http://www.india-defence.comDefense, military and strategic affairsNewsWeb19.orgsupport@web19.orghttp://www.india-defence.com/reports-4123The Government of India has selected The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) to provide eight P-8I long-range maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft to the Indian navy. The P-8I is a variant of the P-8A Poseidon that Boeing is developing for the U.S. Navy. India is the first international customer for the P-8. Boeing will deliver the first P-8I within 48 months of the contract signing, and the remaining seven by 2015. "The men and women of The Boeing Company are pleased that India has selected the P-8I," said Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS). "This aircraft will provide outstanding capabilities tailored to India's unique maritime-patrol requirements." The P-8I is a true multi-mission maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) that features greater flexibility and a broader range of capabilities than MPAs currently in service. The P-8I can operate effectively over land or water while performing anti-submarine warfare missions; search and rescue; maritime interdiction; and long-range intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance. The P-8I provides India with speed, reliability, persistence and room for growth to satisfy the country's requirements now and well into the future. The aircraft features an open system architecture, advanced sensor and display technologies, and a worldwide base of suppliers, parts and support equipment. "Throughout the negotiations, both sides worked diligently to give India the most advanced anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare aircraft in the world today," said Vivek Lall, Boeing IDS vice president and India country head. "The result of these efforts will bring the Indian navy advanced technology that is unmatched in maritime reconnaissance aircraft, and the reach and capability it needs to defend India's vast coastline and maritime waters." A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (http://www.boeing.com/ids/) is one of the world's largest space and defense businesses specializing in innovative and capabilities-driven customer solutions, and the world's largest and most versatile manufacturer of military aircraft. Headquartered in St. Louis, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is a $32.1 billion business with 71,000 employees worldwide. For related photo illustration, visit http://www.boeing.com.India Defenceindia, indian navy, usa, boeing, defensehttp://www.india-defence.com/reports-4122The defence ministry will establish a huge Air Force base close to the international border in Rajasthan, moving aggressively to secure the country's western frontiers. The 300-km range supersonic cruise missile BrahMos will be stored at this base, defence ministry sources said. The ministry is acquiring land in Hanumangarh and Sriganganagar districts, where the Indian Air Force will store some of its most sophisticated long-range missiles. The base will be the IAF's biggest practice station. Defence Estate Officer KJS Chauhan confirmed the acquisition process of 29,562 acres at Hanumangarh, around 120-125 km from the border with Pakistan. The IAF has a station in Jodhpur, about 350 km from the border. According to defence ministry sources, IAF has two projects proposed for the land: Project Richard and Project Thukrana. Project Richard involves setting up a missile base. The BrahMos missiles will not only be stationed but also stocked there. Under Project Thukrana, the defence ministry will set up an air force practice station, the biggest close to an international border in the country, ministry sources said. Mugdha Sinha, who was collector of Hanumangarh till last week, said, "Hurdles for the acquisition have been almost sorted out with farmers." The defence ministry will spend more than Rs220 crore towards compensation and rehabilitation of the residents of Moter, Dhandhusur, Bannasur, Bangasur and Dheerdeshur villages. India Defenceindia, indian air force, military, missilehttp://www.india-defence.com/reports-4121Commander of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Naval forces Rear Admiral Ahmed Mohammed Al Sabab will be in India on a three-day visit beginning tomorrow. During the visit, the Rear Admiral is expected to meet his Indian counterpart Admiral Sureesh Mehta, Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor, and other senior Defence Ministry officials, to discuss the defence relations between the two countries. "The UAE Navy chief will arrive here on January 6 and will be meeting the Navy and the Army chief along with senior defence officials," Navy officials said. Later on during the visit, he is expected to visit Mumbai and meet the Western naval Commander Vice Admiral Jagjit Singh Bedi there. He will also visit the Bombay dockyards, officials said, to look at the modern facilities developed by the Indian Navy there. A graduate of the Pakistan Naval Academy, the UAE Navy chief has held various staff and command appointments, which include head of operations, administration and deputy director of joint operations directorate of the UAE Navy.India Defenceindia, uae, middle east, militaryhttp://www.india-defence.com/reports-4120Facing an acute shortage of officers, the Indian Army is now considering increasing intake from the National Cadets Corps (NCC) into the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun, a senior official said Monday.NCC director general R.K. Karwal Tuesday said that the government could increase the intake of NCC cadets in IMA from 64 to 80. The IMA annually takes in upwards of 1,000 cadets in two batches. "Alarmed over the shortfall of officers, the government is also likely to hike the intake of NCC 'C' certificate holders into the Officers Training Academy (OTA), Chennai, from 79 to 100,” he said while addressing a conference ahead of the NCC Republic Day Camp. The OTA takes in 600 cadets every year. The army faces a shortage of around 11,200 officers. Karwal added that since 2007, the NCC is working on a scheme to raise the enrolment of cadets, a majority of whom would be girls. The NCC strength would also go up from the present 1.3 million to 1.5 million in five years, he added. Vice President Hamid Ansari will Jan 8 inaugurate the annual NCC Republic Day camp, in which 1,950 cadets from across the country will be participating. It will conclude with the Prime Minister’s Rally Jan 29.India Defenceindia, indian army, militaryhttp://www.india-defence.com/reports-4119A group of clerics and religious scholars have issued a fatwa or edict that says jihad will be obligatory for every Pakistani citizen if India attacks the country. The fatwa was announced at a conference organised by the Tahaffuz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat Mahaz at Jamia Naeemia seminary in Lahore on Monday. The meeting, chaired by Federal Minister Noorul Haq Qadri, was arranged to discuss Pakistan's security concerns. Besides declaring that jihad would be obligatory for all Pakistanis in case of an attack by India, a communiqu issued by the clerics said the Pakistan government should end its support to the United States in its war on the western border in case of hostilities with India. The conference demanded that Pakistan should shrug off the Indian pressure and adopt a courageous and independent stance befitting a sovereign state. The clerics called on the government to expose Indian conspiracies hatched against Pakistan before the world. The communiqu said the clerics and scholars reaffirmed the belief that the basic purpose of Pakistan's nuclear capability was to ensure the security of the country against any foreign aggression.India Defenceindia, pakistan, terror, islamhttp://www.india-defence.com/reports-4118ntelligence agencies have traced the origins of the fake currency that is being used to fund terror activities in India. Intelligence Bureau officials have information that fake Indian currency is being printed in Karachi, Quetta and Lahore, under the patronage of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence. IB officials have already warned the Centre about fake currency making inroads into the Indian economy through Nepal and Bangladesh. The IB believes that the ISI and its allies use the sea to dispatch fake currency worth hundreds of crores of rupees into India. Terror handlers ensure that any would-be terrorist from Pakistan entering India to participate in subversive activities must carry fake currency. IB sources say the ISI's fake currency racket is currently limited to denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.India Defenceindia, pakistan, terrorhttp://www.india-defence.com/reports-4117Israeli troops moved toward the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis on Tuesday, brushing aside an intensified effort by European envoys to broker a cease-fire even as casualties mounted on both sides and aid organizations warned of a growing humanitarian crisis. The International Committee of the Red Cross warned in a statement from Geneva that the situation in Gaza had turned into a "full-blown major crisis in humanitarian terms," with hospitals running off of emergency generators and some of them nearing the end of their fuel supplies. "The situation of the people in Gaza is extreme and traumatic," with emergency personnel and ambulances having difficulty moving to those in need off help, said Pierre Kaehenbuehl, the ICRC's director of operations, at a news conference in Geneva, the Reuters news service reported. Following a day of sometimes fierce fighting outside Gaza City, Israeli military officials reported their first significant casualties of the 12-day offensive when three soldiers were killed by an errant Israeli tank shell. The friendly fire incident on Monday evening also injured two dozen others. An Israeli paratrooper was killed in a separate incident in northern Gaza on Monday evening, a military spokesman said. Military officials said they were investigating whether that soldier, too, was struck by Israeli fire. Meanwhile, an Israeli missile struck a United Nations school in Gaza on Monday night, killing three young Palestinian men, U.N. officials said. About 400 Palestinians had taken refuge in the school from the fighting of recent days. "We are completely devastated," John Ging, a senior U.N. official in Gaza, said Tuesday. "There is nowhere safe in Gaza." Despite a flurry of diplomatic efforts to arrange a truce, Tuesday saw the Israeli military continue moving through Gaza and toward Khan Younis, according to reports from the territory. The Web site of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported fresh Palestinian rocket attacks into Israeli territory on Tuesday as well, including a Grad missile that landed in the town of Gedera, about 20 miles south of Tel Aviv. It was one of the northernmost points reached by Palestinian rocket fire. Only minor injuries were reported.Diplomats had gathered on Monday throughout the region and at the United Nations, with most of the pressure for a cease-fire exerted by European leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and former British prime minister Tony Blair. But Israeli officials repeated their vows to keep fighting until they have crippled the ability of the militant group Hamas to launch rocket attacks from Gaza into southern Israel. "When Israel is targeted, Israel is going to retaliate," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told reporters as she held talks with European diplomats in Jerusalem. The efforts at diplomacy also continued on Tuesday, with Sarkozy meeting in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Syria is a key supporter of Hamas, and Sarkozy said after conferring with Assad that he expected the Syrian leader to "throw all his weight to convince everyone to return to reason." "I know the importance of Syria in this region and its influence on a number of players," Sarkozy said in remarks following the meeting, according to the Reuters news service. The Syrian Arab News Agency reported that Assad told the French president that a halt to Israeli strikes would have to precede any cease-fire.U.S. State Department officials said Monday they also were pushing for a cease-fire. But unlike European leaders, who have been critical of both sides, President Bush stood behind Israel and gave no sign he was unhappy with America's close ally. "Instead of caring about the people of Gaza, Hamas decided to use Gaza to use rockets to kill innocent Israelis," Bush told reporters at the White House. "Israel's obviously decided to protect itself." Bush said he agreed with Israel's position that a truce would be a waste of time unless Hamas is somehow prevented from resuming attacks. "I know people are saying, 'Let's have a cease-fire,' " Bush said. "And those are noble ambitions. But any cease-fire must have the conditions in it so that Hamas does not use Gaza as a place from which to launch rockets." More than 50 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Monday, almost half of them children, and five civilians were killed early Tuesday when a shell fired by an Israeli ship hit their house, according to local medical workers. Palestinian officials said the death toll in Gaza has risen to about 560 since Israel began airstrikes on Dec. 27. More than 2,500 people were reported wounded. At least nine Israelis have died overall, including the four soldiers killed Monday in Gaza by errant Israeli shelling. The soldiers were engaged in heavy clashes with Hamas fighters in densely populated neighborhoods in northern Gaza, the military reported. Hamas has been defiant in the face of the military invasion and fired about 30 rockets from Gaza into southern Israel on Monday, including one that struck an empty kindergarten in Ashdod, according to the Israeli military. A mortar shell also injured two people in the village of Shaar Hanegev. Such rockets have killed four Israelis since hostilities broke out. Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas leader, called on Palestinians to "crush your enemy" and urged them to keep targeting Israeli civilians by launching rockets and mortar shells over the fences and barriers that surround the Gaza Strip. "The Zionists have legitimized the killing of their children by killing our children," he said in a broadcast on Hamas's television station. As the Israeli military campaign entered its 10th day, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the operation would continue indefinitely. "Hamas has suffered a very heavy blow, but we have yet to reach the goals we set for ourselves, so the offensive continues," he told Israeli legislators. Israel launched about 40 airstrikes in Gaza on Monday and targeted more than 150 makeshift tunnels along the strip's southern border with Egypt, said Maj. Avital Leibovich, a spokeswoman for the Israeli military. Military engineering units also hunted for the smugglers' tunnels from ground level, Israeli officials said. About 300 smugglers' tunnels exist along the border area between Gaza and Egypt, a nine-mile stretch known as the Philadelphia corridor, according to the Israeli military. Leibovich said Israeli forces also have been targeting weapons caches and the homes of Hamas officials. She blamed Hamas for the rising number of civilian casualties, accusing the Islamist movement of storing explosives in mosques and buildings in densely populated areas. "We don't have any intention whatsoever to target civilians. The targets we choose are military targets," Leibovich said. "If there were civilian casualties, it would only be under the responsibility of Hamas." The Israeli army said it allowed 80 trucks carrying emergency supplies to enter Gaza on Monday. But relief agencies said much more was needed. They estimated that two-thirds of Gaza's 1.5 million people were without electricity because several major power lines servicing Gaza from Israel had been cut or damaged. "Large numbers of people, including many children, are hungry," Maxwell Gaylard, the United Nations' humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, told reporters in Jerusalem. "They are cold. They are without ready access to medical facilities. They are without access to electricity and running water. They are terrified. That by any measure is a humanitarian crisis." Water supplies for half a million Gaza residents are expected to run out in the coming days, the Red Cross said; water pumps have ceased to function because of the lack of electricity and the lack of fuel to run backup generators. The Red Cross also complained that an unspecified number of wounded Gazans had died after waiting hours for ambulances to arrive, blaming a lack of coordination between Israeli and Palestinian officials to guarantee their safe passage. "This is of course absolutely appalling," said Antoine Grand, head of the International Red Cross office in Gaza. "The ambulances must reach the injured as fast as possible." Accounts of conditions inside the territory are difficult to confirm. Israel has banned foreign journalists from entering Gaza. In New York, the Palestinian Authority's foreign minister, Riad Malki, pressed for the passage of a new U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire and the deployment of foreign peacekeepers to monitor Gaza's borders and protect Palestinian civilians. Malki also voiced frustration that President-elect Barack Obama had yet to comment on the violence in Gaza, contrasting his silence with his public criticism of the gunmen who carried out the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. "We expected him really to be open and responsive to the situation in Gaza, and still we expect him to make a strong statement regarding this as soon as possible," Malki said. Arab foreign ministers began arriving at U.N. headquarters Monday to show support for the Palestinian diplomatic push to step up international pressure on Israel to halt its military operation in Gaza. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to address the Security Council on Tuesday afternoon to urge passage of the cease-fire resolution. France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, in a meeting with the Arab foreign ministers, outlined the broad elements of a possible cease-fire pact, according to a European diplomat. It would involve a halt to Palestinian rockets and Israeli military operations. It would also include provisions for the free distribution of humanitarian goods to Gaza and for the protection of Palestinian civilians. The agreement would contain a plan for monitoring implementation of the cease-fire, possibly involving foreign monitors. It would also call for the resumption of negotiations on a Middle East peace process. Jeremy Issacharoff, Israel's deputy chief of mission in Washington, said Israel did not think the Security Council was the appropriate forum for reaching a settlement. "This is a counterterrorism operation in our point of view," he said. (Washington Post)India Defenceisrael, hamas, middle easyhttp://www.india-defence.com/reports-4116INDIA has signed a US$2.1 billion with US aerospace giant Boeing to buy maritime surveillance aircraft for the Indian navy, officials told reporters on Monday. The agreement to buy eight P-81 long-range reconnaissance aircraft marks India's biggest military aircraft deal with the United States, defence ministry officials said. The contract was signed on January 1 in New Delhi. 'The deal is finally through and we will receive the first P-81 in 2013 while the remaining seven will be procured in a phased manner over the next three or four years,' a senior official said on condition he not be named. The contract includes lifetime maintenance support and an option for the acquisition of up to eight additional P-81 aircraft, the official said. The deal comes less than a year after India and US-based Lockheed Martin signed an agreement worth 962 million dollars for the purchase of six C-130 Hercules transport planes for the Indian army. Both Lockheed and Boeing are also in the race for a US$12 billion contract to sell 126 fighter jets to the Indian air force. Four other global companies from France, Russia, and the European Union are in the race for the world's richest fighter jet deal in 16 years. India last year also signed a 1.5-billion euro (US$2.2 billion) deal with France's Dassault to upgrade 51 Mirage 2000 fighter jets, which the Indian air force bought in 1985. India, the largest buyer of armaments among emerging nations after China, plans to spend 30 billion dollars until 2012 to modernise its 1.23-million-strong military, the world's fourth largest.India Defenceindia, usa, defensehttp://www.india-defence.com/reports-4115In an effort to finalise the issues concerning Admiral Gorshkov, now called "INS Vikramaditya," New Delhi will shortly send a team of price negotiators to Moscow. The aircraft carrier's purchase ran into rough weather after India signed the deal in 2004 at an originally contracted price of $1.5 billion for its refit and modernization. Delivery has been delayed from the scheduled year of 2008 and recent reports indicate that the Russians want an additional $2 billion. The delivery is now expected to take place in 2012. Authoritative sources told The Hindu that the government had formed a team to visit Russia. This would be followed by another visit by senior officials to finalise the delivery time. The previous National Democratic Alliance government conducted the negotiations and refurbishment of the 44,570-tonne Gorshkov ran into difficulties after it was discovered that its modernisation bill was underestimated. While Russia removed the chief of the shipyard where Gorshkov is being refurbished, India resigned itself to re-negotiating the additional cost as it had made an advance payment and there was no comparable alternative. To replace Viraat Gorshkov is meant to replace India’s sole aging aircraft carrier INS Viraat. The likely delay of four years means the Navy will have to strain every sinew to keep it in working condition till the arrival of INS Vikramaditya. Original negotiations dragged on for several years, with the Navy once expressing its apprehension that if INS Viraat is decommissioned and another carrier is not inducted, it will lose aircraft carrier handling skills. Originally published on The HinduIndia Defenceindia, russia, defensehttp://www.india-defence.com/reports-4114China had tested for Pakistan its first nuclear bomb as early as in 1990, enabling Islamabad to respond within weeks to the Indian atomic tests eight years later, a top US nuclear expert has claimed. "The Chinese did a massive training of Pakistani scientists, brought them to China for lectures, even gave them the design of the CHIC-4 device, which was a weapon that was easy to build a model for export," former US Air Force Secretary Thomas Reed told American news magazine 'US News and World Report'. Reed, who had worked at Livermore National Laboratory as a weapons designer, had co-authored a new book -- The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and Its Proliferation -- with Danny Stillman, the former director of the technical intelligence division at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The book makes a scathing indictment of China, alleging that it intentionally proliferated nuclear technology to "risky regimes", particularly Pakistan, the magazine said. The Chinese gave the nuclear technology to Pakistan as "India was China's enemy and Pakistan was India's enemy," Reed told the magazine. "Under Pakistani President Benazir Bhutto, the country built its first functioning nuclear weapon. We believe that during Bhutto's term in office, the People's Republic of China tested Pakistan's first bomb for her in 1990," he said. He said there are numerous reasons to believe this, including the design of the weapon and information gathered from discussions with Chinese nuclear experts. "That's why the Pakistanis were so quick to respond to the Indian nuclear tests in 1998. It only took them two weeks and three days," Reed said.India Defencechina, pakistan, nuclear