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Today is the 102nd birthday of Marshal of the Air Force - Arjan Singh - A much loved legend!
Sharing some photos of his from my collection, sourced from here and there on the www
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Arjan Singh during the Burma Campaign, WW II
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Lord Mountbatten pins the DFC award on Squadron Leader Arjan Singh, No 1 Squadron RIAF, Burma, Second World War.
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PM Modi and Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh, Air Force Day 2014.
Just look at the 95 year old and his perfect military posture!
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ACM (Later Marshal of Air Force) Arjan Singh, with Fg Offr Vinod Neb & Flt Lt DN Rathore, both Vir Chakras, 1965 War
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When the PM served tea to the Marshal!
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When the Marshal saw off Former President APJ Abdul Kalam on his final journey with a crisp salute.
Perfectly sums up the character / worth of BOTH men - APJ Abdul Kalam as well as Arjan Singh
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On his 102nd Birth Anniversary, let me plug this thread here.
The question still remains unanswered - Will we ever see INS Kipper, INS Sam Bahadur and INS Arjan rule the high seas?
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When two young men saluted each other!
Photo: Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh returns the salute of 4 year old Vihaan Naik, grandson of then IAF chief P V Naik at Air House in 2011
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Marshal of the Indian Air Force Arjan Singh, DFC with President of the Union of India. This photo showcases that age was just a number for the legend. He was 98 years old when this photo was clicked!
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The Grand Old Man of the IAF, with the next generation - women pilots training to fly fighters.
Photo is from some time in 2016 when Arjan Singh was 97 years old - more than the combined ages of the lovely ladies who had come to call on him!
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Jan 2016: Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh paying tributes to Former Army Chief General KV Krishna Rao.
Age was but a mere number for him. He was up and about till his very last days.
A LOT to learn from the way he lived his life.
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Imagine .. He flew Generals Slim and Stilwell in Burma during WW2 ..
And he walked amongst us till as late as four years ago!
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Jan 2015: U.S. President Barack Obama greets Arjan Singh, Marshal of the Indian Air Force, in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan at India's annual republic day parade.
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Swag!
Photo: Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh at Thiruvananthapuram in 2009.
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Legends - Both of them!
Wonder what they were talking about that morning!
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Arjan Singh with a GLO, Capt Brian, Arkonam Dec 1942.
Photo: @bharatrakshak
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An inspiration for the current generation of air warriors like none other
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The Marshal's final journey in this mortal realm.
God Bless you, Sir.
It is a blessing to have been part of this realm at the same time as you.
Jai Hind!
(Photo: Indian Express)
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So this happened at the Vayu Bhawan this day in 2019 to commemorate his birth centenary - ACM BS Dhanoa unveils a bust of Marshal of the Air Force at the Vayu Bhawan
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God Bless the soul of perhaps the most loved and admired air warrior that this Nation has had the privilege of seeing.
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Folks,
Sharing snippets from my trip to Prayagraj to witness the Maha Kumbh earlier this week.
Missus and I spent four days and five nights in the city, reaching there on the night of 11 Jan and returning back home on the night of 16 Jan, i.e. yesterday.
Here goes ..
First and foremost, MUST plan a trip to Prayagraj for the Maha Kumbh!
It is a once in 144 year event and we are blessed to be alive at this point in time to be able to witness it. For so many people, a Maha Kumbh won't ever be even a once in a lifetime event.
As we drove into the city, we could sense magic in the very air. The entire city was in an upbeat mood, despite waves after waves of humanity descending there.
Thankfully, we had booked our stay in the month of October itself and were comfortable that way, unlike many others.
Sharing some thoughts on the recent moves by the Arakan Army on the Bangladesh-Myanmar Border.
Let's see how this one goes ..
Let me just begin with this bombastic video of Bangladesh Army veterans threatening to capture Kolkata within four days!
Very bombastic, I'd say .. especially when their own generation got the blunt end of the stick from Pakistanis in 1970-71 and couldn't do anything about that!
Unfortunately for these geriatric idiots, while they were turned towards Kolkata, right behind them came the Arakan Army which established control over Bangladesh-Myanmar border
As always, these erstwhile East Pakistanis got totally surprised from behind(PS: Puns Fully Intended!)
:THREAD:
Folks, sharing some thoughts on the current state of affairs in Bangladesh.
Let's see how this thread goes ..
First and foremost, let us call it for what it is currently - An attempt at re-establishing East Pakistan.
Yup, that's what it is. Pakistan attempting to return to its erstwhile colony via proxy.
Come to think of it, conditions in East Bengal today are quite similar to what they were in 1970-71. 1. Interim Govt in place 2. Politically elected Govt not allowed to function 3. Widespread and blatant atrocities against minorities and those that the current 'govt' doesn't like
One man, unarmed, changed entire narrative of 26/11 by ensuring one Paaki gets caught alive.
Else it would be 'RSS ki Saazish'
#MumbaiTerrorAttack
#NeverForget
26/11 - NEVER Forget
#MumbaiTerroAttack
Carrying on from the tweets above, sharing some news / media from the dastardly #MumbaiTerrorAttack of 26 Nov 2008 perpetrated by Pakistan.
:THREAD:
Folks, sharing some thoughts on Big Tech that has become an integral part of our daily lives as individuals as well as collectively.
The trigger was the massive outage of Microsoft devices some weeks ago. Have been having some thoughts since then.
Let's see how it goes..
First and foremost, here is a link to the outage of Microsoft devices due to some issue with CrowdStrike, for those who might have forgotten it. economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/moc…
So many parts of our lives came to a halt, because someone somewhere screwed up!
It was a major news headline for atleast a couple of days.
And then, we moved on once things were back in order, dismissing this as a temporary hitch in our day-to-day existence.
:THREAD:
This tweet landed on my TL some time back.
More than the event itself, it was the mention of Bangladesh Army that got me thinking.
Sharing a chain of thoughts.
Still unstructured. Let's see how it goes ..
First thing I did was to go to the Wikipedia page of Bangladesh Army to confirm a hunch.
And true to my expectations, I saw the size of Bangladesh Army to be 160,000 troops!
To put things in context and why I found it amusing, I will just give a comparison with the British and the German Armies, sourced from Wikipedia itself.
British Army = Approx 79,000 Active Duty personnel
German Army = 63,000 personnel