Sir - Just to confirm. Is this true? EU is going to give Meteor codes for integrating with Uttam? I heard that French do not give out those codes for MICA missiles?
You are quite right.
Owing to expediency, the IAF (actually, HAL) did a least cost tender (one of the dumbest things that GoI Department of Defence insists on, and an Anthony legacy), and picked the Israeli radar, IN SPITE OF THE FRENCH, OF MBDA WARNING THE IAF AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN NOT TO DO IT, that picking the Israeli radar would mean that the Meteor would NOT be integrated with it, due to the need to exchange source code for the integration.
That is why the Israeli radar was a good radar per se, and the cheapest, but blocked the acquisition of the Meteor. Now replacement of that with Uttam, and consequent acquisition and integration with the Meteor. With that, the Tejas will be good for BVR roles, especially in view of the easy Pakistani access to Chinese air to air missiles, that are excellent in their paper specification form.
The immediate need is for the Meteor BVR missile, but obviously, once MBDA accepts that Uttam is entirely of Indian design and that the source code is really and truly available with Indian engineers, the MICA will also be available. Not so important, but just that the Uttam ticks many boxes.
Regarding you discussions with Pakistanis - they are not going to accept Indians are any good. If they agree on that, then (after some critical thinking) they need to start agreeing that Pak lost all wars with India. If they agree on that, do you think they will be able to sleep peacefully at night (as they have been fed all lies from their birth)?
This is not so simple a proposition.
You should know that there are two types of Pakistani members here. The first type, in the majority, are the Ernie King semper iratus types, always angry with India and with Indians. Even among them, some of them, on closer acquaintance, thaw, and show their witty, humorous, even warm side.
I recommend strongly to you and to other Indian posters to keep your preconceived notions at the door, with your chappals, and reply to each post with dignity and good humour, and with a clear understanding that we are outsiders and have no business in commenting on internal developments. However their comments about us, our country, our politics, our armed forces, our technology, our culture and the several religions that we follow, INCLUDING Islam, is fair grounds for having a discussion, in my opinion. I do engage them on that, and try as far as I may to keep scrupulously polite. I have an advantage; Pakistanis in Pakistan proper have respect for the elderly hard-wired into their system, and find it difficult to be harsh with me. That gives me the opportunity to keep the conversation polite.
Having said that, some of my warmest friends on PDF and very much outside PDF are Pakistanis who live abroad, and I would, in some cases, blindly accept their word or even their judgement (on my personal behaviour and my wording). That is NOT to say that we do not disagree, sometimes vehemently. I recommend to you that you maintain a principled stand, and never stoop to bad language; each of us represents the country, and we need to remember that our every post is judged by stern critics.
That brings me to the second type. They are superior people, and I have often yearned to be allowed by GoI to kidnap them and bring them into India by force, and not allow them to return. They would be embellishments to our country. I will obviously name nobody from either type, as it would be, for them, hugely embarrassing.
For this kind, be sure to give them the huge respect that they deserve.
There is, to take up your last point, a gulf between our national narratives. What do you wish to do about it? Uphold our narrative blindly, denigrate theirs blindly? How childish is that? At this moment, in my own discussion group of fewer than fifteen people, we are in furious debate about aspects of the freedom struggle. How much more likely is it that if I should be debating with intensity and passion with those whom I have known for over a decade, I am likely to be at odds with people who are my chance acquaintances on PDF?
I hope you get the point. Nobody is at all times totally right, nobody is at all times totally wrong.
However, I do enjoy the information in your posts.
I am really happy to read that. It is the whole purpose, after all; otherwise, All Things Pakistan or the much regretted PakTeaHouse, run by the legendary Raza Rumi and his colleague Raza Habeeb Raja, would have been better. Those were over-run by the extreme right-wing Indians who are the bane of the Internet and of social media, and it died a horrible death.
Although I have been unable to come here often, and although I have other commitments, I do hope I spread light rather than heat with my posts. It is a course, a direction that I warmly endorse for your consideration.
We'll find it. Don't worry. We make it all, so no need to wait for hand-outs from tallest, deepest flends which we can call joint ventures.
