It seems the Indian Air Force is marking ts 73rd "Raising Day" on Oct 8. In the event it is planning to run a series of flight exercises on four days including Oct 8 this week. For this purpose it has ordered the closure of Delhi's busy international airport for 2 hours on each of the notified days. This apparently throws at least 30 civilian flights out of gear for the duration of the two hours (which effectively extends for another two hours making a total of 4 hours) each time. IAF has reportedly been impervious to the pleas of AAI to relocate the purely ceremonial exercises to some other less sensitive airport.
It goes to show how callous the military really is to civilian convenience. The IAF probably feels that if its (smaller) naval counterpart can commandeer a runway at Dabolim for 40% of each single day for 40 long years for "flight training" purposes then what's the harm in blocking Delhi's runways for a few hours on just 4 days for boosting the service's precious morale? It just goes to show that there is no meaning in talking about Dabolim as "Goa's (or a Goan's) problem". This ridiculous propensity of the military vis a vis the country's vital economic assets during peace time may be a symptom of a much wider malaise of the national mindset and might need to be tackled on a war footing.
