Indian Military

WASHINGTON: China is pursuing a massive military modernisation aimed at winning "local wars under conditions of informatisation," and is actively using Western dual use technologies to upgrade its defence capabilities, the US Defence Department has said.
The world's "most active and persistent" perpetrators of economic espionage, Chinese agencies also represent a "growing" threat to US economic security, the Pentagon said in a Congress mandated report.
China is "pursuing a long-term, comprehensive military modernisation programme designed to improve the capacity of China's armed forces to fight and win local wars under conditions of information, or high-intensity, information- centric regional military operations of short duration," the report said.
Noting that China continues to modernise its military by incorporating Western (mostly US) dual-use technologies, which have also assisted its overall indigenous industrial, military industrial, and high-technology sector development, the report said one of China's stated national security objectives is to leverage legally and illegally acquired dual-use and military-related technologies to its advantage.

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court is likely to pronounce on Friday its order on summoning Army chief General VK Singh and four others on a criminal defamation complaint filed by former Lieutenant General Tejinder Singh.
Metropolitan Magistrate Jay Thareja had on May 14 reserved the order after hearing the arguments on behalf of Tejinder Singh who has sought summoning of the Army chief and four other top officials to respond to the allegations against them.
Besides the Army chief, Tejinder Singh has named Vice chief of Army Staff SK Singh, Lt Gen BS Thakur (DG MI), Major General SL Narshiman (Additional Director General of Public Information) and Lt Col Hitten Sawhney, accusing them of misusing their official positions, power and authority to level false charges against him.
Tejinder Singh, a former Director General of Defence Intelligence Agency, had filed the defamation complaint against the Army chief and four other army officials rejecting the allegations that he had offered the bribe for clearing a deal for 600 "sub-standard" vehicles.

JERUSALEM: The United States has a military option "ready" if diplomacy fails to halt Iran's controversial nuclear programme, the US envoy to Israel has said, an Israeli newspaper reported today.
"It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically through the use of pressure than to use military force," right-wing nationalist daily Makor Rishon quoted Daniel Shapiro as telling an Israeli bar association meeting this week.
"But that doesn't mean that option is not fully available," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "It is not just available, but it is ready; the necessary planning has been done to ensure that it is ready."
In Washington, State department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Shapiro was completely in sync with White House policy.
"Ambassador Shapiro's comments were designed to reflect completely what the president has said all along, which is that even as we move forward with the P5+1 discussions with Iran and hope that we can settle these issues through diplomacy that we nonetheless take no option off the table," she said.

WASHINGTON: A US Army Apache helicopter accidentally dropped an inactive missile over central Texas, forcing dozens of homes to be evacuated, officials said Wednesday.
No one was injured in the incident in which residents in Killeen told police they saw an object falling from an AH-64 attack helicopter into a field late Tuesday, according to a statement from the army's Fort Hood base near Killeen.
"Killeen Police Department responded and located the object which was impaled into the surface of the ground. Officials immediately cordoned off the area," the statement said.
No one was injured in the accident but local media said about 100 homes were evacuated.
An explosive disposal team found an inert M36 missile, a dummy version of a Hellfire missile used for training, officials said.
"The M36 is an inert training device without a warhead or propulsion system and is designed to enable crews to simulate Hellfire missile engagements in the cockpit without launching from the aircraft," the Fort Hood statement said.

SYDNEY: China has cricitized the United States for setting up a new military base in Australia, and accused both countries of having a " Cold War mentality.
Australian foreign minister Bob Carr was reportedly grilled about the new base during three high-level meetings in Beijing, including one with Chinese counterpart foreign minister Yang Jeichi.
"The most objective way of saying it is my three Chinese partners invited me to talk about enhanced Australian defence cooperation with the United States. I think their view can be expressed that the time for Cold War alliances have long since past," The Telegraph quoted Carr, as saying.
However, a prominent Chinese defence strategist and former People's Liberation Army officer, Song Xiaojun said Australia could not juggle its friendships with China and the United States indefinitely, and needed to pick a side.
"Australia has to find a godfather sooner or later. [It] depends on who is more powerful and based on the strategic environment.