The National quotes Takshashila's Sushant K Singh

The National quotes Takshashila Fellow Sushant K Singh on the twin explosions and fire that sank an Indian submarine in Mumbai.'It was a kind of mushroom fireball'As a relatively old-model submarine, it did not have the escape pods that are common in more modern designs, said Sushant K Singh, a defence policy fellow at the Takshashila Institution, an independent think tank."Even during refittings, it isn't possible to add this kind of feature because it involves changing the structure of the submarine itself," Mr Singh said.Russian-made submarines have had malfunctions in the past, most famously during the explosion on board the nuclear submarine Kursk, which sank in the Barents Sea in 2000, killing all its 118 sailors."From an Indian perspective, though, we are constrained often to buy defence equipment from Russia, because they will sell technology to India that other countries will not," Mr Singh said.