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The HAL Tejas is a lightweight multirole jet fighter developed by India. It is a tailless, compound delta wing design powered by a single engine. Originally known as the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA)—a designation which continues in popular usage—the aircraft was officially named "Tejas" by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 4 May 2003.
The limited series production of the Tejas commenced in 2007. A two-seat trainer variant is also in development (exited the production line as of November 2008), as is a naval variant capable of operating from the Indian Navy's aircraft carriers. The IAF is reported to have a requirement for 200 single-seat and 20 two-seat conversion trainers, while the Indian Navy may order up to 40 single-seaters to replace its Sea Harrier FRS.51 and Harrier T.60. The LCA naval variant is expected to take to the skies by 2009.
The MCA’s design team will centre on the agencies that have built the LCA: the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA); the National Aeronautics Laboratory (NAL); Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL); and a host of Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO) laboratories that will develop futuristic sensors and systems for the MCA.
The director of ADA, Dr PS Subramaniam, confirmed to Business Standard, “The joint committee is likely to be formed within two or three weeks. This committee will finalise what will go into the MCA, as well as the budget and development schedule.”
According to Dr Subramaniam, the programme will aim to develop the MCA and build five to six prototypes at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore. That is approximately the same amount that has gone into the LCA programme.
With this, Indian aeronautical designers will be working in all the fighter categories. In the light fighter category (10-11 tonnes), the Tejas LCA is expected to get operational clearance in 2011; the MCA will be India’s first foray into the medium fighter category (14-15 tonnes); and in the heavy fighter category (20 tonnes plus), currently ruled by the Russian Sukhoi-30MKI, Indian designers plan to partner their Russian counterparts in developing the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA).
Interestingly, the decision to develop an indigenous MCA comes alongside the overseas procurement of 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) for an estimated Rs 50,000 crore. Senior IAF planners point out that the MMRCA procurement is unavoidable for replacing the MiG-29s and Mirage-2000s that will become obsolete while the MCA is still being developed.
By 2020, when the IAF’s current fleet would have been largely phased out, MoD planners forecast a requirement for at least 250 medium fighters. This has raised hopes amongst the MMRCA contenders (the US F/A-18 and F-16, Russia’s Mig-35; the Eurofighter Typhoon; and the Swedish Gripen) that the winner could end up supplying twice as many fighters as the current tender. But a successful Indian MCA programme would cap the MMRCA procurement at 126 fighters. After that, the MCA production will kick in.
The MCA designers plan to pursue technologies superior to anything currently on offer. The ADA director points out, “None of the MMRCA contenders will be state-of-the-art in 2015-2017. But the MCA will; it will incorporate the technologies of the future, which currently feature only on the US Air Force’s F-22 Raptor.”
India’s aeronautical designers see the MCA programme as crucial for taking forward the expertise that has been painstakingly accumulated in the Tejas LCA programme. The IAF is in agreement; and the Rama Rao Committee, set up for restructuring the DRDO, has recommended that programmes must be created to provide continuity for designers.
Says a senior MoD official: “With great difficulty we have built up a team that can design a complete combat aircraft. After a couple of years, when the LCA goes into production, there will be no design work left. Without another aircraft programme to work on, we will lose this team, having attained this level.”
Professor DaDa' (In Russian Da means Yes) . The Professor K is very confident on his formula curing every possible human disease and repeats Da....Da! 
Armed militants of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), stand next to a graffiti which read as "Long Live Tehreek-e-Talban Pakistan" at a camp in a Pakistani tribal district of Mohmand Agency. The provincial government of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on April 21 vowed to continue a peace dialogue with militants but said it would keep the option of force as last resort. TTP chief and Talban warlord Baitullah Mehsud last week asked the provincial government of NWFP to resign in five days or be ready for attacks, accusing it of failing to keep up promises made in peace agreements.
In Pakistan, U.S. policymakers confront the dilemma of armed forces incapable of really leading the country to modernity but at the same time skeptical of the ability of democratically elected civilian governments and their leaders to accomplish the same goal.
So over the 62-year history of the independent Pakistan state, either military strongmen have ruled through the exercise of force or they reluctantly yield power to weak civilian governments that rapidly prove incapable of extricating themselves from the morass of feudal politics laced with corruption.
In this mess, Islamic radicalism prospers, as it seems capable of providing guidance and inspiration to significant segments of an otherwise disoriented population.
Pakistan's perennially unresolved Kashmir dispute with India, with nationalist and religious components, adds a huge element of constant frustration and paranoia against the more powerful and now more economically advanced neighbor. As a way to gain leverage in this dispute, the Pakistani government over time trained and enabled radical mujahedin guerrillas based on their side of the Line of Control in Kashmir who were willing to carry on the fight against the Indians. In so doing, however, Islamabad created violent agents who may now be beyond its direct control.
As a result, we have now the fairly popular paranoid notion among the people of Pakistan that their country remains under siege, ruled by agents of the United States, and that it is threatened by a vast conspiracy including the West and India.
This conspiratorial belief extends to at least some elements of the vast number of Pakistanis who have settled in Europe and the Middle East. This complicates matters, as Western governments and security services now face the problem of millions of people of Pakistani origin who now hold British passports and who freely travel back and forth between Britain and Pakistan. A small minority of them, still significant in their numbers and the potential threat they pose, have received and are receiving military training in Pakistan. Western security services already know that some of them have been engaged in violent plots on different continents.
In short, Pakistan is a weak country, close to being ungovernable, to the extent that too many elements within the society do not really recognize the legitimacy of popularly elected leaders.
Why the Pakistani government does not dare to challenge the legitimacy of the radical Islamic groups that are undermining its control and effectiveness!
Pakistan is under pressure from the US tocrack down on fighters. In total, attacks in South Asia, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, accounted for 35 per cent of the 11,770 attacks that took place worldwide in 2008, the report said.
"Pakistan's ... tribal areas provided AQ [Al-Qaeda] many of the benefits it once derived from its base across the border in Afghanistan," the report said on Thursday.
It also warned that the Taliban and al-Qaeda affiliates have increased the "co-ordination, sophistication and frequency'' of suicide and other bombings in Pakistan and were challenging the government's authority.
And it said that efforts to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan in particular needed a global approach.
"The international community's assistance to the Afghan government to build counterinsurgency capabilities, ensure legitimate and effective governance, and counter the surge in narcotics cultivation is essential to the effort to defeat the Taliban and other insurgent groups and criminal gangs," it said.
'Gravely concerned'
The White House has made Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan a central plank of its foreign policy, with Barack Obama, the US president, to send 21,000 more US troops to Afghanistan and asking congress for aid to assist the Pakistani army.
Obama has also put pressure on Pakistan to produce results in its efforts to combat the Taliban and al-Qaeda, saying in a news conference on Thursday he remained "gravely concerned" about the security situation in the country.
The US has become increasingly concerned about the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan, a US ally seen as vital to stabilising Afghanistan, as the Taliban have advanced from their Swat valley stronghold to within 100km of Pakistan's capital.
Obama's comments came after Pakistani troops were reported to have regained control of the main town in Buner district from the Taliban in the country's North West Frontier Province.
In total, attacks in South Asia, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, accounted for 35 per cent of the 11,770 attacks that took place worldwide in 2008, the report said.
However, the total number of terror attacks fell from 14,506 in 2007 and the number of deaths also dropped to 15,765 from 22,508.
The report said the threat from al-Qaeda in Iraq had diminished following defections and a loss of funding and control in key areas and "improved capabilities" of Iraqi forces and Sunni tribes' so-called Awakening Councils.
Iran was also strongly criticised as the "most significant state sponsor of terrorism", with the report saying Iran continued to employ "terrorism to advance its key national security and foreign policy interests".
Former military dictators can be tried under the High Treason Act for subverting the constitution: Babar Awan.
‘Gen Zia can be charged (posthumously) with sabotaging the 1973 Constitution in 1977 and Gen Musharraf twice in 1999 and 2007,’ the minister, who is also acting as law minister, told reporters after an appearance in the Supreme Court on Thursday.
His statement comes in the wake of press reports that an Islamabad judge wants the ministry of law to clarify whether a former president can be brought to court on public complaints.
Mr Awan explained that Article 6 of the Constitution that dealt with high treason for undermining the Constitution was unambiguous, self-explanatory and explicit, but conceded that the act that was notified in the gazette of Pakistan on September 29, 1973, had become a ‘dead letter’ since no civilian or military ruler had ever been tried under the law during the past 36 years in view of political exigencies.
Section 2-a of the act says that a person found guilty of having committed an act of abrogating or subverting the Constitution enforced in Pakistan at any time would be tried under the law to hand down death sentence or life imprisonment.
Thus according to this definition, Gen Ayub Khan, who had transferred the power to Gen Yahya Khan instead of the then assembly speaker, could also be tried because the high treason act had come into force on March 23, 1956. Regarding the judicial forum, he said, cases registered under the high treason (punishment) act were tried by the Special Court Central, a forum available throughout the country established under the federal laws.
After six years, British forces have ended all combat operations in southern Iraq and have handed over power to the American military. 
Somali pirates are currently holding at least 16 ships and more than 250 seamen for ransom. Attacks surged this month as calm seas allowed them to approach their prey more easily and dodge the increasing naval presence in the region.
BAE Systems, which makes the Panther command and liasion vehicles shown here, announced large-scale job cuts and three U.K. plant closures April 30. (BAE SYSTEMS)
The company announced April 30 that its support and technology facilities at Telford, Leeds and Guildford are set to close, with the loss of 330 jobs. Smaller manpower cuts will come at the vehicle systems engineering facility in Leicester, the production site at Newcastle and the Barrow weapons business, which produces the M777 towed howitzer for the U.S. military.
The announcement is the second downsizing of BAE's land systems business in the U.K. in six months. In November, the company made 200 people redundant across five sites.
BAE said December's decision by the Ministry of Defence to abandon the utility vehicle element of the Future Rapid Effects System and a downturn in urgent operational equipment updates for British forces deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq is responsible for the cutbacks.
The 90 jobs going at Barrow, though, have been caused by a recent decision to slow down production of M777 lightweight towed howitzers from 14 guns per month to 10 guns.
Canadian and U.S. armed forces already use the weapon, and Australia is expected to become a customer later this year.
Along with an anticipated order for 150 guns this year, the slow down will allow BAE to extend production at the site until at least the end of 2011 to enable it to pursue further export work.
Global Combat Systems managing director David Allott said the site rationalization and associated job losses were prompted by falling workloads.
"Our forecast U.K. order intake has reduced, and we have to match the size of our business appropriately to the projected nature and volume of workload," he said in a statement released April 30.
Allott said the site rationalization would consolidate a fragmented infrastructure, enabling the company reduce fixed overheads.
BAE said it was targeting the British Army's FRES Scout program, a major upgrade of the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle to provide work for the Newcastle and Leicester facilities, and a support initiative known as the Armoured Vehicle Support Transformation program to provide future work.
Expressions of interest from industry on providing a vehicle for the FRES Scout program were due in to the Ministry of Defence on April 30.
A company spokesman said BAE had responded, offering its CV-90 vehicle designed by BAE Hagglunds in Sweden. Invitations to tender for the Warrior program are due out soon.
Failure to win at least one of the three contracts could lead to further downsizing, a spokesman said.
The work is needed to keep the huge armored vehicle production center at Newcastle sufficiently utilized in the medium to longer term.
The factory is currently working primarily on the Panther command and liaison vehicles, Terrier support vehicles for the Royal Engineers, and Tactica security vehicles for Saudi Arabia and others.
Panther fitting out and upgrade for Afghanistan is coming to an end. The vehicle is expected to be announced as operational in Afghanistan in the next few days.
The spokesman also said the cuts were not related to a recent restructuring of its worldwide land systems and armaments business, which saw British and Swedish operations in the sector consolidated into a unit known as Global Combat Systems.
The unit also includes the Swedish-based armored vehicle and ordnance businesses at Hagglunds and Bofors alongside the British vehicle, weapons and munitions operations.
The company's U.K. Global Combat Systems Vehicles and Weapons business currently employs 1,820 people. Together with the munitions activities, the British land systems businesses generate about 850 million pounds in revenue and employ about 3,500 people.
The closure program will reduce BAE's land system operations in the U.K. to major armor vehicle sites at Newcastle and Leicester, a bridge building business at Wolverhampton, the Barrow weapons plant and a munitions operation.
BAE is hoping that redundancy numbers can be cut by transferring up to 100 jobs from the sites that are closing to Newcastle and Leicester, enabling the company to retain specialist skills.
Members of the Iran army in camouflage march during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of army day in Tehran, April 18, 2009. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday a strong Iranian military would help preserve stability in the Middle East, as Iran marked its armed forces' day with a parade that appeared more muted than in the past.
Al-Qaeda remains the biggest danger to the US and the West, the annual report states, noting that terror attacks are rising in Pakistan.
Iran rejected the report, saying the US was guilty of double standards.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the US had no right to accuse others after in light of its actions at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
'Existential threat'
The BBC's state department correspondent, Kim Ghattas, says the new US administration may be trying to engage Tehran, but, just like last year, Iran is still described as the most active state sponsor of terrorism.
The report singles out the Quds unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard
The report charges that Iran's involvement in countries like Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and in the Palestinian territories threatens efforts to promote peace, economic stability in the Gulf and democracy.
The report singles out the Quds force, an elite branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as the channel through which Iran support terrorist activities and groups abroad.
The report also takes to task Syria, an Iranian ally in the region.
Of equal concern, our correspondent notes, is the advance of al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan where terrorist attacks are on sharply on the rise while the rest of the world, including Iraq, has seen terrorist attacks decrease. 
A military vehicle carrying an Iranian Zelzal 2 missile drives past a picture of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of army day in Tehran April 18, 2009. The sign reads, "Zelzal 2".
Washington is worried that the government in Islamabad might collapse, and last week US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Taleban fighters posed an existential threat to Pakistan, which is a nuclear power.