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Corporate Ambassador Monitoring Report/JAMMU: Authorities in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir have initiated the process of constructing more than 5,500 underground bunkers and 200 community halls as well as ‘border bhawans’ for security and to help border dwellers from shelling and firing from Pakistan side.
The project, targeted to be completed in the current financial year at a cost of Rs 153.60 crore, has already been approved by the state government and union ministry of home affairs (MHA), TOI reported today quoting an official. The District Development Commissioner Shahid Iqbal Choudhary chaired a meeting and reviewed arrangements for initiating construction of family bunkers, community bunkers, community halls and border bhawans to facilitate safety of border residents during ceasefire violations.
“A total of 5,196 bunkers are being constructed in seven blocks along the 120-km long stretch of LoC. These include Sunderbani, Qila Drahal, Nowshera, Doongi, Rajouri, Panjgrain and Manajakote,” the spokesman said.
He said over 260 community bunkers and 160 community halls would also be constructed in villages located in 0-3 KM distance from LoC for accommodation of people during ceasefire violation prompted migration or emergency evacuation.
Corporate Ambassador/KARACHI: A few days ago, I called Careem car and travelled from Defence to MA Jinnah Road, hardly 10-kilometers. The company is imposing multiple charges to maximize its revenue that is evident from this screenshot of the fare. Why this company is levying multiple charges and there any government organization that is regulating the fare policy of the company? These are the questions that should be explained by the stakeholder _ company and the govt regulators.
Another important point is that at beginning the company offered lucrative bonus to its drivers/captains and kept on engaging thousands of car owners-cum-drivers/captains. Rapid increase in the number of cars has not only minimized bonus but also motivated thousands of the car owners-cum-drivers to quit the company. Consequently, the company has started levying peak factor frequently and the availability of cars has declined. Now the passengers had to wait for more than 15 to 20 minutes to get a car as against earlier routine time of 5 to 7 minutes. In other words, this exploitative policy of the company had put at stake millions of rupees investment by thousands of the youngsters who became self-employers by becoming Careem captains.
By J. Choudhry & Corporate Ambassador Monitoring Report
This seems unbelievable but it is a fact that 10 big countries have spent US$1272 billion on defence in 2017. The United States has spent $610 billion on defence last year, to be the world’s number one defence spending nation while China is the second largest country in the world in the field of defence expenditures.
In 2017, China has spent US$228 billion on its defence while Saudi Arabia ranked third with US$69.40 billion defence expenditures, closely followed by Russia that spent US$66,30 billion while India spent US$64 billion, France US$58 billion, UK 47 billion dollars, Japan 45.5 billion dollars while Germany spent US$44.30 billion and South Korea utilized US$39.20 billion on defence last year.
China ends monopoly of US, Europe of ruling skies for defence and air to air strikes
For the past more than two decades, America and its allies ruled the skies, fighting wars knowingly that no opponent could compete them in the air. Now as the US tensions with Russian and China has surged, the air defence scenario is entirely different. Rapid technological progress in China’s aerospace industry, particularly air-to-air missile systems fired from an aircraft, is changing the game for Western air forces and the global arms trade. It’s also altered the picture for China’s neighbors such as India. In 2017 China has spent US$228 billion on its defence, 5.6 percent more than its defence ependitures in 2016, to be the second largest defence-spending nation in the world. The United States is the number one with US$610 billion defence spending in 2017.
Chinese soldiers take part in a parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender during World War II in front of Tiananmen Gate in Beijing, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015. The spectacle involved more than 12,000 troops, 500 pieces of military hardware and 200 aircraft of various types, representing what military officials say is the Chinese military’s most cutting-edge technology. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Russia took the lead in modernizing its air force, and has been more willing to use it. In the longer term, however, China’s roughly $13 trillion economy and growing wealth mean it is likely to pose the greater strategic challenge for the US and its allies. In 2017, Chinese defense spending rose by 5.6 per cent in constant US dollar terms, while Russia’s fell by 20 per cent, reports the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“We had an environment where we could do whatever we wanted in the air, and what the Chinese have done is to say you no longer can,” said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. As a result, US commanders now have to take into account potential loss rates for pilots and aircraft that they haven’t had to face since the 1980s.
The US air force remains the strongest by far. Yet the Chinese advances come at a sensitive time, as the US appetite to continue its role as global policeman fades. Meanwhile Chinese President Mr Xi Jinping has set ambitious goals to dominate advanced industries like robotics and artificial intelligence and to assert Chinese interests in the disputed South China Sea and beyond.
The catch-up by Russia and China has been a long time coming, triggered in each case by shock at the ease with which the US air force demolished opponents in the 1990s, according to Vasily Kashin, a specialist in military aviation at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics at the National Research University.
For China, that moment came during the first Gulf War, when an American air campaign swiftly crushed the Iraqi military, at the time better equipped than China’s. For Russia, he said, the wake-up came in 1999, when a US-led bombing campaign forced Serbia to withdraw troops and tanks from its own province, Kosovo. Taiwan (which China considers a province) has also been a factor for Beijing. The US called in two aircraft carrier battle groups to support the island during a dust-up with China in 1996 and has provided $18 billion in arms since 2008.
Some of China’s biggest strides are coming in air-to-air missiles, the weapons that for one or two million dollars can destroy a $150 million aircraft. That’s a cost efficient way of trying to level the playing field with the US. China’s defense budget is well over three times as big as Russia’s or India’s, but still much lower than the $610 billion the US spends, according to SIPRI.
In March, the US Air Force awarded a half-billion-dollar contract to supply close allies with Raytheon Inc.’s latest long range air-to-air missile, capable of hitting enemy planes from 100 miles (160 kilometers) away. The Meteor, a new European equivalent, may be even more deadly. But China’s latest offering, the PL-15, has a greater range than either, TOI reports quoting SIPRI.
10 big countries spent US$1272 billion on defence in 2017. After the United States, China is the leading country in the world in the field of defence expenditures. In 2017, China has spent US$228 billion on its defence while the United States spent a record amount of US$610 billion, to be the world’s number defence-spending country. Saudi Arabia ranked third with US$69.40 billion defence expenditures, closely followed by Russia that spent US$66,30 billion while India spent US$64 billion, France US$58 billion, UK 47 billion dollars, Japan 45.5 billion dollars while Germany spent US$44.30 billion and South Korea utilized US$39.20 billion on defence last year.
Corporate Ambassador Report+Monitoring
For the past more than two decades, America and its allies ruled the skies, fighting wars knowingly that no opponent could compete them in the air. Now as the US tensions with Russian and China has surged, the air defence scenario is entirely different. Rapid technological progress in China’s aerospace industry, particularly air-to-air missile systems fired from an aircraft, is changing the game for Western air forces and the global arms trade. It’s also altered the picture for China’s neighbors such as India. In 2017 China has spent US$228 billion on its defence, 5.6 percent more than its defence ependitures in 2016, to be the second largest defence-spending nation in the world. The United States is the number one with US$610 billion defence spending in 2017.
Chinese soldiers take part in a parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender during World War II in front of Tiananmen Gate in Beijing, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015. The spectacle involved more than 12,000 troops, 500 pieces of military hardware and 200 aircraft of various types, representing what military officials say is the Chinese military’s most cutting-edge technology. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Russia took the lead in modernizing its air force, and has been more willing to use it. In the longer term, however, China’s roughly $13 trillion economy and growing wealth mean it is likely to pose the greater strategic challenge for the US and its allies. In 2017, Chinese defense spending rose by 5.6 per cent in constant US dollar terms, while Russia’s fell by 20 per cent, reports the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“We had an environment where we could do whatever we wanted in the air, and what the Chinese have done is to say you no longer can,” said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. As a result, US commanders now have to take into account potential loss rates for pilots and aircraft that they haven’t had to face since the 1980s.
The US air force remains the strongest by far. Yet the Chinese advances come at a sensitive time, as the US appetite to continue its role as global policeman fades. Meanwhile Chinese President Mr Xi Jinping has set ambitious goals to dominate advanced industries like robotics and artificial intelligence and to assert Chinese interests in the disputed South China Sea and beyond.
The catch-up by Russia and China has been a long time coming, triggered in each case by shock at the ease with which the US air force demolished opponents in the 1990s, according to Vasily Kashin, a specialist in military aviation at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics at the National Research University.
For China, that moment came during the first Gulf War, when an American air campaign swiftly crushed the Iraqi military, at the time better equipped than China’s. For Russia, he said, the wake-up came in 1999, when a US-led bombing campaign forced Serbia to withdraw troops and tanks from its own province, Kosovo. Taiwan (which China considers a province) has also been a factor for Beijing. The US called in two aircraft carrier battle groups to support the island during a dust-up with China in 1996 and has provided $18 billion in arms since 2008.
Some of China’s biggest strides are coming in air-to-air missiles, the weapons that for one or two million dollars can destroy a $150 million aircraft. That’s a cost efficient way of trying to level the playing field with the US. China’s defense budget is well over three times as big as Russia’s or India’s, but still much lower than the $610 billion the US spends, according to SIPRI.
In March, the US Air Force awarded a half-billion-dollar contract to supply close allies with Raytheon Inc.’s latest long range air-to-air missile, capable of hitting enemy planes from 100 miles (160 kilometers) away. The Meteor, a new European equivalent, may be even more deadly. But China’s latest offering, the PL-15, has a greater range than either, TOI reports quoting SIPRI.
AIRBORNE WARNING: The PL-15 also supports an active electronically-scanned array radar that makes evasion difficult for the most agile of fighter jets. Russia has yet to succeed in equipping its own missiles with the technology. When the PL-15 was first tested in public, then-US Air Force Air Combat Command chief Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle was concerned enough to call on Congress to fund a response.
Another Chinese air-to-air weapon in development, provisionally known as PL-XX, would strike slow-moving airborne warning and control systems, the flying neural centers of US air warfare, from as far away as 300 miles. At closer quarters, China’s new PL-10 missile is comparable to the best “fire-and-forget” equivalents, meaning any dogfight would likely end with a so-called mutual kill, a significant deterrent.
“In the United States we’ve been on holiday for 25 years and maybe a little bit more,” Michael Griffin, under secretary of defense for research and engineering, said in a recent address to the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank. “We failed to continue to fund the practices that had gotten us where we were, which was at the very top of the technological heap.”
Griffin said he was especially worried by Chinese and Russian progress in developing carrier-fleet killing hypersonic missiles that the US, as yet, lacks the space-based capacity to detect in time to shoot down. The planes to deliver China’s new armory of missiles have also improved dramatically, with new fleets developed from Russian air frames. This year, the air force is set to receive the last of 24 state of the art SU-35S fighters from Russia, while China has begun deploying the Chengdu J-20, a home-grown stealth fighter.
Combat modeling by think tank Rand Corp. found that China last year, for the first time, had achieved parity with the US in air superiority for any conflict close to its mainland, including over Taiwan. To be sure, China still has a long way to achieve conventional — let alone nuclear — parity with the US at a global level. Its jet engine technology remains weak and reliant on Russia, while its suite of new weapons are largely untested in combat. So are its pilots, still considered inferior to their Western counterparts in training and tactical skills.
Yet Chinese pilots, planes and weapons don’t have to be better than their US counterparts to radically change battlefield calculations. The J-20, for example, has poor engines and is thought by aviation experts to be more easily detected from the rear and sides than a US F-22 “Raptor”. But it would be hard to spot on approach and has a large weapons bay capable of hiding anti-ship missiles. That makes it a considerable threat.
China’s new aircraft, combined with the latest air-to-air, cruise, anti-ship and Russian S-400 air-defense systems (considered the world’s best) “have made the ability of the US to operate in contested areas very high risk,” said Tim Heath, a senior international defense researcher at Rand.
China Machinery Engineering Corporation completes 72-hour essential test run of Unit No. 3. This will be second unit, out of a total of four units of Neelum-Jhelum Hydro Power Project, that is going to be operational. A couple of weeks back, Prime Minister Mr Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had inaugurated Unit-4 power generation.
Corporate Ambassador/ISLAMABAD: The 72-hour reliability test run of Unit-3 of the Neelum-Jhelum Hydro Power Project has successfully been completed and now the unit was ready to produce 242-MW of electricity that would be supplied to the National Grid system shortly.
Recently a breakthrough has been achieved in successful completion of initial trial and test run of Unit 3 because of organized works undertaken by China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC), the Consortium partner of the Contractor. Initially, the Unit-3 was started up on April 13 and then synchronized on April 22. Subsequently, vital tests like over-speed, load rejection etc. were performed by April 27 that followed the successful completion of 72-hour reliability test. Now the Unit-3 will take a few days only relating to overall inspection. As was expected, Unit 3 is now undergoing 720-hour (one month) operation and it will officially contribute 242-MW of electricity to the National Grid, a statement issued by CMEC said.
A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Mr Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had inaugurated the generation of electricity by Unit-4 of the project.
The Neelum-Jhelum Hydro Power Project, one of the largest hydropower projects in Pakistan, roughly 200 kilometers northeast of Islamabad, has four units with a total capacity to produce 969 MWs of electricity. The Unit 2 and Unit 1 will also start trial operation in the middle of May and early July 2018, respectively, according to CMEC.
Neelum-Jhelum Hydro Power Project is an engineering marvel as 90% of the project lies underground in the high mountainous areas. The Project consists of three main components _ a dam on the Neelum River, water-way system comprising 52-km long tunnels and an underground power house on the Jhelum River.
The China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) is a world-class international engineering contracting conglomerate that enjoys exemplary reputation because of its outclass performance globally.
In 1983, the CMEC was engaged with WAPDA to build a 210-MW Thermal Power Station in Guddu and it became the first Chinese corporation to undertake overseas contracts under the export seller’s credit agreement, Mr. Xiao Zhibo, the CMEC’s Project Director at site said.
During the last almost 40 years, the CMEC has been upholding its commitment of extending benefit to people in Pakistan, especially in the field of power sector. The company has involved itself in developing important power projects like Jamshoro Thermal Power Plant, Muzaffargarh Thermal Power Plant, Saif 225 MW Combined Cycle Power Plant, Muzaffargarh – Gartti 500KV Substations Extension, on-going Neelum-Jhelum Project, Thar Coal Power Project (Thar-II) and 1263 MW gas power plant in Jhang.
Mr. Xiao further stated that since the project was launched in January 2008, the CMEC has pledged its best efforts to overcome challenges and difficulties and finally made this mega project another success story in Pakistan’s power sector, with its firm faith to provide benefit to people in Pakistan by paying any price, bearing any burden, meeting any hardship, supporting any friend and opposing any foe on this decade-long journey, that strewn with flowers and beset with brambles.
He said: “The CMEC deems the 40-year long experience in Pakistan the most precious treasure of trust, confidence and reliability. No one cherishes the cooperative opportunity with WAPDA and working experience in Pakistan better than the CMEC that enjoys full confidence in succession of the incomparable heritage and providing the best solution and services to its most valuable clients as we devoted ourselves to do in last 40 years”.
Designed to generate 5.15 billion kilowatt-hours of clean energy annually, the Neelum-Jhelum project, weighing heavily on Pakistan, aims to ease power shortages in parts of country. The project is expected to generate fiscal revenue worth 45 billion rupees (442 million U.S. dollars) annually, he said.
He also said: “Today we observe a vital milestone of the project _ symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning. To make happier lives for people in Pakistan, the CMEC vows to provide top quality services with high quality value addition and better returns. We are committed to promote mutual benefit, common development and progress in harmony, making the world a better place”.
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