分类： bharat

Ever eager to tout his massive following, US President Donald Trump claimed to have the “number one” Facebook account, even edging out Indian PM Narendra Modi – but the stats show he has some catching up to do.
The social media showboating came during an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday, when the conversation turned to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

“Well, I met him – and he told me that I’m number one in the world in Facebook,” the president told CNBC’s Joe Kernen.

He sat down. He said, ‘Congratulations. You’re number one’ … and I said, ‘That’s really nice.’ It’s always nice to be number one. You know who number two is? … Modi of India. But he has 1.5 billion people. I have 350 [million].

Unfortunately for the internet-savvy commander in chief, that is simply not so. A brief look at Modi’s Facebook page shows the PM enjoys some 44.2 million followers, surpassing Trump by nearly 17 million people. Even accounting for a separate presidential page, which has garnered over 5.3 million followers, Trump still doesn’t beat out his Indian counterpart. In terms of likes, the combined total of the two Trump pages amounts to 28.7 million, which while certainly impressive, remains well below Modi’s 44.5 million.

Expansion of Indian air power in the region

Indeed, the BrahMos anti-ship missile – a success story of Indo-Russian defense partnership – is a highly potent weapon boasting supersonic speeds with a range of about 300km and renders most countermeasures invalid. The missile was reportedly successfully test-fired from a Sukhoi-30MKI in May 2019, scoring a direct hit on the target. The Sukhois, which have a range of around 1,200km, significantly increase India’s capability to strike targets deep in the Indian Ocean and to virtually cover most shipping lanes in the region.

The new No. 222 Squadron, named ‘Tiger Sharks’, will initially have around five to six fighter jets but gradually it will operate with a full strength of 18 aircraft. This is the first fighter squadron to be set up by the Indian Air Force in its Southern Command covering the Indian Peninsula. Retired Air Vice-Marshal Manmohan Bahadur stated: “The requirement of having a permanent footprint of Indian air power over the Indian Ocean was lacking. With the basing of Sukhois at Thanjavur, this deficiency would be overcome to a certain extent due to the deep strike capabilities of the aircraft.”