
Pakistan Air Force: The mysterious 70-year-old US software behind PAF's power, used against India during..., name is...
Operation Sindoor by the Indian Air Force was not just a military mission, it became a symbol of India's smart planning, advanced technology, and strong strategy. Under this operation, the Indian Army carried out precise and powerful airstrikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). India used its latest fighter jet, the Rafale, in the operation. The Rafale jets were able to dodge Pakistan's air defence systems and hit their targets accurately. The most surprising part? Pakistan didn't even realize they were under attack until the Indian planes had already completed their mission and returned.
Though Pakistani media and officials are trying to deny the attack, satellite images and reports from global defence experts clearly show that Operation Sindoor was a serious military blow for Pakistan. J-10CE vs Rafale
After Operation Sindoor, Pakistan claimed that its Chinese-made J-10CE fighter jets had matched up to India's Rafale jets. But did that really happen?
According to Quwa, a website that covers defence issues, the strength of Pakistan's Air Force doesn't lie in new jets, but in the old training systems provided by the US. Back in the 1950s, the U.S. gave Pakistan aircraft like the F-86 Sabre along with a full operational software system that included pilot training, squadron management, and technical infrastructure.
But in real combat, what matters more than training and tech is strategy, precision, and the will to win.
On one hand, Rafale jets come with advanced features like: The ability to attack multiple targets at once
Low observability (making it hard to detect)
The deadly Meteor air-to-air missile, known for long-range accuracy
On the other hand, Pakistan's J-10CE is simply a new toy, bought from China, but not tested in serious real-world combat. Rafale has proven itself in real war situations
While Pakistan's J-10CE may look strong on paper, its real-world battle experience is still untested. In contrast, India's Rafale jets have already shown their strength in actual combat scenarios, be it the preparedness after Kargil or the Balakot airstrike.
Now, let's talk about the mysterious 'software system' that websites like Quwa often mention.
According to Quwa, back in 1950, under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP), the United States not only gave Pakistan advanced fighter aircraft but also shared a complete Air Force management system. This included: A Depot-Level Maintenance system
Strict flight safety protocols
Separate departments for Operations, Maintenance, and Administration
This system helped Pakistan build a structured and disciplined Air Force. Air Marshal Asghar Khan played a key role in putting this system into action. In fact, the Air Force headquarters was moved from Rawalpindi to Peshawar to give it a separate identity from the army.
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The Hindu
29 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Necropolitics: who is allowed to live and who may die
Have you ever noticed how an airstrike in Mumbai triggers national outrage, but a similar attack in Kashmir rarely breaks through the noise? We're so accustomed to hearing about violence there that it barely feels like news. It's as if deaths in these regions are already anticipated and normalised. These aren't just accidents of geography. They are symptoms of a deeper system, a politics that decides whose lives are worth grieving and whose deaths are simply part of the landscape. Necropolitics is the use of political power to determine who is allowed to live and who can be made to die. It describes how states and institutions manage death by exposing certain populations, such as refugees, the poor, or racialised communities, to violence, abandonment, or structural neglect. Coined by Cameroonian historian Achille Mbembe in a 2003 essay and later expanded in his book Necropolitics (2019), the concept builds on Michel Foucault's notion of biopolitics but shifts the focus. While biopolitics is concerned with managing life and populations, necropolitics interrogates the power to let people die, deciding who is disposable, who may be sacrificed, and whose suffering is structurally ignored. Biopolitics versus necropolitics Foucault traces how the organisation of power changed over time: from sovereign power, where rulers exercised authority through public spectacles of death, to disciplinary power, which works through institutions like schools and prisons to train individuals using surveillance and routine. This evolved into biopower — the control of entire populations through the optimisation of life via vaccination, sanitation, census-taking, and reproductive governance. Biopower appears progressive, but as Foucault warned, it carries within it the power to 'make live and let die.' Mbembe takes this further. He asks: if biopolitics is truly about preserving life, why are so many still dying? Why are certain lives treated as expendable? Biopolitics tells only half the story. The other half is necropolitics, the deliberate exposure of certain populations to death, not by accident but by design. While biopolitics governs life, necropolitics governs death. It does not merely ignore suffering; it produces it with calculated precision. Necropolitics is not about letting people die, but about making them die. Unlike sovereign power, necropolitics does not rely on the will of a single ruler. It operates through policies, institutions, and global indifference that erases the value of some lives. These lives are stripped of dignity, reduced to statistics, and rendered disposable. This logic, Mbembe argues, has deep colonial roots. Consider the Bengal famine of 1943. Millions died not due to a lack of food, but because British colonial policies prioritised imperial interests over Indian lives. Death was systemic, not accidental. People were treated as tools for the empire, valued only in relation to others' survival. In necropolitical systems, people are not killed through spectacle but through slow, structural abandonment. Death is normalised and bodies become data. The people, whether in borders, refugee camps, or detention centres, are managed, contained, and forgotten. For instance, during the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s and '90s, queer people, especially Black, brown, trans, and working-class individuals, were abandoned by healthcare systems and denied dignity. As scholars like Judith Butler and Jasbir Puar note, only queer lives made respectable through whiteness or middle-class identity were grieved. Puar calls this queer necropolitics, where some queer lives are protected while others are left to die. Characteristics of necropolitics Necropolitics operates through several defining features that together create a system where certain lives are systematically devalued. First, state terror suppresses dissent through surveillance, violence, imprisonment, or elimination, even within democracies. Second, states collaborate with private militias or criminal groups, blurring the line between state and non-state violence. Third, enmity becomes a governing principle, making the right to kill a measure of authority. Fourth, war and terror become self-sustaining economies, fuelling global surveillance and arms markets. Fifth, active predation of certain social groups displaces entire communities, as seen in resource extraction projects. Sixth, death is administered in varied forms like torture, drone strikes, starvation, and disappearance. Finally, these acts are morally justified through ideologies like nationalism, religion, or utilitarianism. Creating a state of exception Necropolitics is sustained not only through violence but through the systematic invention of enemies. Modern states are driven by the desire for an enemy onto whom fear and blame can be projected. This enemy need not be real — the fantasy alone justifies surveillance, exclusion, and elimination. In neoliberal regimes, the threat turns inward, prompting expanded policing and emergency laws that target not just the accused but also those who resemble them. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls this condition the state of exception, when the law suspends itself in the name of preserving itself. Mbembe expands this to show how, for many populations, the exception is not temporary but permanent. In such spaces, legality becomes hollow and rights are applied selectively. What governs is not justice but logistics, such as who gets care, who receives compensation, who can cross a border, and who is punished for trying. These decisions may seem administrative, but they are deeply necropolitical, revealing how life and death are unequally distributed. The living dead Mbembe also introduces a haunting concept within necropolitical thought — the living dead: people who are not killed outright but are forced to live in conditions so degraded, unstable, and violent that life becomes a slow, continuous dying. These are individuals and communities who may remain biologically alive but are stripped of political, social, and moral recognition. We saw this during India's COVID-19 lockdown, when migrant workers were left to walk for days without food, shelter, or transport. Many collapsed and died on highways or railway tracks, not from the virus, but from state neglect. Their deaths were quietly processed and bureaucratically explained and largely unmourned. Mbembe calls these zones death worlds — spaces where populations are exposed to abandonment or sudden violence. Drawing from Agamben's 'state of exception,' Mbembe shows how these spaces operate outside the usual rule of law. Here, death is not a breakdown of governance but its very method. Gaza is one of the starkest examples. After the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, Israeli strikes flattened hospitals, aid centres, and homes. Even the deaths of children were dismissed as collateral damage. The silence that followed reveals necropolitics at its clearest: some deaths are not just permitted but framed as necessary for political strategy and national security. In everyday life Necropolitics does not always come with bombs or guns. More often, it takes the form of law, policy, and bureaucracy — sterilisation drives targeting Dalit and Adivasi women, police databases that profile Muslim names or Black people, drone strikes that label civilians as 'targets,' or detention centres where children sleep on cold floors. These are not failures of a protective system, but features of one designed to discard. It also exists in silence — in the world, including states and global institutions — looking away as thousands of civilians, including women and children, are killed in places like Gaza, while the rest of us carry on with our daily lives. Necropolitics is not confined to war zones. It thrives in the slow violence of poverty, caste, racism, and displacement. So, if power today functions through abandonment and death, what does resistance look like? The goal must not simply be to survive, but to live lives that are recognised, valued, and grieved. Rebecca Rose Varghese is a freelance journalist.

The Hindu
29 minutes ago
- The Hindu
NSA Ajit Doval in Moscow to discuss Trump sanction threat on Indian import of Russian oil
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Economic Times
29 minutes ago
- Economic Times
India braces for pain as Trump gives 24-hour warning on tariffs
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Officials have no template to deal with these kinds of public assaults, the person said, adding that the latest turn of events has put a strain on India's relationship with the said Tuesday he'll increase the 25% tariff on Indian exports to the US 'substantially over the next 24 hours,' citing the Asian nation's high barriers to trade and its purchases of Russian oil. India was 'fueling the war machine, and if they're going to do that, I'm not going to be happy,' Trump told CNBC. Also Read: Trump escalates threat level, says more tariff in 24 hours India's government is now bracing for higher tariffs and seeking to limit the possible economic damage. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been urging Indians to buy more local goods to offset any slump in global demand. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry is discussing ways to help exporters who would be hardest hit, such as in the gems and jewelry and textile sectors. And officials say they will continue to seek back-channel talks to help ease the tensions. India has been a target of Trump for weeks now because of its economic ties with Russia. The US president has given Vladimir Putin until Aug. 8 to reach a truce with Ukraine, and wants to ramp up the pressure by targeting energy purchases from countries like India and China that are helping to keep Russia's economy afloat. Modi's government is so far holding its ground, saying it's being unreasonably targeted by the US for its ties to Russia — its biggest supplier of oil and military equipment. Officials have signaled they won't instruct refiners to halt Russian crude purchases. For months, Indian trade officials had been negotiating with the Trump administration on a deal that both sides said was close to being finalized, with a tariff rate possibly below 20%. The US president's tone appeared to change last month, when he threatened India with higher duties alongside others in the BRICS bloc of nations for what he said was the group's anti-US stance. He then followed up several days later with warnings about financial penalties on countries like India for buying oil from Russia. India has been buying Russian crude at a rate of about 1.7 million barrels a day so far this year, all of it from seaborne imports, while China has purchased an average of about 2 million barrels, comprising both seaborne imports as well as oil transported via an inland pipeline. Also Read: On Russian oil, India and China speak the same language to Trump To offset the tariff hikes, officials in New Delhi are now considering expediting an export promotion plan, first outlined in the February budget, which set aside 22.5 billion rupees ($256 million) to support exporters. The budgeted amount may be increased to help businesses offset potential losses resulting from greater competition with regional rivals, who have secured lower tariff rates of around 15%-20%, a person familiar with the matter said. The discussions are still ongoing and the government hasn't made any decision on what kind of support it will provide, the person Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Ministry of Finance didn't immediately respond to emails seeking further information. Also Read: India plans Rs 20,000-crore Export Promotion Mission to offset US tariff impact New Delhi is also weighing easing some dairy market access rules for the US in order to placate Trump, officials familiar with the matter said. The government is discussing whether it can allow limited imports of some dairy products, such as cheese not made in India and condensed milk with clear labeling of the animal feed used in manufacturing, they said. India maintains tariffs of as high as 60% on dairy products to protect its local industry and enforces strict rules to ensure imported dairy goods aren't from cattle fed with animal-based products in order to adhere to religious sensitivities. Any easing of restrictions in the dairy sector would represent a significant concession by India, which didn't grant the UK any similar market access in a recently concluded free trade estimate that a 25% tariff could cut India's gross domestic product growth by 0.3 percentage point. Pranjul Bhandari, chief India economist at HSBC Holdings Plc., said an additional penalty would curb growth further, resulting in lower capital inflows and investment. An internal assessment by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry shows that a 25% tariff would impact about 10% of India's exports in the July-to-September rivals have criticized his previously friendly relationship with Trump and called him out for his silence on the US leader's comments.'We are receiving threats — that there will be more than 25% tariffs and we are being told that we should not buy oil from Russia. This friendship has turned out to be expensive,' Jairam Ramesh, a senior leader in the main opposition Indian National Congress, told reporters Tuesday. Also Read: India considering new measures to boost domestic growth amid global trade challenges Trump's actions will push India to react, although it's unlikely to retaliate and will more likely seek further talks with the US, said Indrani Bagchi, chief executive officer at Ananta Centre, a Delhi-based research group.'My sense is the government will contain this and will not take this forward, will not escalate,' she said. India will want to continue the trade deal negotiations in spite of Trump's 'personal anger,' she said. The US president likely wants to have Modi call him and 'fold in the way that other countries have,' she said. 'That is not India's style.'