Corruption, Infighting and Old Weapons: A Weakened Indian Army

In a definite action of panicking over the sad state of affairs at our defense establishments, the Directorate General of Air Defence has revealed that the country’s air defence capabilities are hollow and 90 percent of its equipment is approaching obsolescence. “The network, set up to protect the Army field formations and vital installations from air attack has been called vintage and obsolete, reveals a CNN-IBN report. "Some of the equipment we have is from the second World War," Former Chief of Army Staff VP Malik was quoted in CNN-IBN.

Most of our major defense equipment has reached its full life and here is a look at the major four as per the report:

KVADRAT: Over 30 years into service, this missile system is at least two years over its full life. However, the Kvadrat upgrade includes new electronics for better electronic counter measures, passive infra-red search and track sensors.

L70 Air Defence Gun: This forms the backbone of India’s air defense has now been in use for nearly 44 years.

SCHILKA: For the last 34 years, this self propelled weapon system has been in service for the Indian army.

TWIN - The twin barrel gun has served the defense forces for 31 years now.

Although some of the major systems have been modified cosmetically, such is the combat inventory that some of its Strike Corps could hold nothing by 2010, the report claims. “Unfortunately the DRDO puts a spoke in whatever the defence services want to acquire," says Former DG, Infantry Lt General Shankar Prasad.

He army presses the panic button this time as it realizes that it has reached a critical time because some of its prestigious projects like Aakash and Trishul have either failed or simply did not meet the time line.