New Delhi, Jan. 12 -- The Indian Air Force (IAF) is not only short of an adequate number of aircraft to protect our skies, but will see its capabilities weaken over time, unless corrective action is taken immediately. In my estimate, a significant proportion of IAF's fighter aircraft fleet is down due to a shortage of Russian spares, and the rest are sparingly used to ensure that they don't fly into a spares crunch.

Thus, the effective strength of the Air Force is much smaller than what publicly available numbers indicate. It also means young pilots get fewer hours of flying training. In an age that may see wars fought in the air and space, India ignores the IAF's problems at great peril.

Speaking at a seminar in New Delhi a few days ag...