Two shot down Indian planes worth Rs65.39 billion

LAHORE: Retaliating effectively to New Delhi's war-mongering and poorly-scripted misadventures on Tuesday, the Pakistan Air Force shot down an Indian MiG 21 fighter jet and a Mi-17 V5helicopter during brief aerial engagements Wednesday, hence inflicting a loss of around US$ 47 million or around Pakistani Rupees 65.39 billion within a matter of minutes to the country that possesses the world's second largest Army.

The price of a Mi-17 V5 helicopter roughly rests at around $25 million or Pakistani rupees Rs 34.78 billion per aircraft, if one reviews some reports appearing in the “India Today” and other Indian media houses, which had stated that the Russian government had submitted a proposal to sell 21 used MiG-29 combat planes to India at the price cited in the opening line of this paragraph.

On the other hand, the per unit price of a Mi-17 V 5 helicopter, quoted to India by Russia in 2015, had stood at about US$ 22 million, which is roughly equivalent to Pakistani Rupees 30.61 billion.

It is, however, very difficult to assess the current per unit cost of a MiG 21 fighter jet, manufactured by the “Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau” in the former Soviet Union, because Russia had stopped producing the aircraft in 1985, though India continued operating the upgraded variants of this fabulous machine.

The amount of US$47 million could thus have helped India build some more toilets for its citizens, as the country is on the greatest toilet-building spree in human history.

According to “WaterAid”, a London-based international non-profit organization that was set up in 1981 as a response to the United Nations International Drinking Water & Sanitation decade, 732 million Indians did not have access to toilets in 2017, while every year, 60,700 Indian children under five years died from diarrheal diseases, which remained the second leading cause of death for country’s toddlers.

According to the July 31, 2018 edition of an American media house “Bloomberg”, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s US$ 20 billion “Clean India” mission was aimed at constructing 111 million latrines across the country’s length and breadth in five years.

About 1.6 million Indians die of poor healthcare annually, some 30 public health experts from across the world and supported by the Gates Foundation and Harvard T H Chan School of Health had reported in September 2018. This report was carried by the “Times of India” too.

The report had maintained that 130 Indian women died during childbirth for every 1, 00,000 live births in India.

Similarly, had India wanted peace with Pakistan and had it not deployed around 7 million troops in Held Kashmir to suppress the innocent Kashmiris, it would not have spent Indian Rs 560 crore (Rs 5.6 billion) for the “maintenance” of Kashmiri freedom fighters between 2010 and 2015.

This figure of Rs 560 crore was fed to Indian media in 2015 by the officials in the country’s Ministry of Home Affairs. Overall, an amount of Indian Rupees 4,735 crore (Rs 47. 35 billion) was spent between 1989 and 2015 for the Occupied Valley's policing.

The amount of Indian Rupees 4,735 crore is equivalent to Pakistani Rupees 9246.26 crore (Rs 92.46 billion) or around US$ 661 million. Similarly, had India sincerely pursued peace with Pakistan, it would not have been spending about $200-$300 million a year to hold Siachen under its control.

According to an August 12, 2018 report of the “Gulf News”, India annually spends around Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion), which is roughly equivalent to Pakistani Rs 15.62 billion, for importing Extreme Cold Weather Clothing Systems and mountaineering kits for its soldiers guarding the Siachin Glacier at heights ranging at 16,000 feet to 20,000 feet.

A few years ago, in 2014, another reputed Indian magazine “Outlook India”, had reported that the money spent by the Indian Army and paramilitary forces in Kashmir, including Siachen, was resting at Rs 6 crore per day (around Pakistani Rs 11.71 crore in today's exchange rate parity).

At the time when the “Outlook India” had quoted these statistics, the amount of Indian Rs 6 crore per day was equivalent to Indian Rs 2,190 crore (Indian Rs 21.9 billion) a year, or about 6 per cent of the Rs 35,260 crore (Indian Rs 352.6 billion) allocated for defence in the country’s 2014-2015 budget.

The amount of Indian Rs 21.9 billion is roughly equivalent to Pakistani Rs 43 billion in today’s exchange rate parity.