The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a leading London-based think-tank on military affairs, in its Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment (APRSA) reiterates that Indian combat aircraft were downed by Pakistan in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Operation Sindoor last year.

The APRSA analysis reads: ‘This new and third type of surgical strike (under Modi after 2016 and 2019) was an Indian Army and IAF (Indian Air Force) joint operation; the Indian Army struck targets close to the LoC or Indian border while the IAF struck more distant targets. Pakistan’s attacks were also unprecedented, with missiles and UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) targeting four air bases and civilian sites in India’s Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat states, in addition to downing Indian combat aircraft.’

The exposé regarding the Pakistani counter-attack on Indian air bases and in three Indian border states blows the lid off the concealment attempted by the Modi government.

In February, the IISS’s ‘Military Balance 2026’ report affirmed: ‘Open-source imagery has verified the loss of one Rafale EH (enhanced with advanced electronics).’ It also disclosed there were ‘Indian aircraft losses’, thereby underlining that more than one plane fell victim to Pakistani air-to-air missiles.

Neither Modi nor defence minister Rajnath Singh has, till date, owned up to the debacle. If anything, the civilian establishment in India has strenuously tried to brush it under the carpet.

Regarding India’s militarised borders with China and Pakistan, the APRSA summarises: ‘India’s conventional-threat perception in the Asia-Pacific will continue to centre on Pakistan and China. Any potential future “major conventional war” would remain local in nature… India’s border conflicts with China have been traditional in nature and are unlikely to escalate to the same level of the Indo-Pakistan conflicts, given China’s superior military capabilities in the border area and India’s reluctance to provoke it.’

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The assessment concludes: ‘For India, the pacing challenge is a “hybrid” situation of “no war but also no peace” with........

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