Motto for this year is 'Sashakta Sudridh and Aatmanirbhar': Air Chief Marshal AP Singh, IAF Chief

New Delhi [India], October 1 : Air Chief Marshal AP Singh on Tuesday took charge as the New Indian Air Force Chief here and took blessings of his mother, Pushwant Kaur, at the National War Memorial.
"The motto we have given this year is 'Sashakta Sudridh and Aatmanirbhar," Singh said.
On being asked about the future of the indigenous fighter aircraft programmes, Singh said that he has been associated with the Tejas programme from the flight testing and it is very close to his heart.
Speaking to ANI, Singh said, "I have been associated with Tejas programme right from the flight testing and it is very close to my heart. It is a little too small of an aircraft for the current situation, however we have such a place for an aircraft and have ordered 200 plus aircrafts of this type. We need to move on now and focus more on Mark2 aircrafts and Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft programme."
Further, he added that the country has the capability and capacity to make it a success.
"We have the capacity and capability within the country to achieve this. Everybody has to come together to make it a success. We are relying heavily on these two platforms," he added.
Born on October 27, 1964, ACM Singh was commissioned into the fighter pilot stream of the Indian Air Force in December 1984.
During his long and distinguished service spanning nearly 40 years, he has served in a variety of Command, Staff, Instructional and Foreign appointments.
An alumnus of the National Defence Academy, Defence Services Staff College and National Defence College, he is a Qualified Flying Instructor and an Experimental Test Pilot with more than 5,000 hours of flying experience on a variety of fixed and rotary wing aircraft.
During his career, the officer has commanded an operational fighter squadron and a frontline air base. As a test pilot, he led the MiG-29 Upgrade Project Management Team at Moscow, Russia.ACM Singh was also the Project Director (Flight Test) at National Flight Test Centre and was tasked with flight testing of the Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas.
He has held important staff appointments of Air Defence Commander at South Western Air Command and Senior Air Staff Officer at Eastern Air Command.
He was also the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Central Air Command before moving to Air Headquarters.