Aerospace Diary

Neelam Mathews April 16, 2015 Following India’s delayed decision on the Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA), a process initiated in 2000, the announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the first day of his trip to France on Apr 13, for an ‘in principle’ clearance for the outright purchase of 36 Rafales in flyaway condition, is being seen as a game changer in the way defense procurement will now be done in India. The buy includes life cycle support and 50% offsets, AerospaceDiary learns While India is expected to exercise its option clause for 18 Rafales in future for outright buys that will take its Rafale squadrons to three, in a recent interview by IBN7 with Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar clearly indicated a desire to produce a single-engine fighter on Make in India basis. According to Parrikar the original deal for 126 is valued at approximately $14.50 billion, which leaves a large amount of money to consider the single-engine fighter. We are guessing it wi...

Effort To Clean Up Ganges Gains Momentum 09/16/2014 By Neelam Matthews Text size:  A   A Photo Courtesy of Ganga Action Parivar The Ganges River, India's holiest river, is also it's dirtiest. Officials vow to clean it up within three years. Related Links: Indian Water Resources Ministry webpage ----- Advertising ----- The 100-day-old government’s newly established minister for water resources, Uma Bharti, on Sept. 15 committed to cleaning up India’s largest and holiest river, the 2,500-kilometer-plus Ganges, within three years. The Ganga Action Plan was released by Bharti’s predecessors two decades ago but barely accomplished any of its goals. The pledge comes at an opportune time. The population of people and industrial units in India near the Ganges is ballooning, creating pressure on sewage, wastewater and effluents that are discharged into surface water and causing water-quality problems. Each day, 2.9 billion liters of wastewater from s...

Neelam Mathews Aug 26, 2014 Rome While there are some good tidings coming from the Modi government, I must say the practice being adopted to release an 'unofficial' statement through just a certain segment in the press, is in the steps of the past government. There are no sources quoted and no official sources. This is truly sending wrong signals to our foreign partners we want to do business with and leaving OEMs to clam up and probably writhe in agony. An example is this  Statement issued by Finmeccanica on the AW101 deal  -   "With reference to the many and often contradictory press articles concerning alleged decisions by the Indian MoD relating to existing contracts and future business with Finmeccanica companies, Finmeccanica would like to clarify that at the moment it has not received any official communication from any of the relevant authorities. Thus, Finmeccanica will not make any comments on these press reports."

Neelam Mathews April 2, 2014 India's DGCA's feeble attempt to prove to FAA how serious it is on its filling gaps on its inadequate regulatory oversight on safety can be seen in its release of information to the media,  which, many consider inappropriate. Take the checks on the Challenger 605 in Delhi recently, for instance. This was a regular check and should have been the practice ever since Indian business aviation took off. However, to have overblown it in such a way, is a mistake on DGCAs part. Very clearly, it is causing damage to the business aviation industry as it tries to limp back to a saner business environment. At first glance, this story might look one-sided. Nevertheless, AerospaceDiary is known to give the dog its due. We in the industry know of the levels of safety recognized by regulators in which level one observations are serious as they impinge on safety. Level 2 can be mitigated as in the case of the Challenger,  and such oversights are not m...