Indians With Iglas
The Indian military. India has fought a number of wars against Pakistan and China since independence in 1947 and generally acquitted itself pretty well.
Much of India's military equipment is Soviet/Russian in origin (hence the "Iglas" in the title, the Igla being a Russian man-portable SAM), sometimes licence-built, with India continuing to buy mostly Russian today. This trend is the result of a combination of factors, but the most important are the Bangladesh Liberation War, where America armed Pakistan, and the long-standing Pakistani alliance with China, which stopped being friendly with the USSR sometime during the late '50s or early '60s. India has been loaned Tu-142 "Bear" reconnaissance aircraft, has a version of the Su-30 and may get Tu-22M "Backfires" at some point in the future. It will soon get an Akula class SSN from the Russians, albeit without the long-range missiles due to the Russian Federation being a signatory to the Missile Technology Control Regime (a 34-country agreement barring the export of missiles with a range of 300km plus). It is also partnering with Russia on the FGFA, a derivative of the PAK FA (the Russian rival to the F-22).
However, India, a non-aligned country during the Cold War (albeit slightly closer to Russia), also has plenty of equipment from the UK and France (including Mirage 2000s, Sea Harriers, and licence-built SEPECAT Jaguar attack aircraft) and has recently placed orders for C-130J Super Hercules transports and P-8I Poseidon maritime patrol planes from the United States (which signed a civil nuclear agreement with India in 2005 and has generally been ingratiating itself with New Delhi since 2000). The most recent procurement deal of this kind occurred in 2011, when the Indian Air Force agreed to purchase the French Dassault Rafale (with 16 fighters to be bought from French factories and the remaining 108 to be manufactured in India).
As (then) part of the British Empire, the Indian army fought alongside British, Canadians, and ANZACs in both world wars. The Indian military has continued to be very similar to Britain in organization and doctrine, down to using that most deadly of close quarter weapons, the bagpipe. The Indian military is a very effective Western style force that uses a certain amount of Russian gear, not the rather more common Soviet style client state.
India has an STOVL aircraft carrier (INS Viraat formerly the British Centaur class carrier HMS Hermes, carrying Sea Harriers and soon to be retired), is building three full-length carriers, and is having the former Soviet Kiev class STOVL carrier Admiral Gorskhov converted to a full-length one, to be called INS Vikramaditya (which is running rather late).
India has also been rather busy on its own stuff; the new carrier is locally-developed and India is developing its own nuclear subs, possibly nuclear-capable. There has also been a light fighter aircraft, the HAL Tejas, developed.
The Indian Navy is heading towards blue-water status, being able to seriously deploy outside its own waters.
India's Field Marshal in the 1971 war with Pakistan, the recently-deceased Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, was the epitome of an Officer and a Gentleman. Each of the "ji's" in his name was an affectionate honorific added by his troops.
While they have many examples of Crazy Awesome, the existance of a camel-mounted marching band is probably toward the top of the list.
Indian Nukes
India has been a nuclear power since 1974 (and had been capable of being so for awhile earlier), testing its first bomb under the wonderful codename Smiling Buddha. It conducted further tests in 1998.
Just how many bombs it has and how rapidly deployable they are is a subject of speculation, but India is developing an ICBM (Surya, meaning "Sun" in several Indian languages) and possibly ballistic missile subs. The recent development of nuclear weapons by India's perennial nemesis, Pakistan, has raised fears worldwide that the next Indo-Pakistani War will be the world's first atomic war.
India has a no-first-use policy. While not a member of the NPT, it shows no signs of being interested in proliferating whatsoever and is too politically stable to have its weapons fall into the wrong hands. On the other hand, the command and control structures for nuclear weapons in India are not as tight and clear-cut as many analysts would like them to be.
The Indian military in fiction
- Shows up in some of the later Tom Clancy novels, such as Executive Orders and Debt of Honor. Not really described in full, and generally used somewhere between Mooks and The Dragon by the actual Big Bad of whatever is going on.
- Fights a war of aggression against Burma and Thailand in the Ender's Game sequel Shadow of the Hegemon. Sabotaged by the evil teenage mastermind Achilles who is manipulating the Indian government so that the Chinese can wipe the floor with them after they have been exhausted by a long campaign against fierce Thai attacks on their supply lines. Petra Arkanian, the Armenian tactical genius captured by Achilles had predicted exactly this result and issued a plan that anticipated the Thai strategy (masterminded by her former classmate Bean), but Achilles put the kibosh on that. The result is that India is occupied by China until a Muslim army under a new Caliphate (headed by their classmate Alai) liberates India.
- A brief mention comes up in WarGames. One of the nuclear war scenarios that WOPR runs through is India and Pakistan finally losing it.
- The main character of Main Hoon Na is a major in the Indian military.
- In Pukar, if they aren't a terrorist, they're connected with the Indian military.
- The old Indian Army from the days of The British Empire is mentioned in works by Kipling, John Masters, and others. As it happens, many of India's modern military traditions come from those days.
- They appear in a side mission of Splinter Cell: Blacklist, guarding a nuke storage. Killing them leads to failing mission as they are considered "allies".
- They appear briefly in the first two chapters of Uncharted: Lost Logacy.