“Hit 5 Pak Jets, Op Sindoor Dream come true” IAF Chief AP Singh reveals details of Op Sindoor

0:00 A chief marshall major Marshall Rajaram Dr. Sunil all the senior veterans here my colleagues from the blue uniform members of the media ladies and gentlemen a very good morning to you all. Did you all notice that when I said members of the media guakush I have a special connection of Bangalore media and AP Singh I hope I'm lucky this time. Uh first of all my heartfelt gratitude to the air force association Karnataka chapter and to HL for continuing this uh

0:48 legacy uh you know lecture where we honor this legend here Chief Marshall Kra enough I think whatever I had written down about him has already been spoken all I can say is you know it is the visionary like him and like many others who are seated in front of me especially especially in the front benches. You know, it's because of you all that we in the air force, the current people are getting our direction, getting our motivation and remaining uh in remaining steadfast towards the uh the service of the nation and doing our job that is expected of us. A big a very big thank you to all of you for guiding us. My connection with uh late air chief

1:37 marshall Khatri goes back to 1984. I actually remember the date when I met him. I met him only once in my lifetime in his lifetime also. Of course that was on 21st of December 1984. I don't know you people must be wondering how I remember that date but some secret was let out in my introduction. I got commissioned on that day and the reviewing officer was the chief marshal Katray and our 134 PC and uh the parallel course 75 GDOC happened to be the only courses that have been reviewed by Chief Marshall Katri. So very proud moment today for me to stand here on occasion you know when we are honoring that figure who actually

2:23 gave me my wings literally and figuratively both actually you can say my that was my birthday that we I was born in the air force I must specially thank uh Mr. Mr. Samir Kra for you know being here today he's son of a chief marshall Khatri he's come all the way especially to be here and he does it every year thank you very much sir uh we talked about opendur I thought today that also I saw that chindur topic had come when they were settling down the slides so you know what I'm going to talk about you know when just now there was somebody said that uh somebody said

3:10 that lot of good work done and my name was being taken. I I get a feeling as if I'm that you know non-playing captain whose team does very well but the accolades go to that captain. So I wish I was in the cockpit doing something actual but I fought this war from an air conditioned ops room or air conditioned office but yes that is how life is and my uh I'll say I can't praise my team I can't get words to praise them they have done exceptionally well and you know I'm very very proud of my team the entire Indian Air Force and One thing that really stood out in this

3:59 was the the way we fought at the helm of the fair. My biggest worry because we keep having those exercises. We keep trying our you know exercising ourselves in op-ike situation but they are they are not operations they are operations like situations. And in those having seen how things are done, my biggest worry was that will everybody come together or will they be you know I will do this no no sir I will do this one command is going one way the other command is going other way a headquarter is trying to do something else but the command headquarters wants to do something else somebody's saying no no as per so and so book this is my job and not his job who is he to tell me none of this not even once did I have to

4:44 sit down and try to solve things not even once. I think that's a blessing to have a force like that and again I say uh my I can only thank my predecessors who have trained us like that to be like that whatever may be when the time comes we are all together. Uh so I will today take some time in covering that uh uh operation operation sindur and uh this will be a my from my perspective what we did and in in the end I will also cover some takeaways from it whatever you know what was responsible for success like I just now covered one part but I will try and

5:29 cover up some cover some points on that and uh in cases I find that I'm running ahead of time then I'll cover something else. I've not really prepared for that part. Now of course another point I just now wrote down Rajaram said that you know this hall is full because you are here they want to all want to hear you but sir I can see 50% are blues and out of that I think I'm 80% are detailed to be here today having gone through their times I understand everything but all those who have been detailed please listen okay don't So this uh we all know what happened

6:16 that unfortunate uh incident of Pelgam where so many people were killed in uh you know the nation had to respond and all that is in open media you know how we were trying to achieve some things diplomatically at the same time we had to give them a befitting reply. We had also said it was made very clear that this time it need it should be a an emphatic thing that we do. We we must send the message across loud and clear to them. It should not be something just limited to launch pads and uh training areas. It should be if the their leadership the the terrorist leadership should be challenged. So we were all called in and uh we we we discussed a

7:02 few options then all the other agencies also joined in and then we decided on those nine targets I don't know how clear it is here from my angle it's not looking very clear the text part of it uh so like you see I can make it easier for you by the red dots that you see on the map were the seven targets that were very close to the border and LC and they were to be taken on by army with their integral weapons and those two blue dots we've drawn them a little bigger they were the two main headquarter buildings that is Bahavalpur and Muritk headquarter complexes not buildings that

7:48 were to be taken on by uh Indian air force so this was decided also when I say taken on by Indian air force that doesn't mean that only Indian air force was to work towards that. All of us were working together including naval assets were involved in uh you know their their weapons were used in these areas their uh uh INT agencies were involved and in the planning we were all the three services together along with other agencies. So this plan was made uh in made discussed even the escalation metrics were made and discussed as to where where can it lead to what can happen and when if this happens what is going to be our response. So it was a nicely planned out effort and the date

8:34 was decided. It was the sixth and seventh night date and time and it was decided based on weather based on what pattern we were seeing across the border of their their you know movements and their actions and we decided at that time and we decided that it'll be in one go we will address all nine targets and like I said air force was targeting these uh to the border so it was not that we could do something with small drones or weapons of small caliber. They were all nicely hardened structures. So we decided to go with longrange weapons to keep ourselves safe from their air defenses but at the same time accurate

9:20 weapons to get the targets while not causing any uh the any other damage to the areas around. and special emphasis throughout has been that there should be minimum civilian casualties who are not involved with this. So uh as far as Bhavalpur is concerned this is how that complex looked looks on map and uh if you look at it there was some when DMPI is basically our point of impact that we decide where we going to hit. So there were some buildings where we had intelligence of their senior leadership staying, some buildings where their uh

10:07 other other people stay and of course the main uh mala marus building where their congregations used to take place and all the training used to take place. So these uh points were decided and I show you some some of the pictures of what we achieved. Now before and after the attack of course these are satellite pictures and after the attack pictures are immediate pictures that we got this before the attack pictures which have been built over a period of time. So you will find there is a clarity issue and there is a different kind satellite which is giving you. So hey uh sorry. So here you can see the damage which is of course not coming out very clear in

10:54 this but other pictures the here these two buildings you can see the damage much clearly. Again another big set of buildings and you see the damage that is coming out. What what I can show you here is there's hardly any collateral that you see. Of course from that distance it is not very easy to make out but still all the adjacent buildings are fairly intact. The buildings that were targeted were based on intelligence. And this is the main uh building of theirs where the weapons have gone in and uh it's bad badly damaged. Now one

11:39 thing which was good this time was that not only did we have these satellite pictures, we also had lot of uh input from the locals medias which was giving us the inside pictures because these were areas which were uh open to public kind of areas also. So there were a lot of people were going in and out. So on the net we could get uh pictures like this and videos like this. This is the same building that I just showed you. You look at the damage that has been caused inside. It's all on the open net available. So I have also picked up from there.

12:30 So this target was uh about 100 kilometers away from the border. We did not have a way to send a BDA mission that far away. So the damage assessment has been done based on only the uh or accuracy assessment has been done based on damage that we see on the pictures from the satellites and also what we got from the uh media. As far as Muritki is concerned, this is what it was the le headquarters. Uh this is shifted. I think something has one minute. These are the two main build these these

13:15 circles should be here on this building can and this building and these two things uh circles are in this area. This again is their if I can say the the senior leadership's residential area where they were staying and these were their office building and their building where they used to get together to conduct their uh meetings. This is one of the videos that we have because this was within our range. So we could get this video from the weapon itself. If you notice here somewhere here was the first impact of the previous weapon I and if you see the next one now the

14:00 video continues you can see the smoke of the previous weapon somewhere here and this weapon is for the main building that big building that we That was the point of impact. And this is the damage that you see on the They've sorted me out here, my team. So before attack these were DMPI 3 and

14:51 four and after the impact it's not very clear the the display is not very clear but uh I think the brightness of this big display is always an issue. So these are the this is the DMPI this is the bomb that you saw in the in that video uh before and here this whole picture has shifted and this is the impact that we see on the main and one on the office building. Office building you can see it's already decimated quite badly. Here you see just a a pin prick. Let it be. It's just a pin prick here. But I want to bring out something here. You know when we did Balakot,

15:38 we had uh something similar. I have a slide on that. You see here in Bala also we had similar you know this pin pricks being seen from the satellite pictures and here in this building also we see a similar kind of impact point. And in Balakot we could not get anything from insight and it became a big issue trying to tell our own people unfortunately our own people as to what we have been able to achieve. We had intelligence of what has gone on inside. We had intelligence of you know human kind of intelligence where we had very clear picture of inside in terms of there's had been a huge damage. There have been so many terrorists which have

16:24 been utilized but we could not convince our own people that look we have achieved that but this same again a a thing like this would have given us the same same problem but we were lucky and we got these videos on the open. This is the same building from inside. You see the amount of damage that it has created because all these penetration weapons sound is from that video. So they they cause this kind of damage but from outside you get a feeling as if it's just a a small hole. So I'm very happy that this time we were able to you know take care of that ghost of Balakot that we were able to tell the world what we

17:11 have achieved. Coming back to Synindur again after this what we did uh we were able to uh so these were we were able to very clearly uh understand that we have achieved our objectives some similar damage was done all the other seven targets of the army we had the pictures very clear we had the videos from here and there we had uh our old intelligence reports so when we were confident that we've been able to address what we wanted to address. a message was sent to their uh DGMO through our DGMO director general military operations that we don't mean to have any anything to do with the military in the sense our objective was

18:00 only to to strike the terrorist targets to take the revenge of this what they have done to us and we have no military aspirations no intent to attack any military targets so we can call it here but they unfortunately did not agree. They said no we will take a call. These are kind of words they spoke. So we continued to be cautious. We knew they will do something. So that seventh night, 7th 8th night if I can call it, eighth ninth night, those two nights we had lot of loyer munitions, drones, small scale weapons, uh some drones which were basically to uh you know to

18:47 saturate our systems at many of our airfields and many of the army installations that were spotted. Of course that created a little bit of panic in the public around. the public around started spotting even low earth orbit satellites and reporting them as drones. So number of drones multiplied just imagine if there's a LEO satellite let's say four or five of them which are being spotted in one part of the city for them it'll appear it is towards the east and he's that chap reports I see four towards my east or very close to me towards this direction or right over me or something like that and same thing is reported by five more people in the same city from different corners because they all it's like everybody reporting I've got one son in my area and we keep adding and say though there are so many

19:35 suns over there today. So that is what happened that night those two nights. So a lot of reports that we got were even these reports and it was becoming very difficult to filter out but our local commanders did exceptionally well. They were able to take charge of the situation and many of the actual ones were neutralized using our own uh anti- drone systems using our own even anti-aircraft guns were used to neutralize some of those drones which came over us and what happened was none of them many of them were not weaponized because when we realized that they were actually either they were doing some kind of a uh survey

20:21 or they wanted to saturate our system so that we can open our air defenses, open up our radars and they can get some aint from us. There were few of them which were weaponized and uh our anti- drone systems really worked very well and we were able to get rid of I'm to say we we were able to survive those attacks without a single damage to our uh any of the installations and in response we also sent our loiter munitions to some of their radar targets or SGW targets which were close to our bases uh close to our border and uh we did achieve some success in that some of them of course were sending videos back to us so we could get that I mean the result immediately some of

21:08 them of course we had to wait for our satellite imagery to come in so we did achieve some success in that and we kept ourselves very calibrated we did not want to escalate unnecessarily because for us the immediate miss the the operation sindur the objectives were to take care of terrorists camps and terrorists infrastructure and that was taken care of. So here is one of the videos that we have of a radar being attacked by one of our loyer munitions. This is the control cabin which is the uh which has been attacked. I cut it short a bit because after this it goes into where the system can be seen which system we are operating which

21:54 I want to not give out in open some of the pictures of other radarsa here uh after the radar attack you can see there are suit marks here again not very clear to a layman but the specialists when they analyze these pictures they tell us what exactly the damage has been and it can be blown up in our own system. Similarly, Chunia radar, there's another radar head which has been burnt. So once this was over, we uh got a intelligence report on the ninth night that ninth evening I will say that they are planning something big and next 48

22:41 hours are very critical and also we also decided that if they attack any of our installations, military installations, we are going to reply with military uh attacking their ministry installations which matter to them. So since we already had our plans ready this uh point was debated and both the CNC's involved the aquarter people and the other services we had taken a call that since they are mostly attacking us by air force and my air force bases are at uh under threat we should respond without waiting uh you know in case this continues tonight also and uh sure enough. This time we had their attack on

23:27 our airfields with not only just loiter munitions, some of longrange weapons. Their aircraft tried to penetrate our defenses. Our air defense systems have done a wonderful job. The S400 system which we had recently bought has been a gamecher. the the range of that system has really kept their aircraft away from their weapons like uh you know those longrange glide bombs that they have. They have not been able to use any one of those because they have not been able to penetrate this system. And during our first night uh first sixth seventh night also air defense system had ensured that

24:12 when they did their repost their uh a weapon their fighter aircraft were threatened. They that time they had come with some of those longrange weapons which they were able to uh penetrate into our defenses in Balacode time. If you remember some of the army uh some some of the bombs had fallen very close to army area but this time since we were ready to use our longrange weapons of surfaceto-air guided weapons they they were deterred. I think initially we found the buildup taking place very massive buildup taking place but once the first missile was fired from our side from the ground we certainly found that uh uh that dissipation of

25:02 that buildup also we have uh some uh kills that we have got from our SGW systems because every time you fire a weapon on a track you do get a feedback as to whether whether it is to be treated as a kill or not because till when is that blip remaining and where is your missile going. So that I will talk about a little later. So 9th 10th night again a large number of their attacks on most of our airfields the airfields like Adam, Shinagar, Avantapur they took the brunt of it actually and many other airfields from night from north to south they tried to penetrate various classes of drones including weaponized. We were able to neutralize most of their weapons by either counter

25:49 measures. Some of them by using our uh air-to-air guns as well as SGWs systems like Akash and all have taken down many of their loans which have come in the the weaponized ones there. None of their aircraft could come anywhere near the boundaries of Akash and uh even uh MRSAM. All their aircraft were taken on by LR SAM because they were trying to stay away but still they were within our ranges at times and that is the opportunity targets that we got as far as our offensive was concerned. So that night we held no holdbar. We didn't have any holdbar and we decided that we will go attack at pan front. We will stretch

26:35 his resources and the idea was once again not to attack one particular a field and decimate that a field attack idea was to give him that feeling or give him that indication that look we can attack you deep inside at will wherever we want to. So some of the places that were attacked like this is a command and control center at their Nur Khan base. This is the after attack and this is before attack. Raheimar Khan base this is based on specific intelligence. We had taken a call that here we have to attack the airfield. So the Afield was

27:24 attacked and their uh building the the main building where their planning goes on which is also used as a civil terminal building also at times. As far as Sukuru airfield is concerned we attack their UAV hanger and a radar site. You have the visuals available here. This is the hangar which is been flattened and this is the radar site which is before and after Bulari again an AWC hanger was attacked and here we have very clear hint that there was an aircraft inside when this attack took

28:10 place. Sergoda we we've grown up in our air force you know dreaming about days like this someday we'll get a chance to go there and so it just so happens that know I got my chance just before I retired so we attacked the airfield there because we had very hard on F-16s taking off from there and the ones who were attacking us in Shinagar as well as in Adam so we took on the air a field There again intentionally not taken on certain other uh installations in the this airfield because of uh some kind of calculation by us that that may lead to

28:55 unnecessary escalation and this is the last slide I have on this that is Shabasa's there Jacobad airfield one of them again major airfield that was attacked and uh here there's an F-16 hanger which uh you can see here and here this is the photograph again from open source from one of their earlier picture of the same hanger and here that hanger which is uh one half of the hanger is gone and I'm sure there were some aircraft inside which have got damaged there so if I can just sum it up what you know we were able to get there at least two command and control centers in like Murid and Chaklala that I have shown you one of the pictures at least

29:42 six radars some of them big some of them small two SGW system that is in Nahor and Okara then of course runway at Soda and Ramir Rahimy Khan three hangers that we attacked one was of course Sukur the UAV hanger the Bolari hanger of AWNC and Jacobad the F-16 hanger and we have indication of at least one AWNC see in that AWC hanger and a few F-16s which were under maintenance there. Uh apart from these the SAGW systems mostly from I'm talking about fighter aircraft are from S400. We have at least

30:29 five fighters confirmed kills and one large aircraft which could be either an elint aircraft or an AWNC aircraft which was taken out at a distance of about 300 kilometers. This is the actually largest ever recorded surface to air kill that we can talk about. And uh apart from of course uh uh this there are a large number of UAVs, drones, there some of their missiles which have fallen in our territory. We have uh recovered lot of wreckage from this which now is being studied so that we can make out what did they do, where were they launched from, what route did they follow, what kind of system do they

31:15 have, whether they have you know what I mean to say what uh generation those systems belong to, what all features do they have. So that study is going on and it is going on even uh in coordination with DRDO. If required we will also take some other industries help for that. So I can say that it was you know more of the high-tech war which was fought in about 88 90 hours of war. We were able to achieve uh you know so much of damage to their system that it was very clear in their mind that in this current situation if they continue they are going to continue paying for it more and more. So they have come uh forward and you know sent a message again through

32:03 DGMO and which was accepted from our side and when I say our side is not just the air force it's the joint decision that was taken and it was taken even at the highest level why was that accepted there have been lot of debates which are going on I will touch about it a little during uh continue in my talk so that actually brings me to the end of my slides Now I want to talk about something like if I can say what were the reasons for success. One which I can think of is that there was political will. I'm being very very candid here very open here because I hear various versions of it. I think if I if I tell you something people will

32:48 have to believe because I was there listening to everybody attending every meeting. There was very clear political will, very clear directions which were given to us and there were no kind of restrictions which were put on it. Many people have spoken somewhere unfortunately you know everybody is speaking about it. So there have been talks about was there any restriction were you kept constrained. If there were any constraints they were selfmade. We the forces decided what will be our rules of engagement. We the forces decided what will be the escalation ladder that we want to ride on. We decided how we want to control the

33:33 escalation. So I want to make it very clear there were no I repeat no restrictions on us full freedom was given to us to plan and execute. I must say that you know uh that our attacks have been calibrated because we wanted to be mature about it little bit on that I'll come to later. There was synchronization between forces all four of us CDS the three chiefs I must say here that the post of CDS has made a difference there you know he was there always to get us together discuss things out iron things

34:20 out wherever required we all used to go to the you know senior leadership and discuss things out NSA played a very very big role you in getting all the other agencies and forces together. So there were so many meetings conducted and in you know whenever there was any doubt as to what next step and most of the things that we did was before this event started the of Synindhur started because we wanted to threadbear discuss what are the eventualities what are the uh possible outcomes what should be our reaction how we should react. So when the operations were going on it was just on telephone some calls telling them key what we are doing there were no not much of discussion going on key should we do

35:06 this now what do we do now what do I do no I had the full freedom and uh like I said the way a headquarter team and the command headquarters the way we work together it was actually a dream come true. So when that uh uh you know these things were going on the routine generally is very uh uh disturbed on during that time because you don't know when the meeting will come up. So I used to come home once a day just quick change and go back and uh sit there and I had made some arrangement to even sleep in my own office. Uh so that evening uh one one

35:52 day when I had uh that was uh we had gone for a night uh meeting then I had gone in overall and I continued to be in that overall for next 48 hours. I never had time to come back home because there was something or the other happening. So I didn't want to leave my office or the company for even one minute. And uh when I came back after those 48 hours after having uh you know gone through that where we had taken a call that okay now we stop hostilities there was so much of sense of satisfaction and most of it was actually from the way my air force had you know stood up together. That is what gave me more satisfaction than what we

36:37 had achieved. the way we achieved now uh like Dr. Sunil has brought out you know we keep talking about indigenization why do we talk about so much of you know having indigenous sources having things within India the kind of support that we got from all DPSUs and of course HL becomes a very big part of that because maximum support comes from them I must compliment them my people came and told me that at one call things were moved wherever we needed anything their teams were there and they prepositioned some things some teams in anticipation they brought up some serviceability in anticipation so this is how we the

37:23 nation has to come together if we have to uh fight a war so these are the reasons that I thought were for our success now what are the takeaways I think uh the biggest uh takeaway of this uh uh this operation has been that primacy of air has come to forefront. Once again, people have come to realize that air power is the first responder that any country has and air power is one which can actually uh you know react in a quick time, attack deep inside and attack with precision to just achieve

38:08 your objectives without any collateral. And that is one thing which is good that everybody has realized that I can see the change when we meet you know amongst the three services the way we discuss things now because when you obviously if I'm in blue I will always talk about air power and air power and air power but when it comes from a person in green uniform or or a white uniform you feel so nice that there is understanding that you know it is intrinsic to all three services actually everybody body needs this capability to be the first one and I don't know when will we have a war where we'll be requiring uh to you know straight away go in for an a land attack

38:54 or a naval attack I think there will always be requirement to first soften them with air power and that is what has been realized and there was a worry in our mind that air power means you are going way above in the escalation ladder actually it is wrong. This time we use only air and we've been able to start to stop the conflict in less than 4 days. So that is something which people have come to realize you know I was in react uh sorry uh that global chief's conference there is some uh conference which takes place be before this uh air show at uh in UK. So just about two weeks back I was there and they had this conference where

39:41 most of the western uh chiefs and the their representatives were speaking. They had some topics basically based on this current situation in the world and the the conflicts that are going on. Not even a word was spoken about our conflict. They just discussed Russia Ukraine war or the Israeli you know Iran war or or Hamas Israel war. They talked a lot about how to deter war, how to avoid war. Not even one talk about how to terminate a war. So I feel this part is being forgotten there that conflict termination is a very very important part of any conflict. We can't afford to be continuously at

40:28 war. We are meant to deter. I agree. If he can deter is nothing better than that. But if we are forced, if the war starts, whether it is you know whose initiative doesn't matter. We should be very clear that we have to reach a stage where we can terminate that so that we can get on with our routine, get on with our progress of the nation. So that conflict termination criteria has been forgotten by people. I think when when I was young, first thing that was taught to me principles of war, selection and maintenance of aim and people have just kept shifting their

41:16 objectives and aims every now and then. People have got down to their egos in this world and that is what is continuing you know continuously driving that the the conflict which are going on. I think we set a very good example. Our objective was very clear. Our objective was to teach the terrorists a lesson that they will think twice before doing something or they know what kind of price they can pay. And once we have achieved those objectives, we should look for all windows of opportunity to stop that rather than just continue. We were actually on a song that night. I hear from so many people.

42:01 I I don't want to say that but some people very close to me have said or Marata. I'm telling you that. But can we continue to be at war? No. Why should we be at war when we can avoid it or we can stop it? That is my way of looking at it. I think nation has taken a very very good decision and we were a part of that decision but it was not cannot be taken at our level. It has been taken at much higher level but it was a good decision. Now we have to make sure that we remain you know steadfast that should we need to again do something we are not found wanting but what to do that that call will be

42:48 taken at much higher level. Another takeaway that I see from here is we've been talking a lot about drones. All the recent conflicts drones have come into forefront and somehow I think we should not be drawing a wrong lesson. I'm worried about that part. Drones are very good good means for many things. But I don't think just drones can win you war. You will require the bigger weapons. You will require long range weapons. You will require the precision strike capability because drones are more of a nuisance or you know for very short range small targets you can use those even there is lot of talk about manned

43:34 unmanned you know no no very soon uh the manned flights will be a thing of the past and all that I don't see anything happening in foreseeable future man will remain in the loop you may have lot of AI coming in machine learning coming in in helping the man take a decision. You may have a lot of things automated but as a decision maker man has to remain in the loop and ethically so also tomorrow you can't blame the machine for taking a wrong decision. I don't know which machine will march in the court marshal you know. So uh I think uh we we we need to put in effort towards

44:22 in all directions not just in one people see drone because of smaller systems because of easy to I think get things together people are grabbing onto it including our you know some industry also of course this is a good way good platform for our startups to start from but they should only use it as a stepping stone. They can't expect that you know just drones and everything else will just disappear or fade away. Indigenization I've already touched upon. I think indigenization is mandatory. We can't wish away. We have

45:09 to make sure that we have in-house capability and capacity. I think capacity is very much important. We can't be storing things for, you know, we can't predict how long the war is going to last. If we store items, they don't they have life. We can't be just, you know, storing and then throwing them away. So we have to have a very healthy mix of keeping certain items you know available for immediate response and manufacturing capability building up ramping up within that period to a stage where they can support our effort. So that is something which has to happen for which everybody all of us have to come together. I think I have spoken

45:55 enough about it so I will not del more into this topic. I thought uh since I have some 10 minutes more so and I have a mix of you know crowd here lot of people in uniform lot of people who are veterans and of course there are some people from HL and other people so I'll cover certain points you know which which you know we uh one point which is meant for actually veterans. It's it's come to my you know I I've realized that uh whenever whenever somebody writes something about another service

46:43 that other service gets senty about it and same thing is my own you know my own seniors message me they look what has he written I told you they will say like this you know that kind of a thing starts so I I personally feel we We've always been talking about domain specialization. Aphos has been the you know it's been our always been our call even when we talked about uh theater commands and we said domain specialization should remain. So I feel as veterans also let's write about our own domain more than others domain so that others don't feel hurt and especially if somebody else has written and then the the you know the

47:29 comments start back and forth it becomes very awkward. people think as it's actually not learn it is it is it is discussion but at times it crosses that healthy limit and that goes into an awkward situation so this is the request I wanted to make to everybody who is writing who is expressing opinion you express opinion about people in blue or what is happening what should be done I think it'll be always taken with the with good spirit we are always looking for that opinion from you all and uh it has been guiding us on many occasions. Sometimes maybe that opinion of yours has been taken but uh we have not

48:14 reacted to it. I'm sure there are cases like that. But then you have to take you know give me that uh this thing that now that I am in that chair I know what is happening around me. I have to take some decisions there. I have to live with people around. So it's like you know I sometimes I've also heard the actually again I'm getting carried away there is media here. No I'll tell you people have said about some other officer. No no look what he said here. Can't you tell him this? You should I say yes sir sir I will. And after two days I meet the same person. He says did you tell him in clear words or no?

49:01 So I once I had to give him an example. I said sir how many times have you been able to tell something in clear words to your wife. So in our case also it is like marriage. We have to manage that relationship. So I have to send some subtle hints. I have to give some diplomatic kind of you know statement here and there in front of that person to tell him that look you are stepping up a little beyond. You should not be saying this. But when it comes to my own people, my own mentors, I think I can be very open about it. So that is what I'm doing today. I'm requesting that all of us in blue, let us write more about our own system than the others and let's get our own house in order. I think that's the best way to move forward

49:50 and uh also uh I have said it in in one of the previous veterans conference or something that get veterans day veterans day this thing that you are the ones who have chosen me so please have confidence that's all I can say and I can promise you from my team people who are in in in uniform as of now we will not let you down we will try our best to do our bit okay so please have confidence that we will do our job I have uh few points that I'm covering now are actually meant for people in uniform but I actually thought there will be more veterans here so I'll just

50:37 inform you all what we've been focusing on but since there are people in blue and many of them Some of them may have heard me saying this earlier but many of them may not have. Uh you know very important to keep the synergy and harmony within any force. We need to be together in in in one group as one team. We can't be divided into various branches, sections, traits. We can't be doing that. We all have to go as one team whether is it's an AC somewhere you know doing some technical job or a chief of air staff doing some other job. Everybody has a role to play

51:22 and we all are a part of a you know big chain you can say. So a chain we are all links of that chain and when we are under stress the chain is loaded it will break from the weakest link. So we need to make sure that all links are strong. Firstly, I should not be that weak link. I won't let the chain break and secondly I will not let anybody else become weak whom I can support. And that is how we should live and operate. Keep watching each other's back. Keep supporting each other. No loose talk about you know somebody else. They can be uh bad apples in any kind of basket.

52:08 They can be black sheep in any family. They can be a wrong person in any group. It is not that you know the same society. Yes, little bit of grooming changes us the way we operate. But that is also required sometimes. But if you have a person who is not performing, if you have a person with whom you've had a uh not so good experience, you challenge that person. You counel that person, identify him, talk to him, her him or her. But don't make a loose statement about a

52:54 group that really, you know, brings down the morale. If I am, let's say I'm a youngster in a squadron and I'm putting in my 100% to do my job and somebody makes a loose statement, I will not like it. So whenever you get a feeling that somebody else say we think at work also the whole air force is only standing on my shoulders you know I'm the only one working everybody else is having a ball when we look around

53:39 they will be know somebody's working at 80% efficiency somebody's 85 somebody's gifted somebody's not gifted but is there a commit commment there or not. If there's lack of commitment, lack of motivation, that is what we should build. Talent will build over a period of time, but support each other. If there is a need, get into each other's shoes to know how much they pinch. We started with our cohision day for that reason that know about each other's job, know about each other's uh domains, know about each other's working environment, what pressures are they working in. Once we do that we will uh we'll be better force and like I said what is uh being achieved is important but how it is

54:26 being achieved is more important. If you achieve something by you know going danda here and then and just passing your one year or two years of tenure yes you have achieved but you've broken down that system. But if you achieve something maybe 80% of what you could have achieved by the other method but getting from within people motivated to work people doing the job on their own willingly contributed then that system will last forever and maybe from 80% it will go up to 90 100% someday that is more important I feel and that is what uh I've been telling this youngsters uh So

55:12 I think uh my time is over. All I want to say is let us all be good human beings first, a good citizen, a good member of the society. That is first requirement. Let's all contribute towards this society where we come from. Let's all pay back something. Then let's be good warriors, good soldiers. And then let's be good professionals. There is no point having good professionals who are not good soldiers or not good human beings or citizens. Thank you very much for your patient lesson once again. Thank you sir for inviting me here. again.