IAF to hold exercises with UK, Singapore

SHILLONG: As part of efforts to boost cooperation with the armed forces of friendly countries, the Indian Air Force will hold joint exercises with the Royal Air Force of Britain and the Singapore Air Force this year, Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi said on Friday.
    
Answering a wide range of questions from reporters at the Eastern Air Command here, he said the joint exercise with the RAF would be held at the Gwalior airbase in October and the Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal would be the venue for the war games with the SAF at the yearend.
    
On why the IAF did not hold joint exercises with China, Tyagi said if the government wanted this, the force would certainly do so.

 

The issue of joint exercises was not a military decision, but a political one to be taken by the government.

 

The IAF could not have any say in it, he clarified.

 

On Kalaikunda being the venue of the exercise with the SAF, Tyagi said he did not expect any problem with the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist in West Bengal, which had opposed war games with the US Air Force there last year.
   
"We had a joint exercise with the Singapore Air Force in January-February this year and the CPI-M did not say anything. It objected only during the India-US exercise," he said.
    
On pilots leaving the IAF for private airlines, he said, "Some people want to leave for a better salary. But the number is very small. Not a single person who has left ever told me that he is going to fly commercial aircraft. All of them cite personal reasons."