Hindustan Times, by Rahul Singh, published June 20, 2020, five days after the Galwan clash.

Two senior Army officers, speaking anonymously, said the Rules of Engagement along the LAC had been loosened. Local commanders can now decide how to respond at the tactical level, including using firearms in extraordinary situations.

One officer said nothing now limits what commanders can do, and that the change targets the brutal tactics used by Chinese troops.

PM Modi told an all-party meeting that the army had freedom to take necessary steps.

The 1996 and 2005 agreements bar firearms in face-offs. The 1996 pact also bars firing, blasting, or hunting with guns within 2 km of the LAC.
Troops on the border always carry weapons, but they keep them slung with magazines in pouches, not attached.

Jaishankar said the Galwan troops were armed and followed this long-standing practice, replying to Rahul Gandhi's question about whether they were sent

Retired Lt Gen BS Jaswal said that since soldiers carry weapons on patrol, they can inherently use them in unprecedented situations like Galwan. Other retired commanders and China watchers argued that Galwan and Pangong weren't classic face-offs but violent attacks, so the no-firearms norm shouldn't bind India there.

Source: W&G

Source: Goreunit

Source:

https://www.greaterkashmir.com/kashmir/bandipora-police-bust-alleged-clandestine-module-linked-to-banned-ittihad-ul-muslimeen-12745500

SSB Personnel Issuing Warnings Near India–Nepal Border in Biratnagar Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel are heard warning people about border restrictions and a 6 PM closure. The SSB personnel warn that action could follow if their instructions are ignored. the context of the confrontation and the authenticity of the video have not been independently verified.

https://x.com/Resonant_News/status/2113981029610557456

Courtesy - Vishwa Kiran.

https://www.pixnoy.com/post/6844634459121932325321/

https://www.pixnoy.com/post/6844414861714857342573/

Source: Goreunit

Like if look around the world.

Russia(UAC) SU-57
China(AVIC) J-20, J-31, J-XX
South Korea(KAI) KF-21
Turkey(TAI) KAAN
France(Dassault) FCAS

The principal executors of their programs are their National Champions in Aerospace and most of them are consolidated, yes Tier 1 and 2 suppliers are made up of many domestic companies but it's not like South Korea is doing the KF-21 with LG Aerospace and Hyundai Electronics or China with NORINCO Aerospace and Huawei Defense, if you get what I mean.

Their National Champions has the most experience and concentration of expertise so it really made sense they are the ones executing these very very hard projects.

Like hypothetically the if we pick consortium of Goodluck India Limited, BrahMos Aerospace Thiruvananthapuram Limited (BATL) and Axiscades Technologies, yeah they're in the aerospace sector, but would you really trust them to execute a 5th gen program for the very first time?

I'm not even offering a solution but a mere observation because the logical counterpart of an aerospace national champion in India, as we know, have many problems as well.

https://x.com/sidhant/status/2113988870241177752?s=20

Dear Raksha Mantri,

This is not a complaint. It is a proposal, and a fairly cheap one compared with most files that reach your desk.

On 27 March 2026, the Defence Acquisition Council that you chair cleared 60 Remotely Piloted Strike Aircraft (RPSA). This is the programme that grew out of DRDO's Ghatak stealth drone. Reports put it at about ₹39,000 crore: six prototypes, four squadrons, and induction within eight years. That was a bold and correct decision. It put India in a small group of countries building large unmanned combat jets.

This letter asks for the next step: a smaller, cheaper and faster cousin of the RPSA. It is called a Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCA. In plain words, a robot wingman. It flies next to a Rafale, a Su-30MKI or a Tejas. It carries missiles forward, jams enemy radars, and takes the risks we do not want our pilots to take.

The Americans have shown it can be done quickly. India has most of the ingredients. The rest of this letter makes the case in six steps: what the United States has done, why the Indian Air Force (IAF) needs this aircraft, how it differs from the RPSA already approved, what India already has, why we should build it in stages, and who should build it.

1. What the US Air Force just did

The American CCA story began with a research project called Skyborg, which tested autonomy software on drones. It then became part of a bigger plan: a new manned fighter leading a pack of cheaper unmanned jets. In January 2024 the US Air Force gave design contracts to five companies. In April 2024 it picked two, Anduril and General Atomics, to build test aircraft.

There was a setback. On 6 April 2026 a YFQ-42A crashed shortly after take-off. General Atomics found that the autopilot had miscalculated the aircraft's weight and balance. It fixed the software and was flying again on 21 May. The programme absorbed the loss and moved on. That is how low-cost combat aircraft are meant to work.

On 17 June 2026 the US Air Force gave production contracts to both companies, four months ahead of schedule. The contracts cover at least 150 aircraft by the end of the decade. The test prefix "Y" was dropped, and the aircraft became the FQ-42A and FQ-44A. The Air Force said the price was "roughly less than $30 million per tail", about a third of an F-35.

At the same time it gave separate contracts for the autonomy software, the "brain", to three firms. It will pick one, which must be ready by summer 2027. This is the "software sold separately" model: the airframe and the brain are bought apart, so each can be upgraded on its own.

On 27 July 2026 the first Ohio-built Fury rolled off the line. General Atomics announced full-scale manufacturing the next day. On 14 September 2026, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink gave the aircraft their names, Vengeance (FQ-42) and Fury (FQ-44), and said the Air Force wants "at least 500 of these in service by 2032". Officials have said the basic aircraft, without sensors, should cost about $20 million in the long run. The 2027 US budget request includes about $1 billion to start buying them.

One point of accuracy. It is often said that Anduril's CCA has "entered service". As of late September 2026 that is not quite right. Both aircraft are in mass production. Both are flying with a special Air Force test unit, which ran them in a war-game-style exercise in July 2026. But the Air Force says it will field them before 2030, and the software is due in 2027. The correct phrase is: in production and in operational testing, with fielding expected before the end of the decade. Even that is remarkable. In the time a normal fighter spends in design reviews, the US went from paper to a production line.

What a CCA does. The first version is deliberately modest. It is an air-to-air "missile truck" with a combat range of at least 700 nautical miles (about 1,300 km). The Fury is about half the size of an F-16, flies just below the speed of sound, and carries weapons on two stations under its wings. The FQ-42A carries two AMRAAMs inside its body. Neither is meant to dogfight. Their job is to fly ahead of a manned fighter. From there they can:

• extend the fighter's radar picture;
• fire a missile when the pilot orders it;
• jam or fool enemy radars;
• absorb the enemy's first shots.

The human stays in charge. The US Air Force repeats that a person, not the machine, decides when a weapon is fired. In September 2026 Anduril showed the Fury fitted with guided bombs and rocket pods, a preview of ground-attack roles for later versions.

Why this is the future of air war. The logic is arithmetic. A modern air defence, whether China's layered network with its PL-15 and PL-17 long-range missiles or a belt of S-400-class surface-to-air missiles, makes every manned flight into enemy airspace a gamble with a very expensive jet and an irreplaceable pilot. A fighter pilot takes years and crores to train, and no air force can produce more of them in a hurry.

A CCA changes the sums. To kill a drone built to be lost, the enemy must spend an expensive missile or switch on its radars and reveal itself. Numbers return to the sky without a matching rise in pilots. The manned jet stays outside the enemy's missile range while its wingmen push weapons and sensors forward. And a force spread across many cheap airframes is much harder to destroy than one concentrated in a few precious ones.

Other countries have reached the same conclusion. Australia's MQ-28 Ghost Bat, built by Boeing and powered by a small business-jet engine, fired a live AMRAAM at a target on 8 December 2025. The next day Australia ordered more, and it aims to have them operational in 2028. Turkey's Baykar has put its Kızılelma unmanned fighter into mass production using a Ukrainian engine, with first deliveries due in 2026.

Airbus is offering a "Wingman" to Germany. China showed at least four new wingman-type drones at its 3 September 2025 military parade, along with a version of its GJ-11 stealth drone for aircraft carriers. Russia is testing its heavy S-70. The club is growing fast, and both our main rivals are in it or buying their way in.

2. Why the IAF needs this now

The IAF in 2026 has a clear strength and a clear problem. The strength is quality. In Operation Sindoor in May 2025, Indian aircraft hit targets across the border with precision and beat back a determined Pakistani response of drones and missiles. The problem is numbers.

When the MiG-21 retired at Chandigarh on 26 September 2025 after 62 years, the fighter force fell to 29 squadrons, the lowest in six decades. That is around 560 aircraft, against the 42 squadrons (roughly 850 aircraft) the government has approved for a two-front war. Some planners want that target raised after Sindoor. The Jaguar, MiG-29 and Mirage 2000 fleets will all retire over the next decade or so.

Replacements are coming, but slowly. The Tejas Mk1A is a good aircraft, and India has ordered 83 and then 97 more. The second batch, at ₹62,370 crore, works out to about ₹640 crore per jet. But not a single Mk1A has been delivered yet. The American F404 engines that power it have arrived slowly; HAL had ten by August 2026. HAL's new chairman told ANI on 18 September 2026 that "we are still not there yet" on deliveries. The first Mk1A squadron is now expected in 2027.

The Rafale route works, but it is expensive. The Navy signed for 26 Rafale-M jets in April 2025 for about $7.4 billion. For the IAF's 114-aircraft requirement, Dassault's offer of 6 August 2026 is reported at about ₹3.25 lakh crore. Only 18 to 20 would arrive ready-built; the rest would be assembled in India. That is roughly ₹2,800 crore per aircraft once everything in the package is counted. The AMCA, India's own fifth-generation fighter, will not be a squadron until the 2030s.

Across the border, the threat is growing. China has hundreds of J-20s, is adding the J-35, and is spending heavily on drone wingmen. Pakistan flies J-10Cs armed with PL-15 missiles, and has shown interest in the J-35A. Sindoor taught three lessons:

• Long-range missiles decide air battles. The IAF showed the tail section of a Chinese PL-15 that fell near Hoshiarpur in Punjab.
• Networks matter. Radars, fighters and missiles linked together multiply every shooter.

A CCA answers all three at once. It multiplies the combat power of every Rafale, Su-30MKI and Tejas without a single extra pilot. At the American price of $20–30 million, roughly ₹170–250 crore, it costs about a tenth of a fully packaged Rafale and a third of a Tejas Mk1A. It can be lost, as losing one is a line in a budget, not a national headline. It can carry Astra missiles forward so a Su-30MKI can fire from outside the PL-15's reach.

The platform can carry a jammer, a decoy, or a Rudram anti-radar missile to tempt enemy air defences into switching on, and then punish them. Most importantly, it can close the squadron gap faster than any manned programme. Give two CCAs to each fighter in a 16-jet squadron and you have doubled that squadron's missile load, with no new pilots and no new bases.

Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh has already stated the doctrine. In May 2026 he said drones had become "claws in the sky" rather than mere eyes, that the IAF is "moving away from concentrated air power to a more decentralised and autonomous approach", and that "the future is manned and unmanned teaming". He has also warned that "technology delayed is technology denied". A CCA programme turns those words into a squadron.

3. This is not the RPSA you have already approved

A fair question from the ministry is: we have just sanctioned 60 unmanned strike aircraft, so why do we need another drone programme? The answer is that the RPSA and the CCA are different aircraft for different jobs, in the same way that a bomber and a fighter are different.

The RPSA is a big machine. It is a stealthy flying wing weighing around 13 tonnes, powered by the roughly 50 kN Kaveri Dry engine, with a bay inside for about 1.5 tonnes of bombs. Its job is to fly deep into heavily defended enemy territory, alone or in small groups, and destroy high-value targets: airfields, missile sites, command posts. Stealth is the whole point, and stealth is expensive.

The ₹39,000 crore covers development plus 60 aircraft, so each will cost several hundred crore. It is not an aircraft we can afford to lose casually. Its closest American relatives are the secret stealth drones used for spying and deep strikes, not the Fury. An eight-year path to induction reflects that ambition.

The CCA is a much smaller, simpler machine. It weighs 2 to 5 tonnes, flies just below the speed of sound, and is priced at ₹150–250 crore so that losing one is acceptable. It does not go deep alone. It flies beside a manned fighter, connected in real time by a data link. Its first job is air-to-air combat and jamming, not bombing. It carries two Astra missiles or a jammer forward so that the manned jet can stay out of the enemy's missile range. HAL's CATS Warrior is India's existing design in this class.

Some reports have described the Ghatak/RPSA as a future "wingman" for the AMCA. That is true only loosely: a stealth strike partner flying with a stealth fighter. It is not the cheap, numerous wingman that the US CCA is. The two programmes actually help each other.

A heavier CCA could share the Kaveri Dry engine with the RPSA, giving that engine the long production run it has never had. The RPSA's model of using a private company as development partner, and its work on autonomy, can be reused directly. India needs both aircraft: the RPSA to strike deep, and the CCA to give our fighter squadrons back their numbers.

4. What a basic Indian CCA needs, and what India already has

The trap to avoid is designing a miniature AMCA. A usable first version needs eight things:

• an airframe of roughly 2–5 tonnes, flying just below the speed of sound, with some shaping to reduce its radar signature;
• one suitable engine;
• sensors, which at first can be minimal, with the drone told where to look by the manned fighter or a Netra radar aircraft;
• secure, jam-proof data links to the fighter and to the IAF's air defence network (IACCS);
• basic electronic self-protection;
• autonomy software for take-off, landing, flying in formation, following a route and avoiding threats, with weapons fired only on human command;
• runway take-off and landing, with a simple ground control station.

Set that list against what Indian industry already has, and the gaps shrink fast.

The engine question is smaller than it looks. A fighter needs an afterburning engine of 80–100 kN. An unmanned aircraft carrying two Astras does not. One engine of 20–50 kN without afterburner is enough for a 3–6 tonne aircraft flying just below the speed of sound, and India already works in that range. The Kaveri, dropped from the Tejas in 2008, has found a second life as the Kaveri Dry Engine. Indian reports say the first production-standard engine was handed over in September 2025, after about 70 hours of ground tests in Bengaluru and 75 hours of flying tests on a testbed aircraft in Russia. The Ministry has set 2026 as the certification target. HAL's 25 kN HTFE-25, meant for drones of up to five tonnes, passed a milestone in August 2026 when its core reached 99.5% of its design speed.

Two sensible paths follow. A heavier CCA could share the Kaveri Dry with the RPSA. A lighter one could be built around the HTFE-25. And to stop the engine deciding the schedule, the first prototypes could fly on an imported business-jet engine, as Australia's Ghost Bat does, and switch to the Indian engine once it is certified. Turkey did the same with Kızılelma.

The airframe already has a head start. HAL's CATS Warrior, developed with the Bengaluru start-up NewSpace Research & Technologies, ran its engines on a full-scale demonstrator on 11 January 2025 and was shown at Aero India in February 2025. In its current form it is about a two-tonne aircraft with two small jet engines, sized for two air-to-air missiles and two SAAW bombs. HAL's chairman told ANI on 18 September 2026: "Now we have started building the prototypes of CATS Warrior.

Next year, we are planning for certification." HAL has also spoken of larger 5-tonne and 7-tonne versions. Separately, DRDO's SWiFT demonstrator has been flying the Ghatak's flying-wing shape since July 2022. None of this is a finished CCA. But it is a real starting point.

Weapons are India's strongest card. The Astra Mk1 is in service on the Su-30MKI and Tejas. The Astra Mk2, with an Indian radar seeker and a longer range, has cleared its trials and is reported to be entering production. The ramjet-powered Astra Mk3 follows. For hunting enemy radars, the Rudram missiles and the SAAW already exist. A CCA carrying two Astra Mk2s, guided by a Netra or a Su-30MKI's radar, would be a serious answer to the PL-15-armed J-10C from the day it enters service.

The honest summary: the technology for a first Indian CCA exists or is close. What is missing is the programme itself: a written requirement from Air Headquarters, money set aside, a competition and a guaranteed production order. Anduril and General Atomics went from contract to first flight in 15–18 months because the requirement was frozen early, the scope was kept small and the money was committed.

India can realistically aim for first flight within 24–36 months of sanction, and a first operational squadron in about five years. That depends on three things: freezing the requirement at "missile truck, decoy, jammer"; letting prototypes fly on whatever engine is available; and putting the IAF's own test pilots (ASTE) inside the programme from day one, not at the end.

5. Build "good enough" first, then keep improving it

The most important design decision is humility. India should not try to match every American feature in version one. The Americans did not. Their first version is openly a basic missile carrier, with harder jobs pushed to version two. Australia built eight Block 1 Ghost Bats to learn from, then ordered Block 2, and is only now adding an internal weapons bay in Block 3. Turkey flew Kızılelma on an imported engine and started mass production while testing continued. Every successful CCA effort has been built in stages.

An Indian roadmap could look like this:

• Version 1: a subsonic missile truck, decoy and jammer. Flies on an available engine. Carries two Astras or two SAAWs under the wings. Minimal sensors; guided by the Rafale, Su-30MKI, Tejas and Netra. Basic autonomy under firm human control. Goal: enter IAF service and mass production.
• Version 2: Kaveri Dry or HTFE-25 as the standard engine, a compact AESA radar, better stealth shaping, more autonomy, and a version for the Navy's aircraft carriers.
• Version 3: weapons carried inside the body, a supersonic dash if pilots want it, and full integration with the AMCA and the RPSA.

Starting mass production early matters for four reasons. First, cost falls with volume, and suppliers only invest in factories when they see an order book. Second, industry needs volume: a run of 100-plus airframes would keep dozens of small firms busy in composites, actuators, data links and engines, and would finally give the Kaveri Dry a real production line. Third, operators write better requirements than committees.

The US created a test unit so pilots and ground crews could shape tactics and the next version. An IAF CCA flight at a frontline base would teach us more in a year than a decade of studies. Fourth, exports follow. India's defence exports reached a record ₹38,424 crore in 2025-26, against your target of ₹50,000 crore by 2029. An affordable combat drone with Indian weapons would suit friendly air forces across Asia, the Gulf, Africa and Latin America that cannot afford large manned fleets.

6. Who should build it: two teams, one winner, a guaranteed order

The US Air Force's best decision was to keep two companies competing, and then to buy from both. India should copy that.

Team B, private sector: a private company or group chosen by competition. The candidates are strong: Tata Advanced Systems, L&T, Adani Defence, Bharat Forge, Mahindra, Solar Industries, and specialists such as NewSpace, Alpha Design, Zen Technologies, ideaForge and Data Patterns. The RPSA's own model, with a private firm as development and production partner, shows the Ministry is already comfortable giving private companies design authority over a combat drone.

The steps are simple:

• Write the requirement. Air Headquarters issues a short, firm Air Staff Requirement within six months.
• Fund two competing teams. Two or three flying prototypes each is enough. Use the "Make-I" route in the procurement rules, with the Technology Development Fund and iDEX for subsystems like autonomy, data links and sensors.
• Buy the brain separately. Buy the airframe and the mission software as two contracts, as the US does, so Indian software firms can compete to provide the "brain".
• Promise to buy. Announce up front a production commitment of, say, 100 aircraft for the winner or winners. That signal, more than any subsidy, brings private money in.
• Embed the testers. Put the IAF's ASTE inside the programme from the start.
• Bring in the Navy early. With Rafale-M on order and the Navy's own TEDBF fighter still a decade away, a carrier version of the CCA would add punch to our carriers long before the next manned naval fighter arrives.

For scale: the RPSA's development phase is reported to cost about ₹10,000 crore for six large stealth prototypes. A CCA effort with two teams and four to six smaller, simpler prototypes could plausibly be done for a fraction of that. A first batch of 100 aircraft at ₹150–250 crore each would cost ₹15,000–25,000 crore, spread over several years. That is well under a tenth of the reported 114-Rafale package, for 100 more combat aircraft. These are my rough estimates, not official figures, but the order of magnitude is not in doubt.

The ask

Raksha Mantri-ji, you have already made the hard choices. You cleared the RPSA. You have pushed indigenisation, private-sector participation and exports to record levels. You have watched the Air Chief put manned-unmanned teaming at the centre of IAF thinking. The CCA is the missing piece between today's manned fleet and tomorrow's AMCA-and-RPSA force. It is the one programme that can add real combat numbers before 2031.

The case fits on one page. The Americans went from choosing two companies to a production line in about two years, and plan 500 wingmen by 2032. India has the engines, the missiles, the radars, the data links and a flying start in CATS Warrior and SWiFT. A first Indian CCA would cost about a tenth of a Rafale, needs no new pilots, and would double the missile load of every squadron it joins.

The plan is simple. India must a modest requirement, fund two competing teams, fly within three years, induct within five, commit to mass production, and improve it every few years.

Please fund a CCA project. Please do it now.

https://swarajyamag.com/defence/dear-raksha-mantri-please-fund-a-collaborative-combat-aircraft-project-asap

IMAGE SOURCE: @vaasilyaarkhipov (on X)

Source - Central Air Command

Source of image is indianarmy.adgpi on instagram

To put this into context that 3200 engine supply to India will give GE a revenue of approximately $96Bn . That is the business numbers & forex drain an Indian engine can help bring under control .

how high can the intensity of conventional strikes go before hitting the nuclear threshold, given both nations' nuclear doctrines and also Given the saturation of advanced air defense systems (S-400, HQ-9 series) and long-range BVR missiles (PL-15, Meteor), will air power primarily serve as a standoff missile-launching platform rather than entering contested airspace?

Give your opinion in the comments

​

One rabbit hole I recently went down was the Chin National Front in Myanmar. These guys have been fighting the military junta, and their story is pretty interesting from an Indian perspective, especially given how closely connected the Chin people are to communities across the Mizoram border.

What really caught my attention was the Matthew VanDyke case. VanDyke, along with six Ukrainians, was arrested in India over allegations linked to training ethnic armed groups in Myanmar in drone warfare. The whole thing is fascinating when you consider how important drones have become in modern conflicts, including Myanmar's civil war.

There's also a lesser-known cultural angle. Some Chin, Kuki and Mizo communities trace their ancestry to the biblical Israelites, particularly the tribe of Manasseh. This is connected to the B'nei Menashe, a community that adopted Judaism and established links with Israel.

What makes this interesting to me is how everything overlaps: an ongoing civil war, foreign volunteers and trainers, drone warfare, communities with unusual historical connections, and India's own security concerns along its northeastern border.

Myanmar might look distant to people living elsewhere in India, but for Mizoram and the wider Northeast, it's right next door. Whatever happens there can have real consequences for India.

This group always has been pro india regularly they have attacked metei and kuki groups hiding in Myanmar along with the arkan army van dyke and ukranians were arrested because of visa violations and bringing drones without permission . in 2024 one BJP mp from the northeast was sent to meet leaders of chin national army and the arakan army In camp Victoria

Honestly, the more you read about the region, the more you realise how much is happening along that border that barely gets discussed in mainstream Indian conversations.

Azov and van dyke did our job easier https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/mizoram/mizoram-mp-visits-rebel-outfit-in-myanmar-asks-them-to-join-the-indian-union/article69295554.ece/amp/

Maharashtra ATS arrested Mohammad Hasan Abu Sarmad Akhtar (33), linked to the banned terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed, near Mahim Metro station based on a tip-off. The ATS alleges he spread radical ideas while working as a Rapido rider and perfume seller, attempted to incite communal hatred through social media, and had alleged anti-national material on his phone. He allegedly ran a Telegram group and shared inflammatory speeches by Maulana Masood Azhar on June 1, 2026, and was active in the Pakistan-backed 'IBN-e-Qasim' channel: Maharashtra ATS

Can i join the National Defence Academy with hypothyroid? Its treatable and manageable with proper medication.

We are still using stuff which we bought during Rajiv Gandhi gov , half of our planes are worthless and same is true for our submarines , tanks, guns and so on.

Could a government hopefully push 5% of GDP(200B+ ) to army and in the next 5-10 years get us a 5th gen plane, new submarine fleet, a ton of border infra and s on?