Prof. Prodyut Das 2

  A crisis of weapons development                                                                                       Prof. Prodyut Das   Two recent presentations attracted my attention. The first was by Dr. Deodhare , Director of ADA on the future programmes by ADA and the second was a piece in TOI of Mar 2, 2022 headed “Is DRDO to blame for India’s acute Import Dependence?” by RJD MP Amarendra Dhari Singh, member, consultative committee on Defence. He hastens to put a sub heading “No, defence R&D is a complex process, perfunctory evaluations do it grave injustice”.   One would think that 75 years after independence it is the nation- and not DRDO- that has suffered grave injustice. Certain projects of DRDO that not only failed to fructify but -thanks to a sustained and clever campaign of “it’s brilliant and it’s just around the corner” publicity it stymied any efforts to intervene decisively. The fact is that not all DRDO projects are being questioned. What is being question

  Developing the Tejas Mk 2 –a technical assessment                Prof. Prodyut Das   There were two interesting interviews related to the LCA project in November ‘21. One is a rather obsequious “interview” of the first Programme Director. The interview certified that ADA’s performance has been entirely to ADA’s own satisfaction. This is in contrast to the other interview by the new Air Chief who made no mention at all of the place of the LCA Mk II in the future re-equipment plans of the IAF. Given the trail of unkept promises of the LCA project this lack of mention in an important speech has triggered much speculation. One possible construct of the Air Force’s view, could be as follows: ADA has had an “order” for forty aircraft since 2003; about twenty have been delivered, just about sufficient to equip one squadron. The aircraft have serviceability and design problems resulting in an availability of around 46 hours/aircraft/per year as compared to the 225 hrs. /aircraft/year th