DRDO Built INS Chakra, M1 Abrams Tank, Arrow Missile System


In its enthusiasm for bells and whistles, the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) has this howler as part of a soft-focus flash movie that begins when you launch their newly designed webpage. You know they wanted to trumpet the Arihant, but the sub in the picture is INS Chakra, the very Russian Charlie-1 class nuclear attack submarine that India leased in 1988. The DRDO guys should’ve been told that there’s a very nice photo of the Arihant that was rendered de-clas after it appeared in the Prime Minister’s status report to the nation, scooped of course by Livefist. And as commenters have pointed out, the film shows that the DRDO also builds the American M1 Abrams tank and Israeli Arrow ABM system, while some DRDO babu has put the Indian tricolour on the iconic World War-2 photograph of the US victory in the Battle of Iwo Jima. Has anyone seen anything more mortifying than this? The sad part is, if the DRDO had used the Arihant, Arjun and AAD interceptor instead, nobody could’ve said a word — these are all programmes that are either swimming along nicely or have finally turned the corner after years of delays. Yet, some nitwit sitting in DRDO Bhawan’s salubrious confines chooses to go with Google Images, and mount this piece of execrable, infuriating nonsense.

This may be just someone’s foolishness, but it’s this kind of braindead, careless tripe that reflects an entrenched devil-may-care attitude that we see in so many things that DRDO does. And it’s such nonsense that demolishes all the good, positive image-building that the DRDO is clearly spending so much money on. Stuff like this proves that in the end, it’s all just skin deep. How deeply disappointing. DRDO should find the guy who chose the photos above and give him what we in India call a “rocket”. That would be appropriate too.

51 thoughts on “DRDO Built INS Chakra, M1 Abrams Tank, Arrow Missile System”

  1. another GAFF!! haha.. DRDO really needs to get someone decent for their PR campaign.

    What next? HAL assembled Su30s that are claimed to be indegenous?

  2. OT comment, I have to say Shiv. You are awake at 1.30am making posts on the blog! You are truely obsessed with reporting! Great work though.

  3. Bloody hell!!!! Who made that website??? He doesn't know ABCD of Indian defence.

    There are pics of Charlie SSN to Abrams tank to the 'Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima' … very shameful as its from the DRDO.

    Shiv can you pls inform them? Any senior official??

  4. not only that.. they also have an Abrams M1A1 MBT in that little slideshow!! atleast we operated the Chakra for a while!!! what's next!! DRDo calming they built the M1A1!!!

    what a bunch of nincompoops!

  5. akshay deshpande

    omg.. not only did i see an abrams tank in the slideshow for drdo, as I mentioned earlier!! they also photoshopped the US Marines Iwo Jima Flag memorial to show a flag of India!! what are they thinking!! that is highly offensive!! here are the print screens!!

    http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/1156/drdo.jpg

    http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9816/drdoiwojima.png

    again!! after all the sacrifices of our soldiers!! they have to photoshop the americans!!!

  6. Chakra is at least a decent mistake it was with Indian Navy for some time but do they show M1 Abrams tanks……shouldn't it have been Arjun in that place. I think the people who design the website are completely out of sync with DRDO……they search google and put up the first image they find

  7. Shiv,

    You can notice the image of tank on the front page flash-view of DRDO website. I am confused whether it is arjun or t-90 or anything. Can you please tell me which tank this is?

    Please revert back.

  8. Nothing wrong on part of drdo. They will never be held responsible for leaking out critical pictures of relevance to the nation. That black-spot goes to Congress

  9. Shiv.. nice catch.

    In the same series of images, (1 being INS Chakra, 2 bing Tejas etc.)no. 5 is a very famous and iconic photo of the US Marines planting their flag after the battle of Iwo Jima during World War 2 ( see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Flag_on_Iwo_Jima) …. with our flag miraculously (and shamelessly) photoshopped on to the iconic image 🙁

    These shamelessl displays of "babudom" and reckless plagiarism reduces my pride in being Indian.

    Can you use your connections to point these out to any concerned powers that be? DRDO should evoke pride, not shame.

  10. Oh, and Shiv, dont you think that the tank displayed on the home page of our DRDO is an M1A1 Abrams? Kind of out of place, dont you think? Mera Bharat Mahan 🙁

  11. Apparently they also make Abrams tanks and Arrow ABM(also in the flash video). And OMG, isnt that the US Marine Corps War Memorial statue depecting the raising of the second flag over Iwo Jima. An Indian flag!!! WTF

  12. Better still is a picture on the 5th tab. Its the famous picture from Iwo Jima – except it makes you wonder when the Indian army was there and hoisted the tricolor there….

  13. didnt it occur to you guys that they never really wanted to show arihant…

    how many out of 1 billion ppl in india can tell teh difference between chakra and arihant…

    its such lame reporting..

  14. @akshay deshpande

    hahaha i've double checked what you said, and it is 100% true.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WW2_Iwo_Jima_flag_raising.jpg

    they'e photoshopped the indian flag onto it.

    This clearly shows that the abrams and charlie in the pics arent "mistakes" either. They are deliberaetly showing foreign equipment.

    maybe thats why the army and airforce choose to import, since DRDO itself is advertising for them.

    These guys are not only traitors but idiots, morons and the lowest of indian scum. crappy PSU morons.. hope the PSU dies soon

  15. hahaha.. this is so sick man…

    i cant blame the pakis when they make fun of us, how can we? we take the piss out of our own stuff.

    if i were a paki i would be having a field day rightnow. sadly, im indian and have to bear this tamasha.

    what next? obama will be photoshopped into the indian parliament? or maybe they will stick manmohan head onto obama.

    and then, for the moon mission, they will just photoshop the indian flag onto chandrayaan2.

    cheapo psu crap

  16. This alarming choice pictures to highlight DRDO's achievements might go deeper than being a mere mistake. Find the person/persons behind this and one might unearth a "mole". This might be a manifestation of psy-ops through a "plant".

  17. DRDO thinking …. A tank is a tank, a missile is a missile and the Chakra did sail for the Indian navy and I am sure there must have at least one Indian on Iwo Jima when that picture was taken.

    cujo

  18. hey, maybe this is how they plan to do the moon landing too.. just photoshop an indians head in place of neil armstrong. and Voila.. india has reached the moon.

    PSU pieces of $hit

  19. You never know how DRDO might react to this… they might even claim that the Americans stole their designs.

    Since they anyway are in the mood for this sort of thing anyways.. how about photoshopping the American ABL system since we too are planning something similar.

    Anybody in DRDO reading this?

  20. Back when the Akash SAM was presented to the media as 'ready' I remember a DRDO offical gloating about how the Russians had nothing to offer but the upgraded version of the old SA-6 missile it was replacing. I was filled with a mixture of disgust and mirth. Ever heard of the Buk-M2, moron? Besides the Akash WAS nothing but an upgraded version of the SA-6: just compare pictures of the two, they even used the same ramjet engine design.

    No real relation to this article, but it struck me as the same sort of attitude of the people DRDO employs for PR.

  21. people people.. you have to understand the context in which these pics have been used.

    DODO (aka DRDO) wants to be seen as a "successful" organisation. This needs "successful" defence equipment that have been designed and produced.

    since DODO itself has produced none, what betterway around this than use american equipment that has been successful?

    You see.. LCA, arjun, dhruv etc etc etc have all been failures. how can they portray themselves as successful showing pics of failed items?

  22. i hardly believe the person who did the website design is a drdo employee…..

    and whoever supervised him was prolly no expert..so as to recognize what tank is which…..

    about the arihant…doesnt it say something about what crap drdo has to take from above when its for political reasons that its pictures are declassified….

    and yes….to people who feel vindicated about how sure drdo needs to be shut down……..make sure u resign from your job after the next pr goof up at your place

  23. anon@12:21 AM

    you RATSHAKER, DODO is supposed to be one of the "permier" organisations. The pics used are deliberate and not "mistakes". This can be seen by the fact they have photoshopped in the indian flag onto the iwo jima image. That does happen "accidentally".

    You would most likely get fired if you did this in a pvt company, or at the very least they would take disciplinary action (atleast in a western company, where the word 'accountability' means something)

    You arm-chair socialists are the RATSHAK website are a disgrace to india.

  24. If the Japanese get a hold of the photoshopped Iwo Jima picture, you might just have an international incident on your hands, since the Japanese can take it that India wants to "conquer" Japan or has ill will towards Japan. All it would take is for some Japanese journalist to blow this out of proportion in Japan and you may have anti-India sentiments over there. If that happens then so much for closer Indo-Japanese ties, at least in the short term.

  25. Shame shame shame

    Iwo jima – flag raising is by American soldiers.

    Americans take it as very very personal to their nations pride.

    We should respect American soldiers who fought for their country and raised that flag.

    We must never ever indulge in such a nasty crime by tinkering Indian flag on US flag..

    Shame shame shame on you DRDO.

  26. Anon @ 12:21,

    Why should any of us resign when DRDO and DPSU employees are assured job security for life irrespective of how lazy, corrupt or nepotisitc they are? You should be saying 'Refuse to resign even if you do zero work!'

  27. Just shot this email to DRDO director:

    [email protected]
    Dear Mr. Director,
    I am an Indian and writing to you from USA.
    I must congratulate you for your effort in developing strategic needs of country and make India a strong nation to protect its sovereignty, democratic values and Indian people.

    However, I am writing to you with utter shame that whoever have designed the website http://www.drdo.gov.in/ is not aware of copyright infringements and committed shameful act that could disgrace our national Heroes (our armed forces personnel) and our nations pride.

    In picture 5 – captioned 'Dedicated to nation-building' is a RIP-OFF of most famous American pride – IWO JIMA. The web designers copied Iwo Jima memorial picture and covered American Flag with Indian Flag. What shame could be worse than this?

    American and American soldiers in particular take that moment to their hearts and cherish the bravery of their heroes in fighting Japanese imperial army. Iwo Jima is a success of American heroism and bravery.

    Why should we Indians copy that particular pride of another country? Didnt your web-designers found our Indian heroes most pride moments. What happened to our PVC Maj. Batra's heroic moment after he captured Tiger hill? Wasnt' that our Indian Iwo-Jima.

    I am very very sad to write this on August 15 2010 criticizing DRDO web-designing team. I hope you will correct this grave mistake and remove IMMEDIATELY that particular figure.

    I have a total faith in you and your team that you will crack the whip and take the necessary action so that such mistakes will never repeat.

    Also please be aware that if US government or public comes to know about this it will an great embarrassment to our leaders and nations pride.

    Thank you.

    Kind regards
    An Indian.

  28. At least he/she who created the photos had the presence of mind not to PS INSAS rifles on white Caucasian soldiers.

  29. anon@9:38 AM
    great effort but i doubt he would care. i doubt infact if he even checks his email.

    how come you didnt mention the fact that DRDO considers russian subs, abrams, arrow all to be "indigenous"?

    i dont think there is any "cracking the whip" in PSUs.. the job is yours until you die. so cracking the whip is pointless

  30. The bumholes at the RATSHAKER website are saying its "okay" that these images have been displayed, citing similar images of the canadian flag etc.

    It is sad that these RATS think like this because DODO is an official GOI institution. It is not "okay" for them to plagiarise an image that is dear to the US and photoshop in our flag. Do we not have brave soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for our country? Are we so cheap that on a national website we will resort to using faked images?

    Unofficial usage of the image is not a big deal.. but this is a GOI website!

    Giving excuses like "A recent GOI ad showed a Paki air marshal to show a military person." and "[Russian] WW2 veterans were not amused when they were paraded past billboards of Nazi Tiger and Panther tanks which they fought against, being used to convey Russian armor" is pointless. Just because someone else makes the mistake doesnt mean its "okay" for us to do it. We should have some freakin pride in our nation and what it means to us.

    But then again, these RATSHAKERs are all "chaltha hai" people just like the morons that work at DODO, which is why we have gaffs such as the paki ad and this one.

  31. Not too far from the truth though.
    All that DRDO does in the name
    of indiginization is buy key systems
    from abroad and assemble/paint them.

  32. I could not believe myself that a central Govt PSU can indulge in vandalizing an iconic WW-2 photograph "Flag Raising on Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima" the most widely publicized iconic photograph by Joe Rosenthal.How dare that DRDO can reduce all of us Indians a bunch of laughing stock.

  33. hey yar
    its not such a big deal.
    you can blame drdo but u have to think that drdo is working in this country where scientist are selected based on reservation.
    drdo has very less corruption and work culture is good when u compare other govt deptt.
    so take it easy, man.
    it happens only in India….

Leave a Reply to GGG Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


Scroll to Top