India to get Rafale jets sooner than 36 months

“As per terms of the deal it is 36 months (during which the delivery has to start), but it may come slightly earlier. We have requested them to (deliver it) as fast as possible,” he said. On September 23, India and France signed the Euro 7.87-billion (Rs 59,000 crore approx) deal for Rafale fighter jets, equipped with latest missiles and weapon system besides multiple India-specific modifications that will give the IAF greater “potency” over arch rival Pakistan. The ‘vanila price’ (just of the aircraft alone) will cost about 91 million Euros each for a single seater and about 94 million Euros for a two seater trainer aircraft. Parrikar also said that a 12-member committee to suggest structural changes in the military on cutting down flab and reducing revenue (maintenance) expenditure will soon submit its report. The committee is headed by Lt Gen (Retd) DB Shekatkar.

Even as the Opposition in Pakistan has launched full scale attack on the Nawaz Sharif government for not responding to the surgical strikes conducted by the Indian army, the Pakistani army was leaving no stone unturned to prove that the Line of Control was never breached.

Adding insult to its injuries, Defence Minister Parrikar said Pakistan is like a patient who has been given anaesthesia and doesn’t know that surgery has already been done on him. With mounting pressure from the Opposition back home which is not ready to buy “no surgical strikes” theory, the Pakistani Army took couple of foreign journalists also to the area of operation.

A pigeon, apparently from across the border, was taken into custody after a letter written in Urdu, addressed to Prime Minister Modi was found with it by BSF personnel in Bamial sector on Sunday. The development comes after two balloons were recovered with a similar message in the area on Saturday. The message read: “Modi Ji, do not consider us same people as we were during 1971 (Indo-Pak war). Now each and every child is ready to fight against India.”