After Pakistan, this Muslim country may buy Chinese 5th generation fighter jet J-35, is it better than Rafale? Country is…, not Turkey, Saudi, UAE, Iran
After Pakistan, this Muslim country may buy Chinese 5th generation fighter jet J-35, is it better than Rafale? Country is..., not Turkey, Saudi, UAE, Iran
Cairo: Pakistan announced the purchase of the 'Made In China' stealth fighter jet J-35 in January 2024. After a recent faceoff with India, it has been revealed that Beijing is going to deliver a few units of the J-35 fighter jets to Pakistan in the coming three months. As per several media reports, it is being revealed that after Pakistan, another Muslim country is showing interest in the China-made fifth-generation stealth fighter jet. A high-ranking officer of the Egyptian Air Force has shown interest in the J-35 aircraft. If Egypt really moves forward with purchasing the fighter jet, then this will indicate a major change in its military procurement strategy.
According to Morocco-based outlet Defense Arabic, Egyptian Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Mahmoud Fuad Abdel Gawad had a discussion with Beijing regarding J-35 during the bilateral exercise 'Eagles of Civilization 2025' which was held at Wadi Abu Rish Air Base. During the meeting he looked very curious about J-35. Apart from this, Chinese officials were also giving information about their aircraft to the Egyptian Air Force officer with great interest. Will Egypt Buy Chinese Stealth Fighter Jets?
However, the report of Egypt purchasing China's J-35 fighter jets has not been confirmed by either Cairo or Beijing. But this indicates to a major geopolitical change in the Middle East. Israel is already operating American F-35 stealth fighter jets to safeguard its borders.
Notably, the Egyptian Air Force and Chinese Air Force organised a joint exercise called – 'Eagles of Civilisation 2025'. This indicates that the air forces of both countries are coming closer. This exercise, which was held at an airbase southeast of Cairo, included several advanced fighter jets such as China's J-10C multirole fighters, KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft, Y-20 transport planes, and YU-20 aerial tankers. During this exercise, MiG-29M/M2 jets participated from Egypt's side. J-35 Fighter Jet
J-35 or Gyrfalcon, is a fifth-generation stealth fighter jet of China. It has been developed by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation. The fighter aircraft is specially designed for stealth capability, high-tech avionics and multi-role missions. The fighter jet has a special shape and coating to avoid enemy radar. The double-engine fighter jet is loaded with AESA radar, infrared tracking, and a digital cockpit.
J-35 is capable of carrying missiles and bombs like PL-10, PL-15. Notably, the Dragon has built the fighter jet to compete with stealth jets such as America's F-35 and F-22 Raptor. Beijing is now aiming to sell it to other countries.
If Egypt decides to buy the J-35 from China, the decision will be a big setback for the French Rafale fighter jet. According to reports, talks are going on between Egypt and France regarding the Rafale.
Egypt is also demanding technology transfer from France. In such a situation, there is now a possibility of major competition between the French Rafale and J-35 in Egypt.
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Hindustan Times
36 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Asaduddin Owaisi slams Pakistan for diverting foreign aid to army, not public welfare
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP Asaduddin Owaisi, part of an all-party delegation led by BJP MP Baijayant Panda, said the funds given to Pakistan by countries like Saudi Arabia and the IMF are being used by the Pakistani Army, and not being used for public welfare. He said the Indian government must now work to get Pakistan back on the FATF grey list. Speaking to ANI, Asaduddin Owaisi said, "All of us have tried our had come from different parts of the country. In Saudi Arabia, we were told that, in 2022, Saudi Arabia had given $2 billion and renewed a loan of $30 million recently. The IMF is giving $2 billion. We had requested and explained to them the monitoring of all these funds. This money is going to the Pakistani Army. This money is not being used to develop the people of it is now the responsibility of our government to bring Pakistan back to the FATF grey list." He further added that all countries were worried about terrorism. He also said that they reminded them that Pakistan claims its false bogey of being a Muslim country, while 240 million Muslims are living peacefully in India. "All these countries were definitely worried about reminded them that Pakistan claims its false bogey of being a Muslim country. I reminded them at many places that, 240 million Muslims are living in India, so this argument of Pakistan is completely gave them the exact scenario of what happened in Pahalgam and how people were shot dead based on their religion by the terrorists from hope that Pakistan will be brought back into FATF (grey list)...India has a very strong case against Pakistan," Owaisi said. Owaisi also responded to Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi's remarks on Operation Sindoor, in which Gandhi had questioned US President Donald Trump's interference in the matter. He said that his party is competent enough to reply to him, but the information about the cessation of shelling and firing should have been announced by the Indian government, not the US President. "His party is competent enough to reply to him. But, my initial reaction after the cessation of shelling and firing was that our government should have announced that cessation, not the US President, because he is not the political head of our country. That has been my stand and that continues to be my stand...I am proud of my defence forces for what they have done...I hope that in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament, the government will have a debate on Pahalgam. We must fix the accountability for the Pahalgam incident. If the Modi government says tomorrow that it is a very sensitive issue and can't be debated. Then the rules and procedure of the Parliament allow the government to discuss a sensitive subject in camera," Owaisi said. He also said that there should be a discussion on the Pahalgam attack in the forthcoming monsoon session of parliament. "In this forthcoming monsoon session, we must have a debate on Pahalgam (attack). Why was there a security lapse? Who is accountable for it? What is our deterrence policy? This will be our main demand in the forthcoming monsoon session", Owaisi said. The delegation, led by Panda, included BJP MPs Nishikant Dubey, Phangnon Konyak and Rekha Sharma; AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi; Satnam Singh Sandhu and Ghulam Nabi Azad; and former Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla. During their visit, the delegation briefed international partners on India's response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor, highlighting the broader fight against cross-border terrorism while engaging with leaders in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Algeria. (ANI)
The Print
an hour ago
- The Print
Bakrid needs a makeover. India's poor need laptops & AC, not gift of meat
The way Baqreed is celebrated in the Indian subcontinent is vastly different from how it is done in other Muslim, mainly Arab, countries. There, it is observed more as a ritual than celebrated as a festival. It passes silently and unnoticeably, without any public display of the wealth splurged on the sacrificial animal, and without creating a civic crisis with animal refuse littered all over. They have abattoirs or designated places for the purpose, and have a system for meat distribution and waste disposal. Unlike India, they don't slaughter animals in streets and courtyards, or on rooftops and verandahs – and they don't leave their remains in the open for crows and stray dogs to scatter far and wide. The questions about animal sacrifice are often not related to one's dietary preference for meat. Rather, they're about the gory spectacle of slaughter. Animals — in many places even those whose slaughter is banned by law — are displayed in the open, paraded on roads, and butchered and disembowelled on thoroughfares. Their offal is strewn in the streets, and their blood smears the pathways. It is, to say the least, obscene, revolting, and sickening. It is also an offence — often calculated and deliberate — against the sensitivity, civility, and decency of ordinary people. The Muslim festival of Baqreed is round the corner, and once again, social media is rife with arguments in opposition to, and support of, the animal sacrifice it entails. Like every year, animal rights activists are raising concerns about the cruelty and violence Baqreed brings in its wake. The Muslim retort to this objection is that a majority of Indians consume non-vegetarian food regularly, and that animals, in any case, are being slaughtered every day. So, why couldn't Indian Muslims create such a system? Those who spend lakhs of rupees on animals of sacrifice could easily create such facilities too. Perhaps Baqreed in India has been meant to be celebrated in a demonstrative way. Historically, its semiotics of power and domination were important cultural weapons for intimidating the Hindu populace and strengthening Muslim rule. Since the beginning of Muslim rule in India, Baqreed has been a political, or power, festival denoting the readiness for violence. Even now, people can be heard talking about the number of qurbani (sacrifices) in different areas to assess the standing that Muslims have in those places. How intricately the motifs of violence and domination are imbricated in the performance of animal sacrifice could be surmised from a small autobiographical aside. As a child, this writer would be exhorted to watch the rite of sacrifice so that his heart could become strong (dil mazboot hoga). I guess it was a euphemism for inoculation against violence. Also read: Old Delhi's Bakrid goats are living king-size in UP. Morning gargle, sprinklers, big meals The original cow politics How politically fraught Baqreed has been is clear from its nomenclature. Its real name is Eid-ul Ad'ha (as per Arabic phonetics), or Eid-ul Az'ha (as per Indian phonetics). Baqreed is a uniquely Indian name (The 'q' in it is used to represent the epiglottal 'k' of Arabic). Baqr in Arabic means cow. The second, and the longest, surah in the Quran is named Al-Baqara, or The Cow. Thus, Baqreed means the Eid of Cow, a festival in which the cow is sacrificed. So, how did this festival come to be known as Baqreed in the Indian subcontinent? During Muslim rule, besides the demolition of temples, cow slaughter was institutionalised as a means to keep Hindus perpetually demoralised. Those who were converted to Islam had to undergo the rite of passage through repeated and regular ingestion of beef. It was the litmus test of their conversion. In fact, for converts, there wasn't much to being a Muslim other than eating beef. Once they consumed this meat, they broke the biggest taboo, lost their caste, and burnt their bridges with the society to which they belonged. They were stranded forever and could never return home. That's why an addiction to beef was promoted among the converts. And what better way to develop the cult of beef than tweaking a festival of sacrifice into the mass slaughter of cows while naming it after the hapless bovine. Nowhere in the world do Muslims have such a fascination for beef as in India, and nowhere in the world is cow slaughter part of the performative religiosity of Islam. The irony is even starker. Not only does the cow have no significance in Islam, and its sacrifice has no merit whatsoever, but the animal sacrifice during Eid-ul Az'ha itself is not mandatory or farz for the Muslim. Most schools of Islamic jurisprudence regard it as sunnat – a non-binding practice of Prophet Muhammad – under the supererogatory nafl category, which makes it a voluntary act. Even the Hanafi school treats it as only obligatory (wajib), a degree below farz. Animal sacrifice has been a rite of the Haj pilgrimage, but it becomes mandatory only if one undertakes Umra (lesser pilgrimage) in addition to the main Haj. Reformulation of sacrifice It was politics, essentially, that made qurbani effectively a farz for every financially competent (sahib-e nisab) person. Now that the days of such politics are over, Islam, too, needs to depoliticise and reformulate itself as per the ethical requirements of this age. One of the first changes should be to either fully discard the word Baqreed or modify its spelling in Urdu to phonetically resemble the already existing Bakrid. It can be achieved by substituting the 'q' in it – which represents the epiglottal sound of badi qaaf – with 'k', which represents the softer chhoti kaaf. This change would alter the meaning, making it 'the festival of goat', as is commonly believed due to the similarity between words used for cow and goat. Also read: Jains in Old Delhi dressed up as Muslims to buy 124 goats. 'Saved them from Bakrid sacrifice' Reinterpretation of sacrifice Beyond the semantics and phonetics, the very concept of qurbani has been crying for reforms. According to the Islamic tradition, Eid-ul Az'ha is the remembrance of the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham)'s willingness to sacrifice his son in obedience to God's command. Pleased with his wholehearted submission to the divine will, God spared him filicide and substituted his son with a sheep at the altar. This story is a parable for the evolution of religion as it transitioned from human to animal sacrifice. Conceptually, sacrifice wasn't about killing. It was about offering to God what one held most precious — one's life, one's son's life, or one's property. In pastoral and agricultural societies, animals were the primary form of property. In different languages, the words used for them had an economic connotation. The word cattle means property, and livestock conveys the same sense. Farmers in North India have long used the word maal (property) for cattle. The pristine ethos of sacrifice is neither about killing nor about the destruction of property. Rather, it's about serving God by sharing one's bounties with fellow beings. Sharing food has been the elementary way of charity in societies haunted by scarcity. Sharing meat was a premium form of charity, which validated animal sacrifices. But now that not many go to sleep on an empty stomach, and people don't really look forward to a gift of meat from a wealthy neighbour, does the purported rationale of feeding the poor still validate such actions? Now that cattle is no longer the primary form of wealth, can the ritual slaughter of animals still qualify as sacrifice – especially if the concept behind the ritual is about setting aside a portion of one's wealth for the poor? Does it still bring one closer to God, as is implied by 'qurbani'? The word is derived from the Arabic triliteral q-r-b, which means nearness. Poverty is a relative term. In present times, it doesn't mean hunger. Underprivileged people today might be more in need of a laptop for their daughter's education, or of some money to make their son's startup dream a reality. They might even need an air conditioner to sleep well in the scorching summer. Such individuals don't wait for a handful of mutton from a neighbour's house. The metrics of poverty have changed. The idea of charity, therefore, should also change – along with notions of what one should sacrifice to alleviate the difficulties of those less fortunate. Also read: Indian laws are letting animals down every day. It's a legal, moral, ethical issue Compassion, ethics of sacrifice There is an ethical and philosophical question involved: Could life be sacrificed in the name of God? Some religions, such as Jainism, hold all life sacred. Even in Islam, killing an animal for food is no ordinary matter. It requires a special dispensation from God, who is the most merciful and the most compassionate. That is why animals are ritually slaughtered only after invoking Allah's name – it makes halal (permissible) what is otherwise haram (forbidden). The philosopher Karl Jaspers pointed out how compassion became a central tenet of religious ethics between the 8th and 3rd century BCE. In this period, new ways of thinking appeared around the world, which changed religion and philosophy forever. Jaspers named this period the Achsenzeit or Axial Age. In India, this was the time when the Vedic sacrificial cult came under attack from the heterodox philosophies of Shramanic traditions such as Jainism and Buddhism. They popularised a new culture of peace, non-violence, and compassion. The Vedic tradition was able to make a comeback only after it renounced the sacrificial cult, embraced ahimsa, and adopted vegetarianism. We are living in another transformative age. The ideas of vegetarianism, even veganism, have gained ground. The Muslims have generally ignored these trends. But if Islam has to remain relevant, it will have to take cognisance of contemporary developments. In an age that is sensitive to violence against animals, sacrifices appear primitive and anachronistic. In history, religions evolved from human to cattle sacrifice. Should they not evolve further into another form of sacrifice? The continuance of the cult of sacrifice to this age is a sign of primitivism. It's said in the Quran, 'It is not the sacrificed animal's meat nor their blood that reaches God; it is your piety that reaches Him.' (22:37) Islam needs to discard the cult of sacrifice if it wishes to arrest its descent into a cult of violence. Ibn Khaldun Bharati is a student of Islam, and looks at Islamic history from an Indian perspective. He tweets @IbnKhaldunIndic. Views are personal. Editor's note: We know the writer well and only allow pseudonyms when we do so. (Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Fund money is going to Pakistani Army, not being used for development of people: Asaduddin Owaisi
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP Asaduddin Owaisi , part of an all-party delegation led by BJP MP Baijayant Panda, said the funds given to Pakistan by countries like Saudi Arabia and the IMF are being used by the PakistArmy, and not being used for public welfare. He said the Indian government must now work to get Pakistan back on the FATF grey list . Speaking to ANI, Owaisi said, "All of us have tried our had come from different parts of the country. In Saudi Arabia, we were told that, in 2022, Saudi Arabia had given $2 billion and renewed a loan of $30 million recently. The IMF is giving $2 billion. We had requested and explained to them the monitoring of all these funds. This money is going to the Pakistani Army. This money is not being used to develop the people of it is now the responsibility of our government to bring Pakistan back to the FATF grey list." He further added that all countries were worried about terrorism. He also said that they reminded them that Pakistan claims its false bogey of being a Muslim country, while 240 million Muslims are living peacefully in India. "All these countries were definitely worried about reminded them that Pakistan claims its false bogey of being a Muslim country. I reminded them at many places that, 240 million Muslims are living in India, so this argument of Pakistan is completely gave them the exact scenario of what happened in Pahalgam and how people were shot dead based on their religion by the terrorists from hope that Pakistan will be brought back into FATF (grey list)...India has a very strong case against Pakistan," Owaisi said. Live Events Owaisi also responded to Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi's remarks on Operation Sindoor , in which Gandhi had questioned US President Donald Trump's interference in the matter. He said that his party is competent enough to reply to him, but the information about the cessation of shelling and firing should have been announced by the Indian government, not the US President. "His party is competent enough to reply to him. But, my initial reaction after the cessation of shelling and firing was that our government should have announced that cessation, not the US President, because he is not the political head of our country. That has been my stand and that continues to be my stand...I am proud of my defence forces for what they have done...I hope that in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament, the government will have a debate on Pahalgam. We must fix the accountability for the Pahalgam incident. If the Modi government says tomorrow that it is a very sensitive issue and can't be debated. Then the rules and procedure of the Parliament allow the government to discuss a sensitive subject in camera," Owaisi said. He also said that there should be a discussion on the Pahalgam attack in the forthcoming monsoon session of parliament. "In this forthcoming monsoon session, we must have a debate on Pahalgam (attack). Why was there a security lapse? Who is accountable for it? What is our deterrence policy? This will be our main demand in the forthcoming monsoon session", Owaisi said. The delegation, led by Panda, included BJP MPs Nishikant Dubey, Phangnon Konyak and Rekha Sharma; AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi; Satnam Singh Sandhu and Ghulam Nabi Azad; and former Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla. During their visit, the delegation briefed international partners on India's response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor, highlighting the broader fight against cross-border terrorism while engaging with leaders in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Algeria. Economic Times WhatsApp channel )
