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Time of India
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Meet the IAF personnel who played a key role in Operation Sindoor
NEW DELHI: As India thwarted numerous Pakistan's missile and drone attacks in recent days, all credit goes to the air defence system that ensured the security of sovereignty and territory. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Meanwhile, a picture is going viral that features a team of the Integrated Air Command and Control System , which was a part of . Government on Monday shared the picture in which India Air Force officers can be seen who played a crucial role during Operation Sindoor. "Picture of the Integrated Air Command and Control System released—crucial to the success of Operation Sindoor," the caption reads. Later on Monday evening, PM Modi acknowledged the powerful air defence system that intercepted and destroyed Pakistan's missiles and drones. He said that Pakistan, in despair, launched several attacks to target schools, colleges, gurudwaras and residential areas, following Operation Sindoor. In his address to the nation, PM Modi said, "Many terrorists were roaming freely in Pakistan. India finished them off in one blow. Due to this action of India, Pakistan fell into deep despair. It was frustrated, and in this frustration, it committed another mistake. Instead of supporting India's action against terrorism, it started attacking India itself. Pakistan targeted our schools, colleges, Gurudwara, temples, and residential areas. Pakistan targeted our sacred places. But in this, Pakistan itself was exposed. The world saw how Pakistan's drones and missiles scattered like stones in front of India. India's powerful air defence system destroyed them in the sky itself". Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Earlier on Monday, Air Marshal Bharti highlighted the effectiveness of India's layered and intricate air defence (AD) system. "This brings me to the point of how the Indian Forces brought minimum damage to both civilian and military infrastructures in spite of Pakistan's unrelenting forces... The majority populace has a lot to say about the layered and intricate air defence system put in place by the , which includes assets of the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force.. . This robust AD system comprises a large variety of multilayer AD sensors and weapon systems... Numerous waves of drones and UAVS deployed by Pakistan were also thwarted by the indigenously developed soft and hard kill counter-UAV systems and the well-trained Indian personnel,"he noted. Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai also lauded the multi-layered air defence system and said there was no chance Pakistan could've broken it. "In our inventory, we have a unique mixture of Counter-Unmanned Aerial System, Air Defence Weapons and mediums of electronic warfare, and that is why you saw when Pakistan air force attacked our airfield and logistic installation on May 9 and 10, they failed to breach this strong air defence grid." Ghai said. "You can see how many layers, counters, unmanned aerial systems, behind that shoulder-fired weapons and our vintage air defence weapons and in the last our modern air defence weapons system. There was no chance that Pakistan could've broken our multi-layered defence system and target our airfield and logistic installation," he added.
Hindustan Times
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Who is AK Bharti? One of the minds behind India's air strikes against Pakistan
Air Marshal Awadhesh Kumar Bharti on Sunday and Monday addressed the nation on the precision strikes of the India Air Force (IAF) during the recent India-Pakistan standoff. AK Bharti briefed how the air defence system detected, tracked, monitored, and destroyed the threats in the air. During the address, AK Bharti said that Operation Sindoor was a response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack and the fight was solely against the terrorists and their support networks. He highlighted how the commitment was to minimize the damage to the Pakistan army and civilians. AK Bharti is a decorated officer of the IAF, currently serving as the Director General of Air Operations (DGAO). He was commissioned into the Flying branch of the IAF in the year 1987. He was promoted to the rank of Air Marshal in September 2023. AK Bharti took charge as Commanding Officer of a Sukhoi-30 MKI Squadron on 16 August 2005. The unit had recently received the advanced Phase III version of the aircraft, and AK Bharti was given the critical task of making its weapon systems fully operational and developing suitable tactics. Flt Lt : 13 Jun 1992 Wg Cdr : 11 May 2004 Acting Gp Capt : 13 Sep 2010 Gp Capt : 01 Jun 2009 Air Cmde : 17 Jun 2013 AVM : 04 Dec 2019 Air Marshal : 01 Sep 2023 Follow India Pakistan news live Despite the expected technical challenges of working with a new aircraft fleet, Air Marshal AK Bharti, through strong leadership and innovative thinking, ensured the systems were operational in a short time, as per information available on the Bharat Rakshak website. He also led efforts to create tactics that brought out the best in the versatile fighter jet. Also read: Did India strike Pakistan's nuclear facility at Kirana Hills? IAF responds Under his command, the squadron took part in the Air Force-level exercise Gagan Shakti, playing a key role in demonstrating the concept of an 'Air Dominance Force'. The squadron was also praised for its performance during Exercise Indradhanush 2006 with the UK's Royal Air Force and Exercise Garuda 2007 with the French Air Force. The alumnus of Defence Services Staff College, Bharti has been awarded the 'Vayu sena medal' by the President in the year 2008.
Malay Mail
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Malay Mail
When the sky tilted east: The Rafale shock and the quiet rise of China's airpower? — Phar Kim Beng
MAY 12 — In the volatile skies above South Asia, a silent tremor has shaken the self-assurance of one of the world's largest democracies. India's acquisition of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France between 2020 and 2022, at a staggering cost of approximately US$8.7 to 9.4 billion, was widely celebrated as a game-changer. These 4.5-generation multirole fighters were touted as the crown jewels of the Indian Air Force (IAF), symbolising India's growing strategic autonomy and technological ascendancy. Today, however, that symbolism is under scrutiny. If it is confirmed that a Rafale was either downed or deterred by Pakistan's Chinese-supplied J-10C fighters or by an integrated radar and missile system orchestrated with Chinese support, the implications go far beyond a single aerial skirmish. They signal a perceptual rupture in the global military order and a quiet but seismic shift of aerospace credibility from West to East. The Rafale, armed with Meteor beyond-visual-range missiles and equipped with state-of-the-art Thales AESA radars, was meant to provide India with air dominance not just over Pakistan but across a broader regional arc. Yet this promise now hangs precariously. If Pakistan, with China's assistance, has developed the capacity to detect, target, and neutralise such an advanced platform, then New Delhi must confront a strategic dilemma. Publicly, it cannot acknowledge a loss that would undermine its defence narrative and electoral confidence. Privately, it must now recalibrate doctrines that rested on presumed air superiority. The Indian military establishment faces a sobering reassessment of whether platform-centric dominance, once assured by Western-made jets, remains viable in the age of digitally integrated and networked warfare systems. China's J-10C fighters, once dismissed in Western circles as inferior replicas of American or Russian models, now appear to have leapfrogged those perceptions. Paired with PL-15 long-range missiles — reaching up to 300 kilometres — and backed by the KJ-500 early warning aircraft and layered radar coverage, the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has constructed a battlespace that no longer resembles mere catch-up mimicry. It reflects a sophisticated doctrinal evolution aimed not just at parity but at control. This subtle ascendancy is playing out through Pakistan, China's closest strategic partner, allowing Beijing to shape South Asia's aerial balance without deploying its own assets directly. This development is not merely a challenge for India. It reverberates across the Global South, especially in regions caught between choosing Western or Eastern defence ecosystems. The illusion that Western systems are inherently superior and untouchable is being quietly dismantled. Many countries — especially in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia — have long weighed affordability against combat credibility when considering Chinese systems. If those systems are now seen to outperform, or even rival, platforms like the Rafale, then the decision matrix shifts. China's arms diplomacy, long shadowed by accusations of quality deficiency, may be entering a new era — one where performance, not pedigree, dictates preference. A French fighter aircrafts Rafale M, manufactured by Dassault Aviaition, stands on the tarmac before a practice session for a simulated landing on an aircraft carrier at the Landivisiau Navy Air Base (BAN Landivisiau) in Saint-Servais, Brittany, France, May 7, 2025. — Reuters pic The implications for Southeast Asia are especially acute. Asean member states — Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines — operate a mixture of Western, Russian, and increasingly, Chinese hardware. For years, the strategic logic was to hedge between great powers while maintaining technical independence. That equation is now unstable. The sky over South Asia has revealed not only a shift in firepower but in psychological warfare. If India's most advanced fighter can be neutralised, then Asean nations must question whether their own ageing fleets are prepared for similar confrontations. The region's defensive complacency, once hidden behind multilateralism and the language of neutrality, is being exposed by the raw arithmetic of technological evolution. Moreover, Asean's reliance on tactical ambiguity as a form of security strategy is looking dangerously outdated. As China refines its doctrine and Pakistan internalises it, a new operational standard is being set — one that favours real-time data fusion, electronic warfare, and long-range kill zones over the traditional metrics of pilot skill and airframe durability. The Rafale's apparent vulnerability, whether fully downed or simply repelled, reinforces this changing paradigm. Southeast Asian defence planners will now be forced to prioritise joint surveillance, regional radar integration, and digital interoperability over symbolic hardware acquisitions. India's political establishment, meanwhile, finds itself in an awkward position. The Rafale deal was as much about prestige as it was about deterrence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally championed the acquisition as a signal of India's global ascent. Any dent to that narrative — especially if inflicted by Pakistani jets backed by Chinese systems — undermines more than military policy. It undercuts the ideological scaffolding of India's self-image as a rising power. With Pakistan emboldened and China proving its military-industrial maturity through proxy performance, the regional chessboard has been reconfigured without a formal declaration of checkmate. What we are witnessing is not the end of Western airpower, but the end of its automatic supremacy. This is not a matter of technological obsolescence but of strategic adaptation. China has shown that it no longer needs to match the West plane for plane, missile for missile. Instead, it can field systems that work in tandem, operate on disruptive logic, and undermine the confidence of adversaries before a single shot is fired. It is an approach that values effectiveness over exhibition. And in doing so, it is tilting the strategic sky eastward, quietly and relentlessly. The Rafale incident — confirmed or not — serves as a metaphor for a deeper transformation. The battle for air superiority is no longer about who flies higher or faster, but who sees first, connects faster, and strikes from further away. That China has achieved this through its partnership with Pakistan marks the success of a long-term, calculated strategy. The sky has not only tilted — it has realigned, and with it, so has the global perception of power. *Phar Kim Beng is a professor of Asean Studies in the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) ** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
NDTV
10-05-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
Rafiqui, Murid, Rawalpindi: How India Chose Which Pak Airbases To Strike
New Delhi: Fighter jets of the India Air Force targeted Pakistan Air Force's bases at Rafiqui, Murid and Chaklala early this morning to counter Pakistan's reckless drone and missile attacks targeting civilian areas and military infrastructure in India's western sector. In a government briefing, Wing Commander Vyomika Singh said India's precision attacks only targeted military targets. "Pakistan military targets at Rafiqui, Murid, Chaklala, Rahim Yar Khan, Sukkur and Chunian were engaged using air-launched precision weapons from our fighter aircraft. Radar sites at Pasrur and Sialkot aviation base were also targeted using precision munitions. While carrying out these responses, India ensured minimum collateral damage," she said. India chose targets carefully. The objective was to cripple Pakistan's capability to launch aerial attacks using drones and fighter jets. The attack on these key air force centres has likely hit Pakistan's air reconnaissance and long-range strike capabilities. Pakistan Air Force Base, Nur Khan The Nur Khan air base, earlier known as PAF base, Chaklala, is located at Rawalpindi. This airbase is the nerve centre of Pakistan's aerial mobility and serves as the headquarters of its Air Mobility Command. According to officials in the Indian Air Force, the Nur Khan airbase played a key role in coordinating the cross-border drone and missile attacks by Pakistan in the last 72 hours. This airbase houses a Saab 2000 airborne early warning and control aircraft that is believed to have played a key role in Pakistan's aerial attacks on Indian cities. Pakistan Air Force Base, Rafiqui The Pakistan Air Force base at Rafiqui is in Punjab province. It is home to advanced fighter squadrons of Mirage and JF-17 aircraft and is a training centre for missions in Punjab and Kashmir. The past few days have been frenetic air activity involving fighter jets of the two countries and the Rafiqui airbase is likely to have played a key role in Pakistan's aerial attacks on India. Targeting this airbase was aimed at disrupting Pakistan's attack capabilities. Rafiqui, like Murid and Chaklala, was targeted with air-launched precision weapons. Pakistan Air Force Base, Murid The Murid airbase, located in Pakistan's Punjab, is the headquarters of Pakistan's drone operations. This airbase houses Pakistan's homemade drone Shahpar-I, and the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 and Akinci. Over the past two days, Pakistan has sent hundreds of drones across the border. Many of these were unarmed, ostensibly sent for intelligence gathering and to identify Indian positions. Some of them were, however, armed. Most of these drones were taken down by the Indian air defence system. During today's briefing, Wing Commander Singh said the Indian armed forces are ready and all hostile actions have been effectively countered. "Indian armed forces reiterate their commitment to non-escalation, provided it is reciprocated by the Pakistan military." Pakistan's reckless aerial attacks follow India's precision airstrikes on terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir under Operation Sindoor, launched to avenge the Pahalgam terror attacks that left 26 innocents dead.
Al Arabiya
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Breaking: Pakistan airspace to remain closed for next 24 hours: Aviation authority
Pakistan's airspace was shut on Saturday, after the military said India had launched a series of attacks on airbases. 'Pakistan's airspace will remain closed for all kinds of flights until Sunday 12:00 PM,' the statement said. Developing
