The ongoing tussle over inducting Arjun tank in the Indian Army has become a hot topic of discussion in the past few days. After the director general Mechanised Infantry, Lt-Gen Dalip Bharadwaj, was quoted in the media saying that the Army would not buy more than 124 Arjun tanks, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has reportedly told defence minister A.K. Antony that at least 500 such tanks should be manufactured and inducted.
Senior functionaries of the DRDO have briefed the minister that capacity exists to manufacturing 500 tanks at the Heavy Vehicles Factory, Avadi. The Army is to decide on it next set of requirements. The balance is tilted in favour of the Russian tank
Singapore has shown interest in possibly buying up to 100 of Lockheed Martin Corp's (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft over coming decades, matching Israel's tentative plans, the general in charge of the program for the Pentagon said on Monday.
Separately, the eight countries that have joined the United States to co-develop the plane appear to be largely sticking to their plans to buy some 730 of their own, said Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, the Pentagon's program chief.
An Iranian F7 jet fighter which was on a training mission crashed in southwest Iran Sunday [6 July] afternoon.
According to the Public Relations Department of Iran's Army, the crash was due to technical failure and the jet fighter went down near Omidiyeh Air Base in Dezful, Khuzestan Province.
With the Navy on the verge of floating global tenders to buy more submarines, Naval chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta has begun a six-day tour of France, a major supplier of subs to India.
In the course of his official visit, Mehta would hold talks with his French counterpart Admiral Pierre Frances Forissier and top defence brass of the country.
At the top on the admiral's itinerary is a visit to the French Navy's key submarine base of Cherboug, which houses the French nuclear submarines as well the drydocks
A decommissioned Indian Navy ship has become part of an environmental project to showcase the country's marine life - offering adventure tourists opportunities for underwater tours of the vessel.
The ship, which has been sunk off the Karnataka coast in the Arabian sea, will serve as an artificial reef and over time become a natural home to weeds, sea plants, fishes and other creatures of the sea.
The ship, Seaward Defence Boat T-54, had guarded the country's maritime borders
In a major technology leap, Indian defence scientists are ready to go ahead with the first full test flight of its indigenously developed air to air beyond visual range missile, ASTRA.
The test flight from an IAF Sukhoi fighter aircraft could be undertaken "anytime in the next 45 days", top DRDO officials said.
A successful test flight of ASTRA will plunge India into a select group of nations to have such a technology. Only US, France, Russia and China have so far produced such advance missiles, which enables fighter pilots to lock-on and shoot down enemy aircraft almost 90-120 km away.
The Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE), which has the wherewithal to develop an electronic warfare (EW) suite that could be installed on MiG-29s, has asked Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and the Indian Air Force to put up a substantial portion of the around Rs. 170 crore required for developing the equipment. The MiG-29s are being upgraded in Russia.
This is in keeping with the new line of thinking of its parent body, Defence Research and Development Organisation, namely to incorporate industry and the user into a project right from the start by getting industry to financially commit itself to the project. For its part, DRDO will ensure that the industrial partner will secure the production order for the equipment.
Talking to The Hindu just before his retirement, Director R.P. Ramalingam said that his laboratory could offer a state of the art EW suite for the MiG-29, including a radar warning receiver and a self protection jammer, provided the production agency came up with funding.
In the early hours of Monday, eight frontline Sukhoi-30MKI fighters, two IL-78 mid-air refullers and an IL-76 heavy-lift aircraft will quietly take off from Pune to head for what will be one of toughest challenges for IAF till now.
Hopping across Qatar, Turkey, France and Portugal, the IAF aircraft — along with 91 officers and 156 other ranks — will finally touch down in the US on July 17 in the run-up to the world famous "Red Flag" air combat wargames.
Not only will IAF fighter pilots have to match their combat skills with American top-guns in their F-16s and F-15s, but also grapple with French ones in their spanking new Rafale fighters and South Korean ones in their F-15K jets during the multi-nation exercise at Nellis US Air Force base at Nevada from August 2 to 23.
As doubts over viability of the three-decade-old Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT) are being raised, the Army has indicated it would place no more orders than 124 already made to Heavy Vehicles Factory, Avadi, sounding the death knell of the DRDO project.
"Army will no more place orders for Arjun beyond 124 that was already contracted. That is because Army is now looking 20 years ahead and wants a futuristic MBT," Lt Gen Dalip Bharadwaj, Army Director General (Mechanised Infantry), said here.
Though Bharadwaj discounted suggestions that it would mean the end of DRDO's Arjun project that began in 1972, he did point out induction of more Arjun MBTs at this stage would only mean India lagging behind in the technological race in armoured fighting vehicles.
India may have to shell out as much as $2 billion more to Russia to get aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov by end-2012.
This will be over and above the original $1.5 billion package deal signed in January 2004, under which India was to get a fully-refurbished Gorshkov with 16 MiG-29K fighters.
The defence ministry, after a lot of groundwork, now hopes to begin the "formal
Fair Use Notice
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is being made available in an effort to advance understanding arms trade activities, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000107----000-.html
This is a completely non-commercial site for private personal use. No fee is charged, and no money is made off of the operation of this site - we have limited ads to cover our operational cost we don't have a donation button neither we accept any. All material that is not produced by the individuals who use this site will be placed under the directory /fair-use or /media under this domain.
Comments (4)
