Aero India

I’ve mentioned the huge air show that was going on while I was in Bangalore. But what I came to realize, reading the papers each day, was that this was not just fireworks and celebration of military might like the airshows I have seen in the US. This was actually probably the worlds largest trade show for the military industrial complex, world arms and munitions dealers, and those that purchase such wares. The discussions in the papers were comparisons of the maneouverability and weapons displays of Russian, Chinese, Israli, French, and occasionally American military aircraft. In fact apparently the big hit of the show was the new MiG fighter from Russia, with it’s ‘cobra maneouver’. Also a big controversy here was the US selling a new squadron of F16s to Pakistan. This is a nation in a volatile area of the world, in a new kind of cold war with its own neighbors, where instead of threats and posturing there is actual terror attacks and bombings, and its taken 3 months for the government of Pakistan to admit that the Mumbai attacks were launched from Karachi and actually make any arrests in the case.

On a lighter note: for Valentines day, a large group of Indian peace activists released a fleet of boats onto a river that winds its way from India into Pakistan, with a message of love. After all this IS a country whose founding father was a pacifist ;^)