05 - The Greatest ODI match of all Time?

This last Sunday a great One-day international cricket match took place between Australia and South Africa. This match is considered to be the greatest match ever played by some and to others its one of the greatest. In the match a total of 872 runs were scored by the two sides. Australia posted 434 runs on the board the first time over 400 runs were scored in an ODI innings; in reply South Africa fought back and won the match scoring 438 runs. The match was a run fest, to put it better an orgy. What led to such unbelievable scores, was it the dead pitch, poor bowling from the teams, great batting or just sheer luck? Whatever it was it seems that the future of bowlers seems bad. Nowadays in most matches the runs scored in an innings exceed 300. It seems in the future all teams will be filled with batsmen.
It was an interesting and spellbinding match but a one-sided match (read batting vs. bowling) will not be so much good to watch once it becomes an every match sight.

04 - India to Acquire Multi-role Combat Aircraft

India plans to acquire 126 multi-role combat aircraft. The contenders for this multi-billion dollar contract are the Russian MiG-35, the U.S F-16 and F-18, the Eurofighter, the French Rafale and possibly the Saab Gripen. The French initially offered the Mirage 2000-5, but later replaced it with the Rafale, as they plan to phase-out the Mirage aircraft family.

Of these aircraft, the mig stands least chance of bagging the contract, although it has great flying ability it is basically a technology demonstrator and its capability as a fighter is suspect.
The Rafale is prohibitively expensive.
The F-16 would be comparable to the LCA under development.
For the F-18, IAF wants to get the Active Electronically Scanning Array (AESA) radar as it can detect an adversary 460km away in air & on the ground and can engage at a distance of 220km. Barring U.S, no other country has such a radar on board their aircraft.
The Gripen is considered the most advanced fighter in the world if we discount the F-22 Raptor. It is highly capable and it can even take off and land on normal roads and runways as short as 800m.
If I had to rank this list it would be (1.) Rafale or Gripen (2.) F-18 or Eurofighter

A comparitive table of these aircraft has also been prepared, but tables can't be displayed on the blog so if you want the comparison leave your email address in your comments and I will mail you the table.

03 - The Steps Ahead in The Indo-U.S Deal

Now that the historic Indo - U.S deal has been inked, India has to work to ensure that this deal gets the approval of the U.S congress. India has already started work in this regard. India has stated that it will shut down the contentious CIRUS reactor in Trombay in a phased manner over the next five years. The cirus reactor is one of the oldest reactors in the country. It is a 40MW research reactor obtained from Canada in 1954; it went operational in 1960 with U.S supplying heavy water. The CIRUS (acronym for Canada – India – U.S – research reactor) has been in controversy after the 1974 Pokhran-I test during Indira Gandhi’s regime. It is alleged by the international community that India diverted weapons grade plutonium to fuel Pokhran-I from cirus. Shutting down this reactor will help pacifying those against the deal. The Indian scientific community also believes that cirus has lived its life; in fact it was shut down in 1997 until DAE carried out a refurbishment to get it operational last year.
There are many road blocks in the path of this deal. One is the fact that, U.S has had no new reactors in the last decade or so. This means that the large U.S companies, General Electric and Westinghouse, the leading nuclear tech suppliers in u.s will not have the state-of-the-art technology o meet India’s huge demand and that other nuclear powers like France and Russia would gain benefit. Another issue that the U.S congress would be following is going to be large weapons and equipment purchase by India. U.S is already trying to hard sell the F-16 and F-18 fighters to India. The acquisition of amphibious transport ship USS Trenton by India has already been cleared by U.S, but the deal has not been finalised. This game has only begun and Delhi has a long way to go….

02 - Landmark Indo - U.S Deal

This week the governments of India and U.S.A signed a landmark nuclear deal to supply nuclear fuel and technology to India. This deal is a visible acknowledgement of the fact that India is a responsible and capable world power by U.S. This deal will be of great importance to India which is facing a large power shortage. Most states in the country are subjected to long hours of load shedding as there is no enough production of electricity. This deal will improve the power situation. Of course there is not going to be any immediate effect of this deal, it will take about 10 years for this deal to bear fruit, also the U.S congress should pass this bill for the deal to materialize in the first place.
India on its part, for the deal to take place was asked by United States to separate its civilian and defence nuclear programmes. So India decided to put roughly 65% of it’s reactors on the civilian list. It has put 14 out of 22 reactors on the civilian list (this includes those that are under construction). It will be done in a phased manner over the years 2006-2014. The Indian civilian programme will now come under the scrutiny of IAEA, the U.N nuclear watchdog, but the defence programme will continue to be closed to inspection. Normally every nation can withdraw its nuclear reactors from the civilian list under reasons of national security, but in the case of India it will not have this right.
The Indian Prime Minister said that the indigenous nuclear programme will continue following the three stage programme as envisioned by the great late Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha. For this India will continue with the locally extracted plutonium and thorium. Uranium and Plutonium fuel will be supplied to India for civilian use. The spent nuclear fuel will have to be sent back to the supplier nation, this is for preventing India using that for its defence programme.
What U.S gains from this are that they have managed to tilt India to its side on the Iran issue. India will no longer need the gas pipeline from Iran via Pakistan, for its energy requirements. Also this will help check China as India will to some extend level the power imbalance in South Asia.
For India, other that bringing to end the power starvation which will better its already growing economy (presently at 8%), the other positives are that the world and particularly U.S now recognizes it as a global force. India is not a signatory of the Non- Proliferation Treaty or the CTBT (Comprehensive test ban treaty), but still U.S decided to go forward with this deal indicates that U.S trusts in India. It will also help Russia in supplying India with nuclear fuel which it always intended to but could not due to international pressure. Now India is in a very good position with its long standing partnership with Russia in good shape complementing the vibrant new U.S deal.

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The blog has been named Chintanam or Thought, to signify that this blog has been started to voice one's thoughts and opinions.