Wednesday, March 28, 2012

DTN News - DEFEXPO 2012 INDIA: Firms Flock To Delhi To Woo World's Top Arms Importer

Asian Defense News: DTN News - DEFEXPO 2012 INDIA:  Firms Flock To Delhi To Woo World's Top Arms Importer
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources TOI - The Times of India
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada / NEW DELHI, India - March 28, 2012: The message is embarrassing but clear: with India failing to get its act together to build a strong defence-industrial base (DIB) unlike China, it will continue to be the world's largest arms importer in the foreseeable future.
 
So, gleeful global armament giants are again lining up to hard-sell their aircraft, helicopters, drones, submarines, howitzers, futuristic infantry combat vehicles, missiles, assault rifles and carbines at India's biennial arms jamboree here.

There are going to be 232 foreign firms, mainly from the US, Russia, France, Israel, the UK and Germany, and 60 official delegations in town this week for the four-day "DefExpo-2012' that begins on Thursday.

Over 335 Indian exhibitors, including major ones like Tatas, Punj Lloyd, L&T and Mahindra, will also be there to explore tie-ups and joint ventures with foreign companies as well as DRDO, defence PSUs and domestic shipyards.

"We understand fully well that indigenization cannot happen through only defence PSUs...we have taken several steps to encourage the private sector," said Shekhar Agarwal, secretary (defence production).

The defence ministry has been pushing for JVs and technology transfers to strengthen the DIB, albeit in a haphazard manner, even as it continues to restrict FDI to only 26% in the defence production sector.

Foreign vendors who bag arms deals over Rs 300 crore, of course, have to plough back at least 30% of the contract value into India as "offsets" in the defence industrial, civil aerospace, homeland security and training sectors.

The gigantic $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project to acquire 126 fighters, in fact, has a 50% offset clause. Offset contracts worth over Rs 50,000 crore are set to materialize over the next two to three years, say officials.

But India, with its fledgling DIB, still remains far away from reversing the current trend of being forced to import 70% of its military hardware and software. This also leaves it vulnerable to supply lines being choked in times of conflict.

Just earlier this month, Swedish think-tank SIPRI dubbed India the world's largest arms importer, accounting as it did for 10% of global arms imports in the 2007-2011 timeframe to display China. With an aggressive DIB, often propelled by "reverse engineering", China is becoming a major arms exporter to countries like Pakistan.

But if India inked arms deals worth $50 billion mainly with foreign vendors in the decade after the 1999 Kargil conflict, it will spend well over double that amount in the current decade.

The Army has pointed at huge operational gaps in fields ranging from artillery, aviation, air defence and night-fighting to ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles), PGMs (precision guided munitions) and specialized tank and rifle ammunition.

After taking it up with defence minister A K Antony, the force now wants to brief the PM since it will need around Rs 41,000 crore to make up just its existing "critical hollowness'' in ammunition and equipment, say sources.

Indian arms bazaar

Aircraft:
-- India in final commercial negotiations with French Dassault Aviation for the $20 billion MMRCA project to acquire 126 fighters.

-- Over $1.5 billion contract for six new mid-air refueling aircraft in final stage between AirbusMilitary's A330 MRTT and Ilyushin IL-78MK tankers.

-- Acquisition of 75 Swiss Pilatus PC-7 trainer aircraft for over Rs 3,000 crore awaiting final nod.

-- Three major "follow-on" deals with US companies in pipeline: Six more C-130J "Super Hercules" tactical airlift planes (over $1.2 billion), four P-8I long-range maritime patrol aircraft (over $1 billion) and six C-17 Globemaster-III strategic airlift aircraft (over $2.4 billion).

Helicopters:
Army, Navy, IAF and Coast Guard on course to induct over 600 helicopters, ranging from heavy-lift and attack to maritime multi-role and light utility ones, the majority from foreign companies, for over Rs 20,000 crore in the coming decade.

Submarines:
Global tender for over Rs 50,000 crore `Project-75 India' to construct six advanced diesel-electric stealth submarines, armed with both land-attack missile capabilities and air-independent propulsion (AIP), to be issued soon.

Artillery:
Over Rs 20,000 crore 155mm artillery modernization programme to acquire 1,580 towed guns, 814 mounted gun systems, 180 self-propelled wheeled guns, 100 self-propelled tracked guns and 145 air-mobile ultra-light howitzers. 


 
*DTN India  @DTNIndia ~ Available on Twitter
Comprehensive Daily News on India Today ~ © Copyright (c) DTN News Defense-Technology News

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources TOI - The Times of India
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS 

Saturday, March 24, 2012

DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: India’s Military Inferiority Complex

Asian Defense News: DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: India’s Military Inferiority Complex
*Indian officials are preoccupied by China’s growing military power. They would do better to fix their own incoherent defense establishment. (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 24, 2012: Modern India is economically and strategically buoyant, and has every reason to feel confident as the 21st century progresses. So it’s strange to think that this same confident place is developing an inferiority complex over China’s military power.
Never mind that New Delhi just announced a hefty 13 percent defense budget increase for 2012-13, or that the country is now the world’s biggest importer of military systems. Most Indian commentators seem to have digested these two pieces of news by focusing on the downside: that the country’s $39 billion defense budget remains quite modest compared with the $106 billion military budget at China’s disposal.
The critics should bear two things in mind before giving into defense budget envy. First, a 13 percent increase is actually very generous in the context of an Indian economy that’s only expected to grow by7.6 percent in the coming year. Larger increases aren’t only unaffordable but also strategically untenable, as they would alarm neighboring countries.
Second, the Indian military has long since accepted two facts of strategic life: that the Chinese military will always be bigger; and that it will always be richer.
That doesn’t mean the Chinese military will necessarily be better, and overcoming the comparative disadvantages of wealth and scale is what Indian military strategy, at least vis-à-vis China, is all about. The solution comes in two parts. First, the Indian military knows it has to focus on quality rather than quantity, investing in weapon systems that China, hindered by international arms embargoes, cannot match. It then also means capitalizing on regional unease about China’s rise and on forging smart alliances. China might be more powerful, but India knows it can be more popular.
The Indian media is therefore over hasty in viewing defense matters through the China inferiority lens. The Times of India, for example, headlined last week’s defense budget announcement by bemoaning the fact that the “Military plays catch-up but China [is] a long march ahead.
That’s a self-defeating way to look at things. The important questions Indians should be asking are whether their government is giving defense the resources it needs – and based on successive double-digit spending increases, you’d have to say that it is; and whether that money is being used wisely to bankroll a coherent military modernization strategy. It’s when you look more closely at this second point that you begin to appreciate that India – not China – is its own worst enemy.
Writing in the Business Standard, Ajai Shukla observed this week that the Indian Army is being starved of funds, while the Navy and Air Force soak up all the investment. Indeed, the numbers don’t look good from the Army’s perspective. The Air Force has a capital expenditure to operational cost ratio of two to one; the ratio for the Navy is about three to two. By contrast, the Army spends six times as much on day-to-day running costs as it does on new equipment.
However, such ratios are a fact of life when you have an army of over a million active personnel whose poor pay and conditions you are attempting to upraise over time. China, with its 2 million increasingly well-paid troops, has exactly the same headache of rising everyday bills eating away at budget increases. And there’s also no getting away from the fact that India, despite its expanding resources, can’t buy everything at once. With several costly Air Force and Navy programs currently underway, such as the procurement of the Dassault Rafale fighter and new naval frigates, the Army has been obliged to wait in line. Now, it can rightfully claim to have moved to the front of the queue.
Of greater concern is the tenacious ineptitude of India’s defense bureaucracy. In the last financial year, as in most others, the Defense Ministry failed to spend all of the cash at its disposal thanks purely to red tape. That’s the first thing that needs to be fixed.
The government then needs to redouble its efforts to introduce a functioning procurement system. More often than not, India’s attempts to buy equipment become tortuous and wasteful. In January, Army Chief Gen. V.K. Singh, himself a recent victim of his country’s eccentric bureaucracy, suggested wearily that, “the procurement game is a version of snakes and ladders where there is no ladder but only snakes, and if the snakes bite you somewhere, the whole thing comes back to zero.” His exasperation centered on the army’s efforts, initiated 10 years ago, to buy new artillery; the process has just resulted in the blacklistingof six foreign defense contractors but, as yet, no new guns.
Another example is the acquisition of 75 much-needed Pilatus PC-7 Mk II trainer aircraft, announced last year, which now faces delays – like so many procurements before it – over allegations of irregularities in the bidding process. Worryingly, though perhaps predictably, questions are now also being asked about the flagship Rafale procurement.
Third, the government should re-evaluate the role of the domestic defense industry, which currently does a lot of things badly. It should be made to start doing a few things well. India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) recently complained that it doesn’t have enough money – but that has never been its problem. The agency has a track record of initiating overambitious programs and then executing them poorly, as the travails of the Tejas light combat aircraft, to name but one example, continue to demonstrate. For the sake of both the taxpayer and the military, the Defense Ministry should focus the DRDO and the defense industry on developing a realistic core of indigenous capabilities, and then just import everything else.
So India is wrong to feel inferior just because China has more soldiers and more money. The problem is the incoherence of India’s defense establishment, from industry through to government – therein lies the inferiority. It’s a danger to Indian security that has nothing to do with China, and that’s within India’s own power to put right.

Related Features

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Trefor Moss - The Diplomat
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS 

Asian Defense News: DTN News - ISRAELI DEFENSE NEWS: The Israeli Red Flag

Asian Defense News: DTN News - ISRAELI DEFENSE NEWS: The Israeli Red Flag
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Strategy Page
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 24, 2012: For the third time in the last six months the Israeli Air Force has hosted foreign fighter pilots for tactical training. Israeli fighter pilots are considered the best trained in the world, and Israel maintains a special training program, complete with pilots trained and equipped to operate as likely foes would, to train their own pilots. The latest nation to send fighters and pilots for training is Poland, flying F-16s in for that purpose. Previously, Italy had sent Typhoons and Tornados and Greece F-16s.
The Israeli training center is based on the one pioneered by the U.S. Air Force Red Flag program and the U.S. Navy's Top Gun training. Using American aircraft for "aggressor (or dissimilar) training" began in the 1960s. The original "Top Gun" fighter pilot school was established in 1969, by the U.S. Navy, in response to the poor performance of its pilots against North Vietnamese pilots flying Russian fighters. What made the Top Gun operation different was that the training emphasized how the enemy aircraft and pilots operated. This was called "dissimilar training". In the past, American pilots practiced against American pilots, with everyone flying American aircraft and using American tactics. It worked in World War II because the enemy pilots were not getting a lot of practice and were using similar aircraft and tactics anyway. Most importantly, there was a lot of aerial combat going on, providing ample opportunity for on-the-job training. Not so in Vietnam, where the quite different Russian-trained North Vietnamese were giving U.S. aviators an awful time. The four week Top Gun program solved the problem. The air force followed shortly with its Red Flag school.

Over the last 40 years the two training programs have developed differently, and the entire concept of "dissimilar training" has changed. The navy kept Top Gun as a program to hone a fighter pilot's combat skills. The air force made their Red Flag program more elaborate, bringing in the many different types of aircraft involved in combat missions (especially electronic warfare). But after the Cold War ended it became increasingly obvious that none of America's potential enemies was providing their fighter pilots with much training at all.

In other words, the dissimilar training for U.S. fighter pilots was not as crucial as it had been during the Cold War. Actually, it had been noted that flying skills of Soviet pilots was declining in the 1980s, as economic problems in the USSR caused cuts in flying time. During that period American pilots were actually increasing their flying time. Moreover, U.S. flight simulators were getting better. American pilots were finding that even the game oriented combat flight simulators had some training value.

So in the late 1990s, Top Gun and Red Flag found their budgets cut. But the programs remain, as does the memory of why they were set up in the first place. If we find that, say, China is continuing to improve its combat aviation, and gives its fighter pilots more flying time and their politicians maintain a bellicose attitude towards the U.S., there will be a need to increase American Top Gun training. Because of the new Chinese "dissimilar training" effort, the U.S. Top Gun and Red Flag schools are being restored to their former prominence, and Israel has become one of the best Red Flag operations outside the United States. The Chinese move is certainly a very meaningful one, as it shows that they are serious about preparing their pilots to fight and defeat Taiwanese and American pilots. Dissimilar training is how that is done and for most nations Israel is the nearest place to get it.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Strategy Page
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS 

Asian Defense News: DTN News - RUSSIA DEFENSE NEWS: Sukhoi Su-30SM ~ An Indian Gift To Russia’s Air Force

Asian Defense News: DTN News - RUSSIA DEFENSE NEWS: Sukhoi Su-30SM ~ An Indian Gift To Russia’s Air Force
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Ria Novosti
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 24, 2012: Russia’s Defense Ministry has ordered 30 heavy Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter planes. Given that the same model has been exported to India for more than 10 years, this choice seems both logical and pragmatic.
Thirty 30’s
The Defense Ministry and the Irkut Corporation, an affiliate of the United Aircraft Corporation, have signed a supply contract for 30 Su-30SM multirole fighter aircraft, a Defense Ministry spokesman told journalists Thursday, March 22. “Under the contract, Irkut Corporation will build for Russia’s Ministry of Defense 30 planes of this type by 2015,” he said.










Rumors that Irkut, a long-standing exporter, may supply several dozen fighter aircraft to the Russian Air Force began circulating late last year. Now the rumor has become a reality – a contract in black and white.
But why did the Defense Ministry choose the Su-30’s? After all, they have been mostly supplied to customers abroad rather than to the Russian Armed Forces, where just a few planes of this type are in use.
The Su-30, properly speaking, is an entire family of aircraft and the most famous Russian-made (not to be confused with Soviet-made) fighter plane outside of Russia. It was developed in the Soviet Union on the basis of the Su-27UB combat trainer aircraft as a command plane for Air Defense air regiments flying ordinary Su-27 interceptor aircraft.
In 1993, its export version, the Su-30K, was developed, sparking record demand and the sale of several hundred planes.
The family is further subdivided into two parts: the “Chinese” Su-30MKK/MK2, which were produced in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and exported to Venezuela, Indonesia, Uganda, Vietnam, and of course China; and the “Indian” Su-30MKI, manufactured in Irkutsk and purchased by India, Algeria and Malaysia. 
The model ordered by the Russian military is a “localized” version of the “Indian” Su-30MKI. Earlier, Komsomolsk-on-Amur delivered to the Air Force four “localized” Su-30MK2’s.
A flying multi-tasker
As a basic platform for the multirole heavy fighter aircraft, the Su-30MKI is remarkable primarily for its universality. It boasts a so-called “open architecture”, making it relatively easy to add new systems in the basic electronic equipment and to use advanced guided weapons (supplied by different manufacturers). 








The Su-30MKI sports a Russian radar and optic locator, French navigation and heads-up display systems, Israeli EW and weapon-guidance systems, and Indian computers.
The “Chinese” line is based on a different logic that prescribes parallel installation of new systems that fall short of full integration.
Most likely, the military is attracted by how easy it is to add different weapons and equipment to the Su-30MKI, transforming it into an attack fighter-bomber, a heavy interceptor aircraft, or something else.

Who placed the order?
It is hard to pinpoint who exactly ordered these 30 aircraft. The contract was signed by Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Irkut President Alexei Fedorov. After the signing ceremony, Serdyukov commented that the planes would “increase the Air Force’s combat power.”
By contrast, Fedorov went on record as saying last summer that the Defense Ministry was going to order 40 aircraft. Later the press reported, citing the Irkutsk aircraft plant’s general director Alexander Veprev, that the deliveries were likely to be made in two installments: the first 28 aircraft were intended for the Air Force and another 12 as an option for naval aviation. Air Force C-in-C Alexander Zelin confirmed the figure of 28 in fall 2011.
As we can see, the first batch of Sukhoi-30’s has been purchased. The remaining 12, as some military sources intimated to the press, were intended for the Black Sea Fleet’s naval aviation.
Given that naval aviation has seen cuts in combat aircraft, it seems logical to reinforce it with heavy Su-30SM two-seaters that are efficient both in air-to-air combat and against ground and surface targets.
Thus far, however, there is no mention of plans to buy the Su-30 for the Navy. Possibly the option will be realized later.
Exporters’ courtesy
There is another simple explanation for choice of the Su-30MKI. Irkut has been churning out these planes for 10 years thanks to its completely streamlined production method. This means that its products are of high quality, relatively cheap (which pleases the Defense Ministry in particular) and will be supplied on time.
It is one thing if, in order to make 30 aircraft, you have to breathe life into an idling plant, to fine-tune (or develop anew) your technological method, buy additional equipment, and – still worse – hire personnel. But it’s quite another if you have been manufacturing standardized aircraft for years and years and can easily divert your workforce to produce an “improved” modification for your own country’s Air Force. The cost of this batch on the side is dramatically lower.
This approach (buying quickly and on the cheap what can be produced immediately) has been growing in popularity in the Russian military. We have mentioned the Su-30M2 combat trainer aircraft intended for the Russian Air Force. The same goes for the carrier-based MiG-29K, which in its present form was developed for the Indian Navy.
This approach is logical in its own way. The military expects certain fundamentally new models that are being tested with some degree of success. The Air Force is eying the T-50, the fifth-generation fighter aircraft, and the Navy has been trying to get into shape its Lada project involving the construction of non-nuclear submarines. The Land Forces have boycotted the purchases of all currently existing armor models, urging manufacturers to invent something totally new.
In the meantime, the Armed Forces will buy cheap, mass-produced, well-equipped, if ordinary, military hardware, like the Su-30SM.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

Related News

Multimedia


*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Ria Novosti
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS 

Friday, March 23, 2012

DTN News - CORRUPTION AS A BARRIER TO INDIAN PROGRESS: Indian PM Faces Heat Over Lost $211 Billion By Selling Coalfieds Too Cheaply To Firms

Asian Defense News: DTN News - CORRUPTION AS A BARRIER TO INDIAN PROGRESS: Indian PM Faces Heat Over Lost $211 Billion By Selling Coalfieds Too Cheaply To Firms
*Indian PM faces heat over coalfields sale
Draft audit report leaked to newspaper says government lost $211b by selling coalfieds too cheaply to firms.
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Al Jazeera &  Top 10 Corruption Scams in India - Trak.in
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 23, 2012: Opposition legislators have staged noisy demonstrations in the Indian parliament after a draft report from a government auditor said the country had lost up to $211b in revenue from selling coalfields too cheaply.

Thursday's uproar added to pressure on Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, after months of scandals and policy missteps.

The prime minister's office called the estimated loss "exceedingly misleading," after the report - leaked from the federal auditor and published in the Times of India newspaper - prompted calls for an explanation and rattled investors.

The leaked draft from the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) office criticised the allocation of 155 coalfields to about 100 private and some state-run firms between 2004 and 2009, questioning why they were not auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The firms mentioned include a subsidiary of the world's largest steel maker, Arcelor Mittal, whose shares were trading down 3.2 per cent in Amsterdam.

"This is the mother of all scams," said Venkaiah Naidu, a senior leader in the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party."The prime minister should reply," he said.

'Embarrassment'

Singh himself, who oversaw the coal ministry during some of the period covered in the report, made no comment during a parliamentary appearance earlier in the day.

The published excerpts of the coal sale report have so far stopped short of direct graft accusations against Singh.

The draft said the policy undervalued the coal by at least 10.7 trillion rupees, or $211bn at today's exchange rate.

The auditor later backed away from the loss calculation and said its thinking had changed.

In a letter to the prime minister on Thursday, the auditor described the low-priced sales as an "unintended benefit" to companies that did not mean an equivalent loss to the exchequer.

"The leak of the initial draft causes great embarrassment as the audit report is still under preparation. Such leakage causes very deep anguish," the auditor said.

The letter was quickly tweeted by Singh's office.

Singh first faced criticism two years ago when his government was accused of graft in the sale of the nation's telecommunication spectrum. Those allegations led to the cancellation of licenses. The telecoms sale may have cost the government up to $36bn.

Those charges led to huge street protests and landed a minister and several company executives in jail.

India is the world's third-largest coal producer after China and the United States, but output has struggled to keep up with consumer demand for electricity.

Related News - Coal Mafia

  1. Mafia Raj - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_Raj
    Jump to Coal Mafia of dhanbad‎: An Indian coal mine. The Dhanbad mine complex is allegedly dominated by a coal mafia. The state-owned coal mines of ...
  2. Coal mafia don arrested - Times Of India

    articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com › Collections › Mafia
    10 Jun 2011 – ASANSOL: Long-wanted coal mafia don, Jaswant Singh Upal, alias Kale Singh, was arrested by Asansol police from a dhaba along NH-2 in ...
  3. | Video | Coal mafia, criminals work together | India Videos | - India ...

    indiatoday.intoday.in/video/coal-mafia.../129712.html13 Feb 2011 - 2 min
    Headlines Today got wind of the illegal operation of coal pilferage after the death of three criminals. The ...
  4. Rs 70 crore recovered during I-T raid at coal mafia's residence

    www.ndtv.com › India
    24 Nov 2011 – In what is being held as the largest cash seizure ever made in the country, sleuths of the Income Tax (I-T) department recovered Rs 70 crore ...
  5. India's coal mafia @ Marginal Evolution

    marginalevolution.com/blog/archives/673/
    India's coal mafia. Posted on Wednesday, 29 June, 2011. Over the centuries, plundering gold was often the only reason to wage wars. For much of the 20th ...
  6. The Hindu : States / Kerala : Slain nun took on coal mafia

    www.thehindu.com › News › States › Kerala
    17 Nov 2011 – To the Government of India. Make haste to investigate the murder of Sister Valsa John. Punish the coal mining Mafia, The Panem Coal Mines in ...
  7. Mines and Communities: Another murder linked to India's "coal mafia"

    www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=11520&l=1
    28 Feb 2012 – Yet another Indian anti mining activist" and his family have been murdered in India, just three months after Sister Valsa John was killed, ...

An average Indian citizen is hard working and diligent, but it is the people in charge of the system (The Babu’s) or with whom the power lays, that act as a cancer spreading the venom, slowing down progress and what all not. But, somewhere down the line, we ourselves are responsible for allowing and being taken for a ride by these people, aren’t we?
However, it is during a multi-thousand crore scam, that a tax-payer actually realizes the heartburn of being cheated from his valued contribution of funds towards the development and well-being of the nation. But, that’s what a scam, be it big or small, means – the act of swindling by some fraudulent scheme or action.

THE TOP SCAMS IN INDIA - TRAK.IN 

1) 2G Spectrum Scam

We have had a number of scams in India; but none bigger than the scam involving the process of allocating unified access service licenses. At the heart of this Rs.1.76-lakh crore worth of scam is the former Telecom minister A Raja – who according to the CAG, has evaded norms at every level as he carried out the dubious 2G license awards in 2008 at a throw-away price which were pegged at 2001 prices.

2) Commonwealth Games Scam

clip image005 Top 10 Corruption Scams in India
Another feather in the cap of Indian scandal list is Commonwealth Games loot. Yes, literally a loot! Even before the long awaited sporting bonanza could see the day of light, the grand event was soaked in the allegations of corruption. It is estimated that out of Rs. 70000 crore spent on the Games, only half the said amount was spent on Indian sportspersons.
The Central Vigilance Commission, involved in probing the alleged corruption in various Commonwealth Games-related projects, has found discrepancies in tenders – like payment to non-existent parties, will-ful delays in execution of contracts, over-inflated price and bungling in purchase of equipment through tendering – and misappropriation of funds.

3) Telgi Scam

As they say, every scam must have something unique in it to make money out of it in an unscrupulous manner- and Telgi scam had all the suspense and drama that the scandal needed to thrive and be busted.
Abdul Karim Telgi had mastered the art of forgery in printing duplicate stamp papers and sold them to banks and other institutions. The tentacles of the fake stamp and stamp paper case had penetrated 12 states and was estimated at a whooping Rs. 20000 crore plus. The Telgi clearly had a lot of support from government departments that were responsible for the production and sale of high security stamps.

4) Satyam Scam

clip image007 Top 10 Corruption Scams in India
The scam at Satyam Computer Services is something that will shatter the peace and tranquillity of Indian investors and shareholder community beyond repair. Satyam is the biggest fraud in the corporate history to the tune of Rs. 14000 crore.
The company’s disgraced former chairman Ramalinga Raju kept everyone in the dark for a decade by fudging the books of accounts for several years and inflating revenues and profit figures of Satyam. Finally, the company was taken over by the Tech Mahindra which has done wonderfully well to revive the brand Satyam.

5) Bofors Scam

The Bofors scandal is known as the hallmark of Indian corruption. The Bofors scam was a major corruption scandal in India in the 1980s; when the then PM Rajiv Gandhi and several others including a powerful NRI family named the Hindujas, were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India’s 155 mm field howitzer.
The Swedish State Radio had broadcast a startling report about an undercover operation carried out by Bofors, Sweden’s biggest arms manufacturer, whereby $16 million were allegedly paid to members of PM Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress.
Most of all, the Bofors scam had a strong emotional appeal because it was a scam related to the defense services and India’s security interests.

6) The Fodder Scam

clip image010 Top 10 Corruption Scams in India
If you haven’t heard of Bihar’s fodder scam of 1996, you might still be able to recognize it by the name of “Chara Ghotala ,” as it is popularly known in the vernacular language.
In this corruption scandal worth Rs.900 crore, an unholy nexus was traced involved in fabrication of “vast herds of fictitious livestock” for which fodder, medicine and animal husbandry equipment was supposedly procured.

7) The Hawala Scandal

The Hawala case to the tune of $18 million bribery scandal, which came in the open in 1996, involved payments allegedly received by country’s leading politicians through hawala brokers. From the list of those accused also included Lal Krishna Advani who was then the Leader of Opposition.
Thus, for the first time in Indian politics, it gave a feeling of open loot all around the public, involving all the major political players being accused of having accepted bribes and also alleged connections about payments being channelled to Hizbul Mujahideen militants in Kashmir.

8) IPL Scam

Well, I am running out of time and space over here. The list of scandals in India is just not ending and becoming grave by every decade. Most of us are aware about the recent scam in IPL and embezzlement with respect to bidding for various franchisees. The scandal already claimed the portfolios of two big-wigs in the form of Shashi Tharoor and former IPL chief Lalit Modi.

9,10) Harshad Mehta & Ketan Parekh Stock Market Scam

Although not corruption scams, these have affected many people. There is no way that the investor community could forget the unfortunate Rs. 4000 crore Harshad Mehta scam and over Rs. 1000 crore Ketan Parekh scam which eroded the shareholders wealth in form of big market jolt.
*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Al Jazeera &
Top 10 Corruption Scams in India - Trak.in
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS