Today’s Podcast

Indian Army orders all personnel to delete their Facebook accounts, Boeing completes delivery of the last five of 22 Apache attack helicopters to the Indian Air Force, Saab begins production of the Gripen in Brazil and the Indian Navy completes Operation Samudra Setu

Indian Army orders all personnel to delete their Facebook accounts

The Indian Army’s 1.3 million personnel will have to delete their Facebook and Instagram accounts. First reported by the Navbharat Times, the order says that personnel will not be allowed to merely deactivate their accounts – the new order requires deletion of accounts. Interestingly, the order does not appear to apply to Twitter accounts.

The reason for this move is the apparent risk of espionage on Facebook and Instagram, where users typically post information that is of a more personal nature and make it easier to access photos and map relationships. A total of 89 websites and apps have banned for use by army personnel, including Tinder, Zoom and Truecaller.

The army has allowed restricted use of some apps like the Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Youtube, LinkedIn, Twitter and Quora, with the order allowing personnel areto have a passive presence on Youtube, Twitter and Quora.

As first reported by StratPost, the Indian Navy had banned many of these social media and messaging websites and applications for its personnel earlier this year.

Boeing completes delivery of last five of 22 Apache attack helicopters to the IAF

The final five AH-64E Apache Guardian helicopters of the Indian Air Force have been delivered to Hindon air force station close to Delhi on Sunday.

According to a Janes report, the Boeing technicians accompanying the dismantled aircraft onboard an Antonov An-124 were exempted from the Covid-19 quarantine restrictions to allow them to complete assembly, quickly.

17 aircraft had been delivered in 2019. This completes the USD 2.1 billion order for 22 helicopters. India placed an order earlier this year, for an additional six helicopters for the army.

Saab begins production of the Gripen in Brazil

Saab has begun producing the first Gripen fighter aircraft in Brazil. Sweden’s Saab has begun manufacturing the Gripen E at its Saab Aeronautica Montagens factory at São Bernardo do Campo in Brazil, as part of a USD 4.8 billion Brazilian order for 36 aircraft.

The Brazilian factory is building parts like the tail cone and the front fuselage, which will be forwarded to an Embraer final assembly line at Sao Paolo in Brazil and Saab’s final assembly line at Linköping in Sweden. Saab also plans to build the aerodynamic brakes, rear fuselage, wing box and front fuselage for the two-seater version, at the Brazilian factory, according to a statement.

The first Brazilian Gripen E model was completed in Sweden in September 2019. Deliveries are expected to begin next year and will be completed by 2024.

Saab is also pitching a Gripen assembly line to India as part of its bid in an upcoming Indian Air Force contest for 114 fighter aircraft.

Indian Navy completes Operation Samudra Setu

The Indian Navy has completed Operation Samudra Setu – its exercise to evacuate Indian nationals from littoral countries in the Arabian Sea who were unable to return to India because of travel restrictions.

The navy has repatriated 3,992 Indians from the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Iran with the INS Jalashwa, INS Magar, INS Shardul and INS Airawat making a total of eight separate trips to Male, Colombo and Bandar Abbas.

The navy said the greatest challenge was to avoid the outbreak of infection onboard during these evacuation missions and that rigorous measures were taken to prevent such an eventuality

Operation Samudra Setu was launched on the fifth of May.

A separate operation, Mission Sagar was also conducted in which Landing Ship (Tank) Kesari carried five hundred and eighty tons of relief materiel including food aid and medical stores to the Maldives, Mauritius, Madagascar, the Comoros Islands and Seychelles, covering fourteen thousand kilometres in forty nine days. Mission Sagar also included the deployment of a medical team to Mauritius and the Comoros Islands.