DTN News - INDIA NEWS: Indian Television's Relationship With Its Political Class Is Changing: Arnab Goswami

Asian Defense News: DTN News - INDIA NEWS: Indian Television's Relationship With Its Political Class Is Changing: Arnab Goswami

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - June 9, 2014: In an exclusive conversation with exchange4media, Times Now Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami talks about significant changes in the mindset of political parties towards media, sustaining the channel’s momentum in the post-election period and more. Excerpts…

Do you think the objectivity in the poll coverage was lost once it became clear that BJP and NaMo were gaining the upper hand?

No, I don’t think so. If you examine the number of times a news channel went to Rahul Gandhi, it was more if not equal to the number of times it went to Narendra Modi. In terms of coverage on ground, we covered Congress, BJP and regional parties fairly. The number of rallies Modi did far outstrips the number of rallies Rahul Gandhi did, so there was more to cover. But if we were taking a live feed of a Modi rally, we would also take a live Gandhi rally. When Rahul Gandhi said something that set the news agenda, it was debated with as much enthusiasm as Modi’s speeches. For example, Rahul Gandhi made the controversial remark on what happened in 1984 - it was debated for a week not only on Times Now that did the interview, but on all channels. Similarly, if you see the number of times his interview was replayed and the promotion it was given, it is possibly the same as the treatment given to Narendra Modi’s interview. Both the interviews got talked about. So, I would argue with all the force at my command that the media did a very objective job till the very end.

Do you think this was truly a media election?
I think it was certainly a television news election - the quality and depth was far ahead of the poll coverage in 2009 and 2004, and I have seen all elections from 1996. This time, we actually put people who were fighting the elections on the backfoot, defending the subjects they raised. The media had an aggressive questioning approach. Of course, there were many other channels and much more competition, and competition begets quality, broadly speaking.

In a recent interview with IMPACT, NDTV’s Prannoy Roy said, ‘You can’t win elections in India any more unless you are an acceptable face of television’. Do you agree?
Prannoy is a leader and I have had the pleasure of working under him at the beginning of my career. I am sure what he says is said after great thought and I generally would not like to add anything to what Prannoy says, but only because you ask, I think political parties have started acknowledging the fact that their message needs to go out, in as clear a way as possible. The people who carry those messages don’t make mistakes, and therefore, the search for people who can represent the party’s view aggressively on TV. If you follow the career profiles of some of the party spokespersons, they go on to do very well in the party later. The party understands the need for effective people articulating their view. If you have the wrong person communicating on behalf of your party, a completely wrong message can go out, and ruin the reputation of the party. So, to a large extent I would agree with what Prannoy said.

What are the changes you saw among political parties during the recent elections as far as approach to media was concerned?
The election campaigns were drastically different from the previous years - there were media cells in each party. In fact, they would call and ask us about the subject for that night’s Newshour. They would try to find out who was there from the other side, try to match each other every evening on prime time. They would actually come to us with their best spokesperson.

Political parties have woken up to media. They will try to do everything possible to ensure their point of view goes across more prominently, but journalists like us will have to be on our guard to see that we are driven by our own judgement and not that of political parties.

What worked for you during Elections 2014? What was the approach you adopted while covering the elections?

Television news is an interesting confluence of graphics, production, news, promos, look and feel, editorial line, logistics, reporter placement, optimisation of available infrastructure and editorial angularity. Now why did we win by such a massive margin? The gap between us and the nearest competitor, which is CNN-IBN, in the male TG 25+ was over 20 per cent. I think it is because we got the mix right. We were able to create an editorial product that gave a completely different viewing experience, beyond comparison with any other channel in the vicinity.

Secondly, we were covering the elections with greater force. For almost three months, there was nothing but politics on Times Now, to be able to sustain that over a 100-day period with the same team means you need to get commonality of purpose within every member of your team. I am so delighted today that this group of people worked double shift, triple shift, non- stop... I had people who worked days on end, some who did not go home for weeks to put this product out. While I may be the most prominent face of the channel, it is this team that made it happen - they have done a phenomenal job. Our guest coordinators did a great job, we had over 1,000 guests and around 50 guests a day.

What also gives me most satisfaction is we were the only channel not based out of New Delhi or the national capital region that was covering this election. Our studios were in Delhi, our servers were in Mumbai, our anchoring was in Delhi, our graphics were in Mumbai, to bring technologies in two cities together on a pipe with limited infrastructure is a marvel of election broadcasting. I can share with you today that till the very end, we were very nervous whether it would all come together. It worked like clockwork. This coverage is one of the high points of the eight-plus years of broadcasting of Times Now. Wherever we went this time, people said they were watching the election completely on Times Now. On an average, they would say they spent 10 minutes on Times Now and not more than 1 minute on any other channel. We gained because of our production quality; we were breaking all the news first, and had a great quality of panelists.

What is the ideal mix for a television story?
There is no ideal mix... it is ‘the mix of the moment’ you think of right ingredients of the story of the moment. The team is tested on its ability to respond to the changing news flow. I have often said that TV is like the permanent first page of a newspaper, where the front page changes every five minutes.

Times Now also scored on the social media front in poll coverage. How did you plan your social media strategy?
We had a deal with Twitter, and Rishi Jaitley was very responsive to it. There was an exclusive arrangement, where we could get a real-time analysis - positive and negative feedback, link Twitter with the Newshour debate, understand how many people were feeling positively and negatively towards it. Did it lead to an increase in ratings of Times Now? I am not sure. But it did involve people on social media further with Times Now. In the last four to five months, we have grown perhaps at four or five times the speed of any of the other channels such as CNN-IBN or NDTV on social media. From being less than half their size on social media, we have crossed the gap in four months.

What are you doing to sustain the momentum?
We are far faster than any other channel on social media, with our updates and we have high involvement products like ‘Newshour’ and ‘Frankly Speaking’ which are integrated with social media. Two out of every three days, the top trending subjects are Newshour hashtags or TimesNow hashtags. This proves that in terms of talking points and mindspace, we are streets ahead of competition. This election gave us the opportunity to display our editorial muscle, in terms of social media, we are going to take it forward now and we are going to be twice the size of any other channel on social media. It is going to be a great area of focus. The quality of news broadcasting is going to gain from our coverage of the elections. The challenge is to sustain this level of interest in the post-election period. A politician asked me ‘What are you people going to do now?’ and I replied, ‘We are not as dependent on you as you would like to think!’ Yes, we are making the political class accountable every day. Our coverage of Uttar Pradesh is not political coverage, it is social coverage. We are not in the business of politician-bashing, we are in the business of making elected and unelected (it does not end with an election) politicians feel accountable.

What is the gameplan for Times Now going forward?
On a scale of 1 to 10, if our closest competitor is 1 or 2, we are 9 or 10 in terms of engagement of the viewer. I believe no other channel comes close to us in the matter of engaging the viewer; so I believe it has to have a natural follow-up. It is very interesting that on days of great performance on the IPL, we are more talked about, in terms of the subjects we speak about. We have given even sports channels a serious run for their money in terms of audience engagement. It is an area which I am excited about; I enjoy myself when I know I am learning something and social media is teaching me a lot, and I have a fantastic young team.

*Link for This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources 
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DTN News - PAKISTAN NEWS: Karachi Airport Under Attack By Militants, Many Killed - 5 Confirmed

Asian Defense News: DTN News - PAKISTAN NEWS: Karachi Airport Under Attack By Militants, Many Killed - 5 Confirmed

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth 
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - June 8, 2014: (KARACHI) More than a dozen militants equipped with heavy weapons and grenades attacked Karachi airport on Sunday night, killing at least four security personnel, SAMAA reports. The attack took place at terminal 1. 

According to reports reaching here, miscreants entered from old terminal and started indiscriminate firing followed by grenades. The attack is ongoing at the airport in the sprawling port city on Pakistan's southern coast of Pakistan. 

Gunfire could be heard coming from the terminal as authorities scrambled to secure the area.

Five bodies were brought from the airport to Jinnah Hospital, along with one person who had been wounded, the Associated Press was told by Dr. Seemi Jamali at the hospital.

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DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: Pentagon Confirms New Chinese Long-Range ICBM Development

Asian Defense News: DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: Pentagon Confirms New Chinese Long-Range ICBM Development

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources Bill Gertz
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - June 8, 2014: China is developing a new long-range intercontinental ballistic missile with multiple nuclear warheads as part of a large-scale strategic and conventional forces buildup, the Pentagon confirmed Thursday in its annual report to Congress.

“China also is developing a new road-mobile ICBM known as the Dong Feng-41 (DF-41), possibly capable of carrying multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV),” the report says.

It was the first time since 2007 that the Pentagon acknowledged the development of the road-mobile DF-41, which U.S. officials said was test launched twice since 2012, most recently in December.

The Washington Free Beacon first disclosed details of the DF-41 last year. The missile is part of China’s large-scale strategic nuclear missile buildup, that includes three other ICBMs, the DF-31, DF-31A road-mobile missiles, and the JL-2 submarine-launched missiles.

The DF-41 is assessed by U.S. intelligence agencies of being capable of carrying up to 10 MIRVs.

“We have been seeing pictures of [the DF-41] since 2007, but now we know that the Pentagon knows that [People’s Liberation Army] PLA nuclear warheads will be increasing faster with the introduction of this ICBM,” said Rick Fisher, a China military analyst with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.

“The Second Artillery continues to modernize its nuclear forces by enhancing its silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and adding more survivable mobile delivery systems,” the Pentagon report said, referring to China’s Second Artillery Corps, as the strategic nuclear missile forces service is known.

The report also said China has deployed three Jin-class ballistic missile submarines and that up to five of the submarines will be built before a newer generation missile submarine comes online.

“China is likely to conduct its first nuclear deterrence patrols with the JIN-class SSBN in 2014,” the report said.

The Pentagon said that China’s new generation of mobile missiles with multiple warheads and penetration aids designed to defeat U.S. missile defenses “are intended to ensure the viability of China’s strategic deterrent in the face of continued advances in U.S. and, to a lesser extent, Russian strategic [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance], precision strike, and missile defense capabilities.”

In addition to new missiles, the Chinese military is deploying new command, control, and communications for its nuclear forces, an enhancement the Pentagon assessed is making its strategic forces more lethal.

“Through the use of improved communications links, China’s ICBM units now have better access to battlefield information and uninterrupted communications connecting all command echelons, and unit commanders are able to issue orders to multiple subordinates at once, instead of serially, via voice commands,” the report said.

On cyber warfare, the report said China, along with Russia, is seeking to promote intergovernmental control over the Internet. China has been a major promoter of seeking to remove control of the Internet from the United States.

Once focused mainly on developing weapons and tactics for a conflict over Taiwan, the Pentagon now regards China’s military buildup as expanding beyond a Taiwan contingency.

“China is investing in military programs and weapons designed to improve extended-range power projection and operations in emerging domains such as cyberspace, space, and electronic warfare,” the report said.

The Chinese military is developing high-technology forces as part of what Beijing calls “informationization” capabilities.

In addition to kinetic, battlefield weapons such as its large-scale missile and naval forces, China also is working on a military capability to launch an “information blockade” during a conflict. China “envisions the use of military and non- instruments of state power across the battlespace, including in cyberspace and outer space to deny information superiority to its adversaries,” the report said.

“China’s investments in advanced electronic warfare systems, counterspace weapons, and computer network operations —combined with propaganda and denial through opacity—reflect the emphasis and priority China’s leaders place on building capability for information advantage,” the Pentagon said.

Chinese military and government hackers also are continuing cyber attacks against the Pentagon the report said.

“In 2013, numerous computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. government, continued to be targeted for intrusions, some of which appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military,” the report said.

“These intrusions were focused on exfiltrating information,” the report said. “China is using its computer network exploitation capability to support intelligence collection against the U.S. diplomatic, economic, and defense industrial base sectors that support U.S. national defense programs.”

The report for the first time said China’s buildup of air forces is significant, and includes two new radar-evading warplanes and several armed drones.

China’s air force “is pursuing modernization on a scale unprecedented in its history and is rapidly closing the gap with Western air forces across a broad spectrum of capabilities including aircraft, command and control, jammers, electronic warfare, and data links,” the report said.

Most of its jet fighters will be advanced, fourth-generation fighters within the next several years, including two new stealth fighters, the J-20 and the J-31.

The J-31 “is similar in size to a U.S. F-35 fighter and appears to incorporate design characteristics similar to the J-20,” the report said.

The H-6 bomber fleet has been upgraded to increase its lethality by deploying new standoff weapons on the aircraft, such as anti-ship cruise missiles and land attack cruise missiles.

“Modernizing the H-6 into a cruise missile carrier has given the PLA Air Force a long-range stand-off offensive capability with precision-guided munitions,” the report said.

China also is modernizing its ground forces with rapid deployment capabilities over long distances, along with advanced special operations forces.

Strategically, the Pentagon report states that the Chinese military has adopted what is being called “new historic missions” that seek to bolster the power of the ruling Communist Party of China.

The report highlights China’s ongoing territorial disputes, mainly in the South China Sea against Vietnam and Philippines and in the East China Sea against Japan.

In the South China Sea, the Pentagon criticized China for not observing international maritime laws during a dangerous encounter in December involving the USS Cowpens, a guided missile cruiser.

The Cowpens was sailing in international waters 32 miles south of China’s Hainan Island when it was harassed by two Chinese naval vessels.

“Two PLA Navy vessels approached USS Cowpens,” the report said. “During this interaction, one of the PLA Navy vessels altered course and crossed directly in front of the bow of USS Cowpens. This maneuver by the PLA Navy vessel forced USS Cowpens to come to full stop to avoid collision, while the PLA Navy vessel passed less than 100 yards ahead.”

The action was “inconsistent with internationally recognized rules concerning professional maritime behavior,” the report said.

The Free Beacon first disclosed the dangerous encounter involving the Cowpens in December.

Fisher, the China military affairs expert, said the latest report, which omitted all photos of Chinese military hardware, appeared to be part of the Obama administration’s policy of not portraying the PLA as a Cold War enemy.

Still, “the 2014 Pentagon PLA report has come a long way to presenting a more useful listing of China’s military direction,” Fisher said.

“But it is now time for this report to take the next step,” he said. “It needs to become an illustrated book translated into multiple languages. This document defines the Chinese military’s trajectory more than any other statement by any other country—which is why the Chinese government hates it and wants to shut it down.”

The Pentagon for the first time in its annual report also discloses brief details of China’s development of missile defenses.

China’s government has denounced U.S. and allied missile defenses as destabilizing Asia.

However, China has been secretly developing anti-missile capabilities at the same time.

“While specialists have been watching this since the 1990s, it is time to assess that the U.S. deterrent posture must now factor in a future Chinese national missile defense capability,” Fisher said.

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*Link for This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources  Bill Gertz
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DTN News - INDIA NEWS: Sonia Gandhi ~ Congress Debacle In Elections 2014 - Due To Unending Scams And Corruption In UPA Government

Asian Defense News: DTN News - INDIA NEWS: Sonia Gandhi ~ Congress Debacle In Elections 2014 - Due To Unending Scams And Corruption In UPA Government

*Robert Vadra busy ‘salvaging’ land in Bikaner

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources TOI
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - June 7, 2014: (BIKANER) As Narendra Modi gets ready to be sworn in as Prime Minister, Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra and his team are busy gathering documents to get requisite corrections done in purchase of huge swaths of land in Bikaner district. 

In the run up to the elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had pledged to probe the land deals of Vadra once it comes to power. The party had also released a CD detailing how the Ashok Gehlot government shielded the alleged dubious deals of the son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi. Four Vadra companies bought land in excess to permissible limit under the Land Ceiling Act. The report of the district collector revealed that the Gehlot government changed the Land Ceiling Act, purposely to help Vadra buy lands. 

Latest reports say that Vadra has deputed a few individuals, who are camping in Bikaner and trying hard to collect documents in view of possible legal battles. A key member of Vadra team, Mahesh Nagar, is visiting Bikaner frequently.

Sources say that Nagar was holding meetings with district officials secretly and trying to collect papers from them. He was reportedly the front man when Vadra companies bought land in Bikaner.According to sources, Nagar is continuing the process of purchase of land and even in May 2014, Nagar purchased nearly 1,000 bighas in Pokhran tehsil of Jailsalmer district. 

TOI could not contact Nagar, though officials confirmed his presence in the district. Nagar reportedly belongs to Haryana. 

As per the provisions of Rajasthan Imposition of Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1973 there is a ceiling limit of 280 bigha in the state. It means that a person is allowed to possess not more than 280 bigha of land. 

However, Gehlot government amended Section 17 of Rajasthan Imposition of Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1973 in September 2010, that too with retrospective effect. The amendment says that restrictions on quantum of land deal shall not apply to a person who acquires the land with the prior approval of the state government or any other authority appointed by it. Moreover, records show that the "soul" of the Act was changed without debate in the state assembly. 

After taking over as chief minister, Vasundhara Raje issued letters to district collectors of Bikaner and Jodhpur for providing data of land deals in their districts. According to sources, collector of Bikaner sent a report saying that companies of Robert Vadra had purchased nearly 2,503 bigha in Bikaner district, out of which nearly 1,124 bigha had already been sold. 

According to BJP's Bikaner MP Arjun Ram Meghwal, Vadra-owned companies Sky Light Hospitality Pvt. Ltd., Blue Bridge Trading Pvt. Ltd., Skylight Reality Pvt. Ltd., Real Earth Estates Pvt. Ltd. and North India IT Park Pvt. Ltd bought 1,634 hectors (6,536 bighas) (1 hector = 4 bigha approx) land in in Bikaner district. Through these companies, land had been purchased in Kolayat, Gajner, Golari, Darbari, Sarah Kishnayat, Basti Chauhanan, Sarah Sutharan villages in Kolayat tehsil.

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DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: Edward Snowden 'Probably Not' A Foreign Spy Says NSA Chief Michael Rogers

Asian Defense News: DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: Edward Snowden 'Probably Not' A Foreign Spy Says NSA Chief Michael Rogers
*New NSA director plays down speculation that 'our gentleman in Moscow' was working for a foreign intelligence agency

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources Spencer Ackerman in Washington
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - June 5, 2014: The new director of the National Security Agency says he believes whistleblower Edward Snowden was "probably not" working for a foreign intelligence agency, despite frequent speculation and assertion by the NSA's allies to the contrary.

In one of his first public remarks since becoming NSA director in April, Admiral Michael Rogers, who also leads the military’s cybersecurity and cyberattack command, distanced himself on Tuesday from contentions that Snowden is or has been a spy for Russia or another intelligence service.

“Could he have? Possibly. Do I believe that’s the case? Probably not,” Rogers said during a cybersecurity forum hosted by Bloomberg Government.

The recently installed NSA director struck a more nuanced tone on the man he called “our gentleman in Moscow” than his predecessor, Keith Alexander, or many of his congressional champions – chief among them his namesake Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, who has frequently intimated that Snowden is a Russian spy.

“You gotta be very balanced. I thought he was an intelligent individual, articulate. [He] seemed fairly arrogant to me,” the NSA’s Rogers said on Snowden’s interview with NBC last week.

“He clearly believes in what he’s doing. I question that; I don’t agree with it. I fundamentally disagree with what he did. I believe it was wrong, I believe it was illegal.”

Rogers declined to say that there were no other Snowdens waiting to leak documents from the NSA. He sounded cautious about how many documents Snowden actually took from the NSA, despite a still-classified Defense Intelligence Agency assessment asserting that Snowden absconded with 1.7 million documents – an assessment based on Snowden’s internal access to NSA documents.

“We have a fairly good idea here, and I’m not going to get into specifics here,” Rogers said.

In another departure from past practice, Rogers confirmed the broad outline of a New York Times story based on the Snowden disclosures that reported NSA’s mass collection of digitized images of people’s facesand other biometric identifiers.

“We use facial recognition as a tool to help us understand these foreign intelligence targets. Counter-terrorism is another big area – this has probably had more impact for us in the counterterrorism arena than anywhere else,” Rogers said.

The Guardian reported in February that the NSA has aided its British counterpart, GCHQ, in collecting imagery from millions of unsuspecting users of Yahoo webcam chats, which GCHQ used for experiments with automated facial recognition software. At the time, months before Rogers became NSA director, the NSA declined to answer questions about its involvement in the effort.

At the Tuesday event, Rogers pledged increased candor with the public about NSA’s operations, which he acknowledged was a cultural challenge for America’s most secret intelligence agency. But he indicated a desire to move the agency out from under the shadow of the Snowden revelations.

“One of the things that I try to tell the workforce out there is: this is not what is going to define us,” he said. “We cannot go into this hunched-down crunch. We have an important mission.”

Echoing a year’s worth of reluctant statements by intelligence leaders, Rogers told Reuters last month that transparency would be key to restoring confidence in the NSA, even as he declined to criticize the broad surveillance that prompted widespread outrage.

Fulfilling the agency’s transparency pledge has been complicated by measures from the US director of national intelligence to clamp down on public interaction, even on unclassified matters, without the approval of the secretive agencies’ press monitors. Critics, noting the government’s selective and incomplete intelligence disclosures, consider the NSA and its allies more interested in reasserting control over its public image than in shedding light on its practices and authorities.

Occasionally animated during his talk, Rogers appeared relaxed and jocular. While rejecting charges of NSA wrongdoing, he said he was open to public debate about the proper scope of the agency’s surveillance authorities – though he neglected to mention that the agency and its allies worked behind the scenes last month to weaken privacy and transparency provisions in a major surveillance reform bill.

“A broad dialogue of what we’re doing and why is a good thing for us as a nation. I don’t question that for one minute,” said Rogers, who repeatedly described himself, to laughter, as a “direct” person.

Rogers declined to discuss Bowe Bergdahl, a former Taliban captive in Afghanistan whom the Obama administration traded for five Taliban leaders detained at Guantanamo Bay. Responding generically to a question about the NSA monitoring the five ex-detainees, Rogers noted that the agency has “the means to track individuals with a foreign intelligence dimension to them” but said he could not guarantee tracking “every individual constantly.”

More broadly, Rogers warned of a danger in inflating national security threats to justify the expansion of government security powers.

“There are groups and individuals out there who if they had their way, we would no longer exist as a nation,” Rogers said.

“Now, I’m not one who’s going to sit here and overhype the threat [or say] that in the name of this threat we have to make dramatic changes and curtail our rights, because if we go down that road, in the end, they’ve won. If we change who we are and what we believe and what we represent in the name of security, they have won. I have always believed that.”

*Link for This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources Spencer Ackerman in Washington
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DTN News - BOEING NEWS: Few Customers For Boeing 747 Despite Upgrade

Asian Defense News: DTN News - BOEING NEWS: Few customers For Boeing 747 Despite Upgrade

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources By Julie Johnsson and Andrea Rothman
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - June 4, 2014: (CHICAGO) — Boeing’s iconic 747 jumbo jet is gliding deeper into its twilight years, with a new Air Force One fleet offering the strongest sales prospect for a passenger model that no longer fits most airlines’ needs.

Even as Boeing talks with Emirates airline about an order for the upgraded 747-8, the carrier played down the chances of a deal because it’s buying 150 Boeing 777X jets. That plane will be bigger and more efficient than the current 777, a twin-engine aircraft so capable that it’s cannibalizing Boeing’s jumbo sales.

Commercial success has proved elusive for the 747-8, the latest update to an almost 50-year-old plane known for its distinctive humpbacked fuselage. While the 747-8 is a lock to win bidding that opens this year to replace the president’s fleet, waning demand for the cargo variant further imperils an assembly line that has slowed to just one or two planes a month.

‘‘Air Force One is it, unless a miracle happens in the airfreight business,’’ said Glen Langdon, president of Langdon Asset Management, a San Francisco firm that has extensive experience selling used 747s and other wide-body freighters.

Discussions with Emirates were disclosed this week by John Wojick, senior vice president for sales and marketing at Chicago-based Boeing’s commercial airplane unit, at the annual meeting of the International Air Transport Association in Doha. Emirates is the world’s largest international airline and it operates a fleet of A380s from rival Airbus Group.

Boeing is fighting to land customers, even using trade-ins of older models to seal deals. Boeing faces a ‘‘material’’ accounting loss if it can’t win sufficient 747 orders to recover the costs of development, according to a company filing. So far, Boeing has tallied just 51 sales for the passenger variant, known as the 747-8I or Intercontinental, since Deutsche Lufthansa AG placed the first order in 2006.

This year’s 747-8 order count: one. It wasn’t always so grim. Pan American World Airways announced a $525 million order for 25 of the first 747s in 1966, effectively launching a program that would go on to produce almost 1,500 planes.

But Boeing outdid itself with the 777-9X, the first twin-engine jet designed to carry a jumbo’s haul of 407 passengers. Meanwhile, a glut of the previous 747 iteration remain parked, and Boeing cut 747 production twice last year, to 18 jets a year, as the backlog dwindled.

‘‘We expect 747-8 sales to increase with the economy, and customers flying the airplane tell us they love its strong performance,’’ Randy Tinseth, a Boeing vice-president for marketing, said in an e-mail. ‘‘That’s why we continue to invest in the 747-8, to make it even better.’’

The 747-8’s likeliest sales are to the Pentagon. The Air Force is planning to upgrade the all-747 presidential aircraft fleet by 2023 and has also begun studying whether to replace the ‘‘Doomsday’’ fleet, four 747-200 jets hardened against nuclear blasts that provide a mobile military command, Charles Gulick, an Air Force spokesman, said in an e-mail.

The White House’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposes spending $1.65 billion over five years to replace its aging Air Force One fleet, which began ferrying President George H.W. Bush in August 1990.

*Link for This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources By Julie Johnsson and Andrea Rothman
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