Aerospace Diary

Neelam Mathews Dec 1 2013 India's Border Security Force enters its 49th year today. The last year has been full of challenges says the Director General, Subhash Joshi. The govt has sanctioned a 5 year modernization plan worth approx Rs 4200 crores alongwith infrastructure and new units. It is raising 3 battalions this year and air and water wings being upgraded.  Biggest challenge for the BSF is border infiltrations.To a query whether forthcoming elections would pose a problem on borders, he said fencing on the western border was almost complete and on the Bangladesh border some issues on the fencing re landscape were involved. BSF is also building an   embankment , "an old project",  a 179-km stretch of the border in Jammu to prevent ceasefire violations by Pakistan. "It was felt we need better defenses in this sector...the land is being acquired...when handed to BSF, the construction agency will be requested..., " said Joshi. "We were told it...

AIN AIR TRANSPORT PERSPECTIVE  »  OCTOBER 7, 2013 by    NEELAM MATHEWS The Bangladeshi government has tasked Biman Bangladesh Airlines CEO Kevin Steele with returning the carrier to profitability and preparing it for an initial public offering in 2014 or 2015. October 7, 2013, 3:05 PM Biman Bangladesh Airlines, which has operated at a loss since 2008, expects to break even in the current 2013/14 financial year and to return to profitability the following year after cutting its losses from $75 million in 2010/11 to $25 million in 2011/12. At a press briefing in New Delhi last week, the Asian carrier’s  CEO , Kevin Steele, announced plans to rationalize and double the size of its fleet from eight to 16 aircraft to allow it to expand its route network with new services such as Dhaka-New York starting next April. The Bangladeshi flag carrier has issued a request for proposal to wet-lease a pair of Boeing 777s to add to the...

Paris Air Show  »  2013 by  Neelam Mathews The AS350 B3e is ideal for passenger transport, EMS, aerial work, law enforcement and disaster management. June 14, 2013, 1:10 PM India’s small-but-strategic South Asian neighbors, including Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, will procure around 30 helicopters in different categories in the next five years, according to an internal study conducted by Sikorsky. While Indian military helicopter procurement plans are for more than 1,000 helicopters by 2020, including light utility, attack, Mi-17 medium transport, heavy-lift and multi-role platforms, even as its GDP grew by over 6 percent last year, Bangladesh has the largest budget for procurement in the Indian periphery. With no helicopters of its own, the disaster management and...

Posted by- Neelam Mathews June 30, 2011 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met with editors of five newspapers on June 29 answering queries on various subjects. This what he had to say about India’s neighbors, on Naxalism, US withdrawal from Afghanistan, China defense buildup, India’s defense budget…… On Sri Lanka…. You have a situation in Sri Lanka. The decimation of the LTTE was something which is good. But the Tamil problem does not disappear, with the defeat of the LTTE. The Tamil population has legitimate grievances. They feel they are reduced to second-class citizens. And our emphasis has been to persuade the Sri Lankan government that we must move towards a new system of institutional reforms, where the Tamil people will have a feeling that they are equal citizens of Sri Lanka, and they can lead a life of dignity and self-respect. It is not easy. Within Sri Lanka's population, there are hotheads, the Sinhala chauvinism is a reality. But we have to find a difficult balance...