April 14, 2025

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AN UGLY PREJUDICE

IN 21st century India, it does not matter that you are a woman who has broken the glass ceiling. Just a stray, unfeeling comment can transport you back to a place of insecurity that you thought you had left far behind. A time when the darker shade of your skin put you in the shadows, unseen, unheard and unwanted. Sarada Muraleedharan was in that place recently. Courtesy a careless remark thrown at her about her tenure as Kerala chief secretary being as black as her husband's was white, the black labelling bearing "the quiet subtext of being a woman". Long inured to the casual colourism she had encountered all her life, Sarada decided to "call this one out" on a Facebook post simply because of the speaker's implied equivalence of black with "the ne'er do good, black the malaise, the cold despotism, the heart of darkness"The eloquent post reopened an old wound as it were and reignited the debate about the ugly, unfair prejudice Indians continue to harbour against someone dark of skin. A whole sea of condemnation erupted on mainstream and social media in response to Sarada's post, with hashtags like #Unfair&Lovely beginning to trend widely, challenging the norm, and celebrating darker skin tones. The actress Kani Kusruti, who left a lasting impression with her performance in Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine as Light, the first Indian film to win a Grand Prix award at Cannes, wrote an impassioned column in a leading daily, talking of how, even as a child, her relatives asked her to wear only light-coloured clothes because "if you wear black or any other dark shade, we can't see you". There is a hierarchy of colour, she went on to

CLOSING THE STEALTH GAP

ON MARCH 21, THE UNITED STATES UNVEILED ITS SIXTH-GENERATION FIGHTER JET, the Boeing F-47, under the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) programme. Announced by President Donald Trump from the Oval Office, this milestone positions the US as the first nation to field a sixth-gen fighter, with deployment targeted by the end of this decade. Designed to replace the fifth-gen F-22 Raptor, the F-47 features cutting-edge technologies, including a more efficient and highthrust engine for supercruise, stealth enhancements and integration with Artificial Intelligence (AI). With plans for 200 jets paired with 1,000 combat drones, the NGAD programme reflects a shift toward a "system of systems" approach, prioritising long-range engagement and battlefield adaptability over traditional dogfightingFor India, this development couldn't have come at a more precarious moment. While the world's major powers prepare for sixth-generation aerial warfare, New Delhi remains locked in a desperate struggle to field its first fifth-gen fighter, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA). The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA)--the nodal body for the AMCA's development—maintains that the first flight will take place by 2028-29, with induction in the 2030s. But military aviation experts believe this timeline might already be too delayed. That's because China is busy mass-producing its fifth-gen J-20 fighters, having deployed a few along the Line of Actual Control, and is experimenting with its sixth-gen J-36 prototypes, unveiled in December 2024. What's more, even Pakistan is looking to procure a fleet of 40 J-35As—China's second fifthgen fighters—from Beijing. In a surprise move, Trump did offer India the F-35 stealth fighter—so far restricted to some NATO members and other key allies—during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US in February. This came soon after Russia—the only other country besides the US and China with fifth-gen capabilities—offered to co-produce in India its top-of-the-line Su-57E fighter. Amid these costly propositions, a high-level committee, led by defence secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh, is racing to finalise a viable production model to accelerate the AMCA's induction into the Indian Air Force (IAF). The committee, which includes IAF ViceChief Air Marshal S.P. Dharkar and secretary, defence production, Sanjeev Kumar besides top minds from the ADA and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is expected to submit its report by the end of April. PLAYING CATCH-UP The evolution of fighter generations tells a story of key advancements in aerial warfare. Fourth-gen fighters like Russia's Su-30MKI and the US's F-16 dominated late 20th-century conflicts with manoeuvrability and heavy weapon load. The emergence of fifth-gen fighters—such as the F-35 and J-20— ushered in a new era, where stealth and sensor fusion rendered traditional air combat nearly obsolete. Their 'first look, first kill' capability allows pilots to shoot down enemy fighters or neutralise their air defences without giving them any