It takes 8-10 years for a selection process to be carried through while the defence services wait. Indeed, in the end, there may be no acquisition at all.
A simulator for the aircraft had been installed in 2012, but could not be used for training because IAF & manufacturer couldn’t finalise a usage contract.
For an industry globally classified as hazardous, protections such as health insurance and a provident fund for workers are necessities. In Sivakasi, they remain elusive.
The industry forecasts exports are set to grow 16% in 2025-26, boosted by surplus domestic production and a drive to push into 26 underserved global markets with strong potential.
Indigenisation level will progressively increase up to 60 percent with key sub-assemblies, electronics and mechanical parts being manufactured locally.
It is a brilliant, reasonably priced, and mostly homemade aircraft with a stellar safety record; only two crashes in 24 years since its first flight. But its crash is a moment of introspection.
The CBI’s legal status itself is indeterminate. It had been held to be illegal by the Gauhati High Court. The apex court stayed that decision during UPA days and there the matter rests. If there is one abiding verity that has shone forth, with increasing luminosity in recent times, it is that no institution, whatever noble constitutional garments it is clothed in, is more autonomous, credible or upright than the people who man it. Let the debate not be hijacked by semantics, or setting up a Committee whose report will be filed away.
The CBI’s legal status itself is indeterminate. It had been held to be illegal by the Gauhati High Court. The apex court stayed that decision during UPA days and there the matter rests. If there is one abiding verity that has shone forth, with increasing luminosity in recent times, it is that no institution, whatever noble constitutional garments it is clothed in, is more autonomous, credible or upright than the people who man it. Let the debate not be hijacked by semantics, or setting up a Committee whose report will be filed away.