Team HAL upbeat over Tejas’ stupendous success in Bahrain

By Anantha Krishnan M

http://english.mathrubhumi.com/

Bengaluru, Feb 23: One month after creating history at the Bahrain International Air Show (BIAS-2016), an excited team from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) seems to be all set for more challenging missions ahead.

India’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas grabbed international headlines after its maiden performance outside Indian skies during the BIAS-2016 held at the Sakhir Air Base in January.

Mathrubhumi visited HAL’s state-of-the-art LCA Tejas Division recently for an interaction with the successful Bahrain team. Interestingly, the unassuming General Manager of Tejas Division, V Sridharan, refused to take any credit.

“All credits to my boys. Well, there were some women as well. It was a great team work executed to perfection. First time and we were very careful in every step we took,” says Sridharan. 

Young team did the trick of India: According to him, the average age of the team members were around 35 years. “Yes, it was a young team and many of them were travelling out of the country for the first time. To represent India, to get hooked on to the job right from the word go and to come back with flying colours after completing the mission… They have made all of us proud,” says Sridharan.

“We lifted around 70 tonnes of equipment from HAL Airport ahead of the Bahrain show. Out of this 40 tonnes went to Sakhir Air Base, while the remaining 30 to Muscat, our stop-over base. Even we had to establish telemetry stations at Bahrain and Muscat,” says M S Velpari, AGM (Manufacturing & Assembly).

Read the full report, here: http://bit.ly/1KGCJxN

LCH completes hot weather trails in Jodhpur: HAL

 Read the report here: http://bit.ly/1eKUVI0

HAL conducts successful flight of Jaguar DARIN-III upgraded strike aircraft

By Anantha Krishnan M

https://twitter.com/writetake

Bengaluru, April 01: Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) successfully carried out the first flight of a Jaguar DARIN III upgraded ‘strike’ aircraft at its facilities in Bengaluru recently.

HAL officials confirmed to OneIndia that the first flight of the upgraded Jaguar ‘strike’ aircraft lasted for about 15 minutes.

The maiden flight was followed by another flight of the upgraded Jaguar that lasted for an hour on March 25 for an hour.

In November 2012 HAL had carried out the first flight of Jaguar DARIN III upgraded ‘maritime’ aircraft, with an unhappy Indian Air Force (IAF) wanting more features to be added on to the aircraft. 

“The IAF had some concerns with the Mission Computer used in the maritime aircraft. It was of DARIN-II standard. We have now upgraded all possible systems on the aircraft as per the user requirement,” HAL Chairman T Suvarna Raju told OneIndia.

Three Jaguar prototypes (strike, maritime and trainer) have been set aside for testing the DARIN-III features. Raju says that HAL is mandated to upgrade 59 Jaguars that were inducted into the IAF, forming the original batch.

Read the complete report, here: http://bit.ly/1CvmifO

Raju steps into HAL cockpit, says he loves challenges

By Dr Anantha Krishnan M

https://twitter.com/writetake

Fifty-six-year-old Talari Suvarna Raju stepped into the cockpit of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) as its 17th Chairman on Saturday. Raju, who is currently the Director (Design) of HAL succeeds Dr R K Tyagi, who superannuated on January 31.

Widely believed as a taskmaster, Raju takes control of HAL at a time when the Company is gearing up to take the disinvestment route as mandated by the government. In addition to dealing with a set of independent and government-appointed Directors, Raju will have to spearhead the Company through a new set of rules that will eventually fall in place, thanks to the disinvestment.

While Raju’s leadership traits will right away fall on the radar of HAL’s biggest customer – the Indian Air Force – his biggest task will have to complete all pending projects.Speaking to OneIndia soon after taking charge, Raju said he is ‘not a man in a hurry.’ “I have not taken this responsibility with any magic wand in hand. I have come up the ranks seeing the pluses and minuses of this Company. My primary mission is to ensure that the Services get what they want. I also need to ensure that my people (workforce) stay as a focused family, keeping the HAL flag flying high,” Raju said.

(An abridged version of original report above. Read the comprehensive report
that went live on OneIndia on 31 Jan 2015 here: http://bit.ly/1EwgdTx)

Change of guard at HAL: Raju takes command | Promises to make HAL a tech powerhouse

HAL's new Chairman T Suvarna Raju.

(Unedited HAL Release)

Mr. T. Suvarna Raju who has a distinction of being granted the first patent in HAL in January 2002 has been entrusted Addition Charge as Chairman, HAL. He took over from Dr. R.K. Tyagi here today. “Given the high expectation built around the Company, my priorities would be to concentrate on operational excellence, and build the company as technology powerhouse”, says he. He is committed to set the HAL as one of the best examples that align with “Make-in-India” endeavour of the Government of India and he believes that doing so may be a challenging job in the aviation filed, however not impossible because he strongly believes that “the Best of Technologies can never be bought, it can only be developed”. “I would like HAL to grow as knowledge based organization”, he emphasises.

Born in a humble village of P. Vemavaram of Tanuku (West Godavari) district in Andhra Pradesh (A.P.), Mr. Raju, an Engineering Gratudate, joined HAL on June 26, 1980 as Management Trainee. Unfazed by the extreme work hours and challenging goals, Raju not only continued to deliver and meet his professional goals and targets, but also continued perusing is academic interests. Raju, attended prestigious Indian Institute of Technology at Chennai. Raju was selected and attended the elitist National Defence College. Raju also undertook academic program at National Law School of India University relating to Intellectual Property Rights. He obtained his Masters in Business Administration as well as Masters of Philosophy in Deference and strategic Studies.

The combination of professional responsibilities and academic exposures provided Raju an edge in leading a number of new initiatives and out of box solutions. Under the leadership of Raju, INDIA achieved self-reliance producing 25kN turbofan engines. Raju led drafting of HAL’s first R & D policy, HAL has now applied for an unprecedented 1000 patents in last two years. He also conceptualised, prepared and implemented a number of automation and real-time systems. Raju is recognized for his achievements time to time. One of the feather in has cap is the Dr. Biren Roy Trust Award by the Aeronautical Society of India (AeSI) for his unstinted efforts in planning and establishment of new technologies at HAL.

Under his leadership Raju heralded a new era in research and development programmes that covered LCA, LUH, LCH, IJT, HTT-40, Jaguar DARIN-III, Mirage Upgrade etc., Significant milestones have been achieved on R&D front with delivery of first series production LCA-Tejas aircraft and ground test vehicle run of LUH. He implemented the concurrent engineering to facilitate the development and production of new aircraft. He also developed the concept of performance based logistics for military aircraft.

Mr. Raju has been instrumental in taking various path breaking measures to make R&D set up of HAL more competitive. He was responsible for drafting of first ever R&D policy of the Company that has shaped various policy initiatives in last few years. With his leadership, all the design centres were brought under the ambit of Committee of Institutional Network (COIN) to synergize the learning across the organization. The policy has enabled creation of a corpus for the R&D by keeping aside 10% of Operating Profit after Tax.

He also contributed towards success of Jaguar production and overhaul facilities establishment at HAL. He has the distinction of having experience in Design & Development, Manufacturing, Maintenance and Upgrade of various types of platforms. Mr Raju was instrumental in establishing production line of Hawk Mk 132 aircraft and its record delivery. He managed the Mirage 2000 aircraft maintenance project which has the distinction of on time deliveries without any cost over-run.

Mr. Raju has been member of various High Level Teams formed by Ministry of Defence (MoD) for assessing the Techno-economic viability of acquisitions. He has been a member of various studies constituted by Indian Defence services and has received commendations for his professional involvement and contributions.

Currently, Mr. Raju is the Chairman of the Bangalore Chapter of AeSI and is the first Member Secretary of Design Development Management Board (DDMB) established by Ministry of Defence (MOD). He is also Member Secretary, National Aeronautics Co-ordination Group.

‘Additional charge’ syndrome grips govt: Mathur for DRDO, Raju for HAL

Mathur offering prayers at Rajghat on the occasion of Martyr's Day.

By Anantha Krishnan M

https://twitter.com/writetake

Continuing with its stream of ‘Additional Charge Appointments,’ the Narendra Modi Government on Friday sprang yet another surprise.

Defence Secretary R K Mathur was handed over additional charge of Department of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) for a period of three months.

Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) too will have a new Chairman from Saturday evening with the ACC handing over the additional charge to T Suvarna Raju, who is currently the Director Design.

The government had on January 2 this year appointed Dr Shailesh Nayak as the Secretary, Department of Space (DoS) and Chairman Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). This move came after the retirement of Dr K Radhakrishnan on December 31, 2014.

The Modi government began the innings in May this year by handing over the crucial Defence Ministry’s charge to Arun Jaitely, who had also the responsibility of being India’s Finance Minister. 

• Key decision-making positions must be filled on priority and stand-by appointments will only add to the confusion.

(Abridged version of the story above. Full report here on OneIndia: http://bit.ly/1Df2Cf)