Vivek Chadha replies: The empowerment of Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs) has remained an ongoing endeavour within the Armed Forces, irrespective of the specific service. Over a period of time, greater powers, including financial and administrative, have been delegated to ensure that JCOs take greater responsibility and their services can be best employed.

Abhay Kumar Singh replies: India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier is likely to be commissioned as INS Vikrant in 2020. Initially conceived as P-71 ADS (Project 71 Air Defence Ship) in 1999, it was later given a project designation of IAC-1 (Indigenous Aircraft Carrier). The ship is 262 metres in length and has a displacement of 37000 tonnes. The ship features STOBAR (Short Take Off, Barrier Arrested Recovery) with a ski jump and can deploy up to 30 MIG 29K fighter aircraft.

Kishore Kumar Khera replies: The output of a system is a function of not only the yields of each of the subsystems but also the coordination, cooperation and complementarities between the subsystems. Like most of the output driven entities, in the case of weapons/weapon systems/weapon platforms too there are three primary subsystems: Design and Development Team (DDT), Production Agency (PA), and the End User (EU).

Alok Deb replies: The phrase "two and a half front war" has been heard from time to time in various fora. Essentially it pertains to the Indian armed forces preparing to simultaneously fight conventional wars to the North and West, while also battling any insurgency that might be ongoing at that time in the hinterland.