Political class have starved the defence forces of funds for modernising old and aging equipment and for acquiring new ones.The submarines are from Russia, which palmed off substandard equipment at very high prices to IndiaThe Navy's major annual exercise Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise (TROPEX) concluded yesterday involving large scale naval manoeuvres in all three dimensions surface, air and underwater, across the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean Region (IOR)