BILATERAL RELATIONS / TECHNOLOGY

The Dragon...

Continued from page 5

Western media continued the tirade against Russia during Xi’s three-day visit to Russia. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesman said, “We hope President Xi uses this opportunity to press President (Vladimir) Putin to cease bombing Ukrainian cities, hospitals, schools, to halt some of these atrocities that we are seeing on a daily basis.” This, forgetting that Britain has allied with the US in arbitrarily bombing, invading multiple countries and committing war crimes over the past several decades and is currently pumping mercenaries and weapons in Ukraine to attack civilians in the Donbas region.

Despite the fact that even American air defence systems in Ukraine are ineffective against Russian aerial attacks, America wants to keep Russia engaged in operations because the US is the only country which is benefiting financially and strategically from the war in Ukraine. China is well aware that the US aims to deal with China in similar fashion – indirectly as far as possible though Washington is making noises about getting ready to fight China. The China-Russia military cooperation,

Stealth Technology...

therefore, would necessarily keep building to higher levels. There is also speculation that Russia is maybe helping China build its nuclear arsenal. Russia endorses the “One China Policy” and perhaps also the Chinese claims in the South China Sea. But it has no formal military pact with China perhaps to avoid getting unduly drawn into conflict(s) in the IndoPacific. At the same time, Russia and China have been exercising bilaterally and with allies in the waters of the Indo-Pacific. China’s relations with the US and Europe is dictated by economic and trade priorities and access to markets in the West but this interest runs both ways. This is the reason why European leaders are heading to Beijing with business delegations despite their partnership with the US-led Anglo-Saxon front against Russia.

Concerns have been raised in some quarters over the China-Russia bonding adversely affecting India. But the fact remains that there is an exceptional and long friendship between India and Russia, which has grown even stronger with the conflict in Ukraine. On March 23, 2023, Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov dismissed the geopolitical

Continued from page 7 ment in Defence and Aerospace by engaging R&D institutes, academia, industries including MSMEs, startups and individual innovators and provide them grants/funding and other support to carry out R&D which has good potential for future adoption by the Indian Defence and Aerospace Organisation.

The objective of camouflage in mechanised columns is to disrupt the characteristic shape of the vehicle, to reduce shine, and to make the vehicle difficult to identify even if it is spotted. Patterns are designed to make it more difficult to interpret shadows and shapes. A multi-spectral camouflage system fitted to armoured vehicle reduces visual, infrared (IR) and radar signatures and permits movement. Heavier, more durable mobile camouflage net systems, essentially conformal duvets with thermal and radar properties, provide a degree of concealment without the delay caused by having to spread nets around a vehicle, Active camouflage for vehicles, using heated or cooled Peltier plates to match the IR background, has been prototyped in industry but has not been fully put into production yet.

The Integrated Mobile Camouflage System (IMCS) comprises low emissivity and/or

CAM-IIR coatings and Mobile Camouflage System materials providing the ability to the Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) to merge with the background of the terrain. The Army has said that this new technology will enhance stealth of mechanised and mobile platforms. Integrated Mobile Camouflage System (IMCS) will achieve a reduction in the detection range of AFV when viewed through Hand Held Thermal Imager (HHTI)/Battle Field Surveillance Radar (BFSR) tank-based thermal camera under given environmental and weather conditions and signature management by controlling the Visual, Thermal, Infra-red & Radar Signatures of the object.

The official release covering the contract with HSTPL also states that currently there are a total of 48 projects of the Indian Army as part of the Defence India Startup Challenge (DISC), Open Challenges, iDEX4 Fauji and iDEX PRIME scheme which involves handholding of 41 Startups for the development of the latest state of art solutions for the challenges posed by Indian Army. For each challenge, a dedicated Nodal Officer & Establishment as Centre of Excellence from the Indian Army is nominated for hand-

Appointments

New Vice Chief Of The Army Staff

Lt General M.V. Suchindra experts who claimed that the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Russia will have a negative impact on India-Russia relations. Alipov tweeted: “Profusion of analysis these days of the outcomes of Xi Jinping’s Russia visit. The impression as though various reputable Indian experts almost dream of Russia-China ties harming Russia-India strategic alignment. A wishful thinking - case in point.”

Kumar has assumed the appointment of the Vice Chief of the Army Staff on March 1, 2023. Prior to taking over as the Vice Chief of the Army Staff, Lt General M.V. Suchindra Kumar was tenanting the appointment of Deputy Chief of Army Staff (Strategy) at Army HQ. He has experience in intelligence, operations, force structuring, operational logistics and tech infusion in his recent appointments.

The General Officer has held various staff and instructional appointments to include an instructional tenure at Infantry School, Mhow, Senior Operations Officer in the United Nations Sector in Cambodia, Colonel (Policy) in Military Secretary Branch, Indian Army Training Team at Lesotho, Brigadier General Staff (Operations) of a Corps in the Eastern Theatre, Additional Director General Military Intelligence and Director General Military Intelligence at Army HQ.

There is no doubt that India-China relations are very strained with the continuing two-year standoff at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) despite both countries interacting in forums like the SCO and BRICS. India even gave China a trade advantage of $100 billion in 2022. But China has designs on Indian Territory and has formed an alliance with Pakistan against India. Notably, Russia has always tried to keep the Russia-IndiaChina (RIC) Dialogue going. Admittedly, Russia cannot stop Xi Jinping from waging war against India but Russia can surely be a soothing influence given the realisation in China that Russia remains the primary supplier of China’s growing energy demands, critical raw materials, food grains, defence supplies and spares. SP

Publisher and Editor-in-Chief

Jayant Baranwal

Deputy Managing Editor

Neetu Dhulia

Senior Editorial Contributor

Lt General P.C. Katoch (Retd)

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Contributors

India

Lt General Dushyant Singh (Retd)

Lt General Pradeep Bali (Retd)

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Major General Atanu K. Pattanaik (Retd) Chairman & Managing Director

Jayant Baranwal

Executive Vice President (Planning & Business Development)

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Survi Massey

Design

Sr. Designer: Vimlesh Kumar Yadav

Designer: Sonu Singh Bisht holding and providing continuous support in progressing their respective projects. iDEX is funded and managed by the Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO) under MoD (DDP). Over the past four years, iDEX under DIO has been able to emerge as a front-runner in establishing the right kind of contact with Startups and Innovators and has gained substantial traction in the Defence Startup Community. A further boost was given to the initiative in April 2022 as the revised methodology for iDEX was approved by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh which ensures a significant reduction in timelines of procurement to approx 24 weeks.

In addition to the contract signed with HSPTL, there are many other iDEX projects of the Indian Army for which the acceptance of necessity (AoN) have already been accorded. These are presently under finalisation and more contracts would come up in due course. All these would provide further boost to startups and the policy of Atmanirbhar Bharat. Most importantly, this enables exploiting another and perhaps faster avenue for absorbing new technologies into the Indian Army. SP

General Officer Commanding-in Chief, South Western Command of Indian Army

Lt General B.S. Raju takes over as General Officer Commanding-in Chief, South Western Command of Indian Army on March 1, 2023.

General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Central Command of the Indian Army

Lt General N.S.R. Subramani takes over as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Central Command of the Indian Army on March 1, 2023.

Director General of Artillery

Lt General Adosh Kumar assumed appointment of the Director General of Artillery on May 1, 2023. Prior to assuming this key appointment, he was serving as the Director General Land, Works & Environment.

Director General Quality Assurance

Lt General R.S. Reen took over as Director General Quality Assurance on February 24, 2023. A 1986-batch officer, Lt General Reen was a senior faculty at Defence Institute of Quality Assurance, Bengaluru. In addition, the Officer is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt from Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata and headed the DQA(L) as Additional Director General (Electronics) at HQ DGQA, New Delhi.

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