching some desired maximum altitude the plane made a nose down attitude. Since i was in the front seat, that was scary, but some kind words from the pilot reassured me. And then the pilot asked me to pull the Red bulb situated in the cockpit. (Bhai dar se to bulb bhi nahi mil raha tha). That released the winch. Then he showed me the effectivness of the controls. After some 10 minutes in the air we were on the ground. First ride successfully completed.

On the second day, we had a lecture in the morning. The professor informed us that there would be a power flight in the afternoon. We would go int batches of four, and since it would be a flight for recording flight parameters, the aircraft will be made unstable, so have a light meal. Heavy meal or no meal means greater chances of vommit.

Here the fun starts. Most of us were day scholars and were not used to the hostel life. In the Hall5 Mess, lunch was reasonably priced at 20bucks. The good thing was you could have unlimited quantity for that amount. Our sunnyji as usual was in adamant mood. His mission to grab as much as possible for 20 bucks despite our warnings.

The aircrfat was a six seater including pilot and copilot piston engined aircraft Piper Saratoga. The flight was really hectic and i developed a good headache. The eventual scene sunnyiji's batch was the last one to be airborne. We were discussing about the flight and then after 20 minutes Sunnyiji's flight also landed back. Now imagine the scene Sunnyji getting down as fast as possible and running towards the restroom with a polythene.

Well after the first uneventual day we were preparing for the second day. As ususal i asked sunnyji to have a light breakfast. He refused to take any breakfast (Doodh ka jala Chanch bhi phook phook ke peeta hai) and instead had a single half lemon with salt. Perhaps too frightened by the previous days events.

At the end of the flight there a was one familiar sight and one strange one. Sunnyiji was as usual running with the plastic pouch, but there was more fellow with him.

There were three DGCA guys who had joined us in training. One of them was a part time flyer. So during this trip he had opted to fly the plane for some times, and guess what started the chain of events.

He vomited while flying. Seeing him take the lead how could sunnyiji remain back and he too committed. Soon there was one more participant, and this probably would have been the worst flight in which 3 participants vomited out of 6.

College Time memories-2

2010-02-09T20:59:00.001+05:30

Fitting Workshop

First put on the khaki lab-coats. You definitely don't enjoy it in the Indian summer with temperatures hovering around 40 degree Celsius plus.

The lab technician gives you a job, a metal plate to be filed and a hole rectangular hole in the center. A file nobody knows of which generation is issued to help in the process.

A good hour or so is spent and finally you feel you have prepared the best piece.

The lab technician reviews it with the Try square, with a grin on its face, says " There's still some light passing from the top. Need to be further filed". You curse your luck start again.

After another hour you approach him again hoping this is the best.

Well, the technician still manages to see some light somehow through the Try Square or rather invent it.

At the scheduled end of three hours, the technician comes back and like an angel says, "Guys finish up, write your roll numbers on the job, and its over for today". Well but the job that you have created is worse than before. Doesn't matter, you have spent the required three hours on the shop, and prepare for the next ordeal in the next workshop with a new job.

Indian Media on Defence

2010-02-08T07:05:00.001+05:30

Times of India devoted a complete page on India's recent purchases with the USA titled "Uncle SAMS: WAR-MART" this Sunday. What always amazes me, is why can't our reporters get the facts right.

Its mentioned in a graphic:

India started to buy jets from Soviet Union starting 1961. India first major deal with Britain was in 1979 for jaguar to be followed by Sea Harrier, Sea Hawks. Soon after the British the French stepped in sealing a deal for Mirage 2000 aircrafts.

The article totally neglects the fact that India operated Hunter aircrafts, one of the heroes of 1971 war, also shown in Border movie. And India operated the French Ouragon and Mystere aircrafts in the 1960s and 1950s.

Also Mystere participated in the 1965 war with distinction. And incidentally the purchase of Ouragon nicknamed toofani by IAF in the 50-60 period established India as a big purchaser in the world.

Afghanistan London meet, India's exit

2010-02-06T22:34:00.002+05:30

The past week, on 26 Jan 2010 world leaders from a host of countries met at London to chart the future course of action on Afghanistan. Well at the event it was decided to invite the moderate form of Taliban for a lasting peace in Afghanistan.

It was an attempt by the west to hide their failure and seek a face saving exit from a quagmire for which they have no solution or strategy.

The west led by US entered in Afghanistan in 2001 after 9/11 with a stated aim of kicking out alqaida and Taliban, establishing democracy and equality. All the objectives were achieved in Kabul and some surrounding provinces, but not in the whole majority of the country. But the long war in Iraq, the world economic crisis of 2008 and the election of obama has left it with no gumption or will for fight.

Let's analyze the strategy, gains and losses of India and Pakistan.

Pakistan abetted, funded and raised the Taliban with a single minded objective of keeping Afghanistan under its orbit. Even after 9/11 and a veiled threat by Bush of "Either you are with us or against us", their army and ISI always maintained a section of Taliban which would do its job on the exit of US and NATO. They were right in their analysis that the NATO, west or the US would not remain in Afghanistan indefinitely. And the situation will not improve in all the areas. So they always kept a section of Taliban ready to its dirty work upon the exit of the US.

India on the other hand decided to implement the soft strategy. This entailed the construction of hospitals, schools, roads and other infrastructure for the benefit of the locals and generating goodwill of the people. This strategy was broadly successful and it generated a lot of support in the minds of local. But still at the London meet India ended up as loser.

An afghan official commented out, "We love India and its work, but we fear Pakistan". This very well sums up the mood and the thinking of the West, NATO, US and Afghanistan. In the end a psycho with a gun to its head has succeeded, i.e. Pakistan. The West realizes that India can do good work, but on its exit cannot provide anything to govern Afghanistan. It would be unwilling to send its army even as part of an external force. So the best strategy is to deal with Pakistan rather than India.

India and the west's strategy should have been to raise and train a huge police and military force under the central command or the president or the shura, and hand over it the responsibility rather than deal with the Taliban. This should have been India's strategy along with the development work. If India has failed anywhere, then its in this area. India has decided to train the police force but its too late.

Even if the moderate Taliban turn out to be not that bad guys this time, India has already lost the gambit and influence in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has again become a playground for Pakistan.

The Pakistani generals realize the need for strategic depth in the event of a conventional war with India, thats the whole logic for raising of Taliban. Afghanistan and Iran are exactly the place where India should have tried its pearls or string strategy. This is the strategy that China has followed against India. By developing a strong influence in these countries India could have forever kept Pakistan in pressure and have easily diverted Pakistan's energy against these countries.

The future isn't very promising for Afghanistan or India. After the exit of NATO or ISS, Pakistan would again try to take over Afghanistan through its proxies and then direct its energy for subversive activities against India.

Sputnik First mammade satellite and man's opening of a new quest

2007-10-04T10:43:00.003+05:30

Sputnik at 50: An improvised triumph

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer Sun Sep 30, 1:01 PM ET

MOSCOW - When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, the world gazed at the heavens in awe and apprehension, watching what seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph.

But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age.

And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second stage of its booster rocket, according to Boris Chertok, one of the founders of the Soviet space program.

In a series of interviews in recent days with The Associated Press, Chertok and other veterans told the little-known story of how Sputnik was launched, and what an unlikely achievement it turned out to be.

Chertok couldn't whisper a word about the project through much of his lifetime. His name, and that of Sergei Korolyov, the chief scientist, were a state secret. Today, at age 95 and talking to a small group of reporters in Moscow, Chertok can finally give full voice to his pride at the pivotal role he played in the history of space exploration.

"Each of these first rockets was like a beloved woman for us," he said. "We were in love with every rocket, we desperately wanted it to blast off successfully. We would give our hearts and souls to see it flying."

This very rational exuberance, and Korolyov's determination, were the key to Sputnik's success.

So was happenstance.

As described by the former scientists, the world's first orbiter was born out of a very different Soviet program: the frantic development of a rocket capable of striking the United States with a hydrogen bomb.

Because there was no telling how heavy the warhead would be, its R-7 ballistic missile was built with thrust to spare — "much more powerful than anything the Americans had," Georgy Grechko, a rocket engineer and cosmonaut, told AP.

The towering R-7's high thrust and payload capacity, unmatched at the time, just happened to make it the perfect vehicle to launch an object into orbit — something never done before.

Without the looming nuclear threat, Russian scientists say, Sputnik would probably have gotten off the ground much later.

"The key reason behind the emergence of Sputnik was the Cold War atmosphere and our race against the Americans," Chertok said. "The military missile was the main thing we were thinking of at the moment."

When the warhead project hit a snag, Korolyov, the father of the Soviet space program, seized the opportunity.

Korolyov, both visionary scientist and iron-willed manager, pressed the Kremlin to let him launch a satellite. The U.S. was already planning such a move in 1958, he pointed out, as part of the International Geophysical Year.

But while the government gave approval in January 1956, the military brass wanted to keep the missile for the bomb program, Grechko, 76, said in an interview. "They treated the satellite as a toy, a silly fantasy of Korolyov."

The U.S. had its own satellite program, Grechko said. "The Americans proudly called their project 'Vanguard,' but found themselves behind us."

The Soviet Union already had a full-fledged scientific satellite in development, but it would take too long to complete, Korolyov knew. So he ordered his team to quickly sketch a primitive orbiter. It was called PS-1, for "Prosteishiy Sputnik" — the Simplest Satellite.

Grechko, who calculated the trajectory for the first satellite's launch, said he and other young engineers tried to persuade Korolyov to pack Sputnik with some scientific instruments. Korolyov refused, saying there was no time.

"If Korolyov had listened to us and started putting more equipment on board, the Americans could have opened the space era," Grechko said.

The satellite, weighing just 184 pounds, was built in less than three months. Soviet designers built a pressurized sphere of polished aluminum alloy with two radio transmitters and four antennas. An earlier satellite project envisaged a cone shape, but Korolyov preferred the sphere.

"The Earth is a sphere, and its first satellite also must have a spherical shape," Chertok, a longtime deputy of Korolyov, recalled him saying.

Sputnik's surface was polished to perfection to better deflect the sun's rays and avoid overheating.

The launch was first scheduled for Oct. 6. But Korolyov suspected that the U.S. might be planning a launch a day earlier. The KGB was asked to check, and reported turning up nothing.

Korolyov was taking no chances. He immediately canceled some last-minute tests and moved up the launch by two days, to Oct. 4, 1957.

"Better than anyone else Korolyov understood how important it was to open the space era," Grechko said. "The Earth had just one moon for a billion years and suddenly it would have another, artificial moon!"

Soon after blastoff from the arid steppes of the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, the satellite sent out what would be the world's most famous beep. But the engineers on the ground didn't immediately grasp its importance.

"At that moment we couldn't fully understand what we had done," Chertok recalled. "We felt ecstatic about it only later, when the entire world ran amok. Only four or five days later did we realize that it was a turning point in the history of civilization."

Immediately after the launch, Korolyov called Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to report the success. Khrushchev's son, Sergei, who was alongside his father at the moment, recalled that they listened to the satellite's beep-beep and went to bed.

Sergei Khrushchev said that at first they saw the Sputnik's launch as simply one in a series of Soviet technological achievements, like a new passenger jet or the first atomic power plant.

"All of us — Korolyov's men, people in the government, Khrushchev and myself — saw that as just yet another accomplishment showing that the Soviet economy and science were on the right track," the younger Khrushchev, now a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, said in a telephone interview.

The first official Soviet report of Sputnik's launch was brief and buried deep in Pravda, the Communist Party daily. Only two days later did it offer a banner headline, quoting the avalanche of foreign praise.

Pravda also published a description of Sputnik's orbit to help people watch it pass. The article failed to mention that the light seen moving across the sky was the spent booster rocket's second stage, which was in roughly same orbit, Chertok said.

The tiny orbiter was invisible to the naked eye.

Excited by the global furor, Khrushchev ordered Korolyov immediately to launch a new satellite, this time, to mark the Nov. 7 anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

"We didn't believe that you would outpace the Americans with your satellite, but you did it. Now you should launch something new by Nov. 7," Korolyov quoted Khrushchev telling him, according to Grechko.

Working round-the-clock, Korolyov and his team built another spacecraft in less than a month. On Nov. 3, they launched Sputnik 2, which weighed 1,118 pounds. It carried the world's first living payload, a mongrel dog named Laika, in its tiny pressurized cabin.

The dog died of the heat after a week, drawing protests from animal-lovers. But the flight proved that a living being could survive in space, paving the way for human flight.

The first Sputnik beeped for three weeks and spent about three months in orbit before burning up in the atmosphere. It circled Earth more than 1,400 times, at just under 100 minutes an orbit.

For Korolyov there was bitterness as well as triumph. He was never mentioned in any contemporary accounts of the launch, and his key role was known to only a few officials and space designers.

Leonid Sedov, a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences with no connection to space program, was erroneously touted in the West as the Father of Sputnik. Korolyov, meanwhile, was only allowed to publish his non-sensitive research under the pseudonym "Professor K. Sergeyev."

Khrushchev rejected the Nobel committee's offer to nominate Korolyov for a prize, insisting that it was the achievement of "the entire Soviet people."

Sergei Khrushchev said his father thought singling out Korolyov would anger other rocket designers and hamper the missile and space programs.

"These people were like actors; they would all have been madly jealous at Korolyov," he said. "I think my father's decision was psychologically correct. But, of course, Sergei Korolyov felt deeply hurt."

Korolyov's daughter, Natalia, recalled in a book that the veil of secrecy vexed her father. "We are like miners — we work underground," she recalls him saying. "No one sees or hears us."

The Soviet Union and the rest of the world learned Korolyov's name only after his death in 1966. Today his Moscow home, where Chertok met reporters, is a museum in the chief scientist's honor.

Chertok was permitted to travel abroad only in the late 1980s, after Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev liberalized the Soviet Union.

The surviving leaders of the space program are no longer anonymous or silent, and revel in the accolades so long denied them.

"The rivalry in space, even though it had military reasons, has pushed the mankind forward," said Valery Korzun, a cosmonaut who serves as a deputy chief of the Star City cosmonaut training center. "Our achievements today are rooted in that competition."

In the end, it was the Americans who won the race to the moon, nearly 22 years later. Khrushchev wasn't interested in getting there, his son says, and the effort made under his successor, Leonid Brezhnev, was underfunded and badly hampered by rifts between Korolyov and other designers.

"We wouldn't have been the first on the moon anyway," Grechko said. "We lost the race because our electronics industry was inferior."

Today, even as Sputnik recedes into the history books, its memory still exercises a powerful grip. In August, when a Russian flag was planted on the sea bed at the North Pole, the Kremlin compared it to Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon — an indication, perhaps, of how much Russians still treasure that first victory in space.

College Time memories

2007-04-18T15:45:00.001+05:30

It was the eight semester and most of our batch mates decided to go IIT Mumbai for Final year projects. Lucky chaps, i decided to enjoy the classes or no classes in Chandigarh.

Well In IIT Mumbai you can imagine the situation with half PEC aero 2004 batch (The most notorious and one of worst as per our HOD). Our guys decided to go for some fun.

There was one guy lets call him Sunny the brave one or brave for one night. In IIT Mumbai it was quite different and advanced compared to our rickety PEC. There was a public announcement system available in the campus during emergencies.

Our sunnyji after landing in the campus came to know of it and decided to use it get some help or rather misuse it. Just to get some directions he decided to call up one of our friends at around 3 in the night. You can just imagine the condition of the kind. Poor fella.

On one fine night there was a public announcement that a Cheetah was spotted in the campus loitering around. As usual most of the Aerobians were either in their labs (workalohic kind) or in the hostel(bindas type). Then our Sunny paaji had a brilliant idea, why not catch the cheetah and get to the hall of fame in IIT Mumbai. (Aise bhi apne bande har jagah badnam kar ke aate hain PEC ka naam)

So our Sunny calls up the workaholic kid (wrong to call him a kid seeing his huge size) and gives him a offer to join him in catching the cheetah. As usual the workaholic kid is busy and refuses.

So our Sunny starts up the mission single handed armed with just the Nokia searchlight. He scans the campus or a part of it and fails to find the cheetah. After a while he stops for some rest (Not used to walking much).

And in a flash of second this kid is attacked. In a sudden reflex action he uses his arm as last desperate move for defence and in this process the mobile is thrown a distance away. A big folly, to throw away the only weapon you possess. After regaining his senses he awaits for the next move from the attacker buts there's none for next some minutes. He is finally convinced and searches for his beloved weapon Nokia 1100. It was couple of meters away.

After a while Sunny realizes his mistake it was a aerial attack or just some flight by some bird. Now just imagine what would have been the effects if there was a real cheetah.

The most surprising thing of all is that i knew nothing about this incident. I came to know of this only after passing out of college and after the big guy (workalohic kind) told me of this incident and sunnyji confirmed this incident.

Tarapur Nuclear Reactor India and NPT

2007-04-18T10:21:00.001+05:30

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), opened for signing in 1968 and in force since 1970, established a nuclear regime intended as temporary until decision could be reached on eliminating nuclear weapons altogether. While the treaty has proven remarkably enduring, its failure to address the ultimate goal and its inability to cope with the nuclear ambitions of North Korea, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and India prove the need for revision.

The story of India’s weapons program provides insights for the new nuclear age. Despite international pressure, including sanctions and the dispatch of US aircraft carriers into the Bay of Bengal during a period of tension in the 1970s, India managed to create four successful reactors and test nuclear devices, demonstrating that a country dedicated to developing such weapons can evade the institutions of the current non-proliferation regime. Current trends toward global warming and uncertain energy supplies will increase the number of countries relying on nuclear energy for power. This will tempt many states to emulate India in developing their own enriched uranium and perhaps atomic weapons. India’s case shows that a non-proliferation regime is fundamentally based on trust and mutual benefit. As long as developing powers view the NPT as unjust, it will remain ineffective.

TARAPUR, INDIA: Behind the heightened tension with Iran lies a wider problem that world leaders must swiftly and substantively grasp. The Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), drawn up in 1968, needs to be re-written to make it both workable and acceptable to
nations who view it as outdated and unfair.

Over the next generation, as the scramble for energy gathers pace, many more governments will announce plans to build uranium-enrichment facilities. Some will be friendly to US interests, some hostile. Some may switch alliances with time.

In recent years, India and the deeply unstable Pakistan have both declared their nuclear-weapons programs. Neither was a signatory to the NPT. North Korea joined, but left. Iran is a member, but stands accused of breaking the rules. Israel is not, and remains secretive and undeclared. Iraq signed back in 1969, then totally ignored it.

So, if the present version of the NPT is proving too hit and miss to survive the next half century of nuclear aspirations, what will replace it?

Into this conundrum comes an agreement between India and the US that, if used properly, could show us the way ahead. After more than 30 years of sanctions because of its nuclear program, India is now being allowed into that select club of declared and accepted nuclear powers.

On the technical side, India will be able to sell and buy civilian-use nuclear products on the international market. On the political side, the agreement heals a wound between two huge democracies by giving India some recognition of national dignity – which is, in part, also what Iran is seeking.

Thirty-seven years ago, when Iran was an ally of the US, American warships were confronting not an autocratic Islamic state in the Gulf, but a young socialist democracy in the Bay of Bengal. India, then viewed by Washington as over-friendly with the Soviet Union, was defeating Pakistan over Bangladesh and needed to be brought into line.

The hostile insertion in 1971 of the USS Enterprise carrier group into India’s backyard failed to turn the tide in Pakistan’s favor. But it did create an anti-American sentiment in India that is only healing today.

It also gave India added grit to develop its own nuclear weapons. In 1974, having bought technology under the guise of using it solely for peaceful purposes, India carried out a nuclear test and was put under sanctions.

India’s Tarapur nuclear complex, three hours drive outside of Mumbai, tells what has happened in the interim. Tarapur comprises a weapons-research center; a Soviet-style closed-city with schools, shops and sporting facilities for the scientists, engineers and their families; and four reactors, two designed in the 1960s and two this century.

The first two, known as Taps 1 & 2, were opened in 1969 and built by the American multinational General Electric (GE) in a turn-key operation that included parts, maintenance, training and uranium-fuel supply. Four years later, after the test, the US government instructed GE to withdraw all support.

Far from being deterred, India pushed its nuclear program with even more urgency. It fuelled the reactors by buying uranium first from France, then Russia and, according to some engineers at Tarapur, even briefly from China.

India bypassed sanctions and created a world-class nuclear program. The control room of Taps 1 & 2 looks like an immaculately preserved example of 1960s technology, while the ultra-modern Taps 3 & 4 that opened in 2005 are evidence of what a determined nation can do if it decides to go it alone.

Visitors wear anti-dust cotton coverings over their shoes, and once inside they watch screens monitoring movements deep inside the radioactive area of the plant. Even under its new agreement, this will remain a place closed to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

At present, India has 17 reactors with five under construction. Of those, 14 will be “safeguarded,” or open to IAEA inspections. Eight will remain closed so they can be used for weapons and other research.

With its billion-plus population and booming economy, India’s plan for the next 20 years reflects much of the developing world’s appetite for secure energy. To meet its galloping demand for power India expects to buy 25 more reactors from Russia, the US and France, as well as build several itself.

That alone is about 5 percent of the more than 400 power-generating reactors in the world today and evidence of boom years ahead, not only for India, but also for the whole global nuclear industry.

China’s nuclear plans mirror those of India, and nuclear energy is due to dramatically increase in Europe, where it makes up 30 percent of power, and America, where it comprises 20 percent. Developing nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America are all looking to create their own nuclear programs to provide energy – and there lies the problem.

Egypt, for example, currently a champion of non-proliferation, has two research reactors aimed at creating an independent nuclear-fuel cycle. It could prove to be a matter of Western concern. Like Iran before, the Egyptian regime risks falling to extreme Islamic anti-American forces.

Both Brazil and Argentina once pursued covert-weapons programs. Some years from now, the increasingly left-leaning Latin America might
produce a hostile leader, who would expel IAEA inspectors and send us
once again into frighteningly familiar territory.

It is doubtful that global diplomacy can survive scenarios whereby every time a government is accused of stepping out of line, the UN Security Council is called upon to implement sanctions and US carrier groups steam toward hostile coastlines.

More than any other nation, India has the credentials to immerse itself
completely in this dangerous conundrum and put forward fresh guidelines to extract us from it. India has persistently condemned the NPT for being discriminatory, arguing that the nuclear-armed UN permanent five cannot forever dictate what other nations do. This view is shared throughout much of the developing world, and as that sentiment grows, it will be more and more difficult to keep a lid on it.

A solution may be many years away, and getting there will be difficult. It will have to include both technical elements, such as guarantees of fuel supplies, and political ones involving perceptions of national dignity and fairness.

India’s elevation to nuclear acceptability comes with a price. It cannot simply accept its new privileges and stay quiet. India went against all odds to create its nuclear program. It must now take up a new challenge to create a nuclear roadmap for the next century.