Defence

Policy initiatives like Idex have put the defence industry on the path to self-reliance. It is time now to expand and build upon this success to achieve the broader objective of Make in India

Against the backdrop of renewed focus on the Doklam tri-junction, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck on Tuesday held talks focusing on a five-point broad roadmap to expand the "time-tested" relations besides delving into shared national security interests. At a media briefing after the talks, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said India and Bhutan closely coordinate on shared national and security interests and that security concerns of both sides are intertwined and indivisible. The talks between Modi and the visiting King took place days after Bhutan's Prime Minister Lotay Tshering said that China has an equal say in resolving the border dispute relating to the strategically-located Doklam tri-junction. When asked whether the Doklam issue figured in the talks, Kwatra said India-Bhutan ties are based on mutual respect, trust, close understanding and sensitivity to each other's concerns, adding Modi and the King covered the entire gamut of ..

The last of a 5-part series points out that the Standing Committee on Defence report says India will not be able to absorb much more on defence

The Ministry of Defence on Monday signed a contract with a firm for modernisation of Naval Aircraft Yards (NAYs) at Goa and Kochi at a cost of nearly Rs 470 crore, officials said. The NAYs undertake servicing and repairs of naval aircraft, aero engines, rotables and test equipment at Goa and Kochi, the ministry said in a statement. The ministry signed a contract with Ultra Dimensions Pvt. Ltd. (UDPL), Vishakhapatnam for "modernisation of Naval Aircraft Yards (NAYs) at Goa and Kochi, at a cost of approximately Rs 470 crore", it said. Induction of the latest state-of-the-art aircraft into the Indian Navy inventory requires modernisation of existing maintenance and repair facilities at NAYs to bridge the technological and capability gap to meet the present and future aviation maintenance challenges, officials said. The modernisation includes repair facilities with state-of-the-art automated machineries and composite repair bays. This project will generate an employment of more than 1.

In the fourth of a five-part series, the IAF assures the Standing Committee on Defence that its fighter fleet is not too diverse and each fighter has its use

Small arms factories witnessed "either no demand or very less demand" from the armed forces during the 2015-16 to 2019-20 period, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has observed. Performance Audit Report No. 5 of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Production of Small Arms in Ordnance Factories was presented in Parliament on Monday. Eight weapon manufacturing factories, which were under the Weapon, Vehicles and Equipment (WV&E) group of the erstwhile Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), have been grouped, post corporatisation of OFB, under one DPSU - M/s Advanced Weapons and Equipment India Limited (M/s AWEIL), headquartered at Kanpur, it said in a statement. Three weapon manufacturing factories viz. Rifle Factory Ishapore (RFI), Small Arms Factory Kanpur (SAF) and Ordnance Factory Trichy (OFT) manufacture small arms (rifles, machine guns, carbines, pistols, anti-riot/tear gas/pump action gun, etc.) for the armed forces, paramilitary forces (MHA) and the states/UTs,

The dialogue was co-chaired by Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane and his Maldivian counterpart, Chief of Defence Force, Maldives National Defence Forces Major General Abdulla Shamaal

DRDO conducted two consecutive successful flight tests of Very Short Range Air Defence System (VSHORADS) missile at the Integrated Test Range, Chandipur off the coast of Odisha on Tuesday

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced new military exercises to be held with Indian forces in a speech on board the INS Vikrant aircraft carrier on Thursday

India is ready to help Bangladesh with its defence modernisation efforts and has identified defence industry cooperation with Dhaka as an emerging focus area of the bilateral partnership, including joint development and production, India's envoy here has said. The Indian High Commission here on Sunday organised a seminar here on Indian defence equipment to promote defence industry cooperation between India and Bangladesh. Speaking at the event, Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Pranay Verma identified defence industry cooperation between the two countries as an emerging focus area of their defence partnership, a press release by the High Commission said. Verma highlighted the accomplishments of Indian's defence industry over the last decade driven by the Make in India, Make for the World vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The High Commissioner invited Bangladesh Armed Forces to benefit from India's cost-effective, high-quality defence equipment and technology and proposed

Actual defence spending during the year will rise to $225 billion, a single-digit budget increase for the eighth consecutive year

Coming week will see trials of an 'aerial targeting system' for the artillery directorate

Of the view that there is an unprecedented opportunity for India-US defence co-production, a US-based think-tank that is dedicated to addressing policy challenges has said that operationalising more defence industry partnerships between the companies of the two countries is contingent on commercial and regulatory factors. In a report titled Precision Targets: Accelerating the US-India Defense Industrial Partnership that was released on Thursday, the Observer Research Foundation (America) said that there is a requirement for making a strong business case for long-term investments and technology transfers, ensuring predictable demand in India. The US-India defence industry partnership is ripe for acceleration given a range of factors, spanning supportive domestic policies and favorable geopolitics, including the urgent circumstances that have arisen due to the war in Ukraine, ORF (America) said in the report. Capitalising on these factors will require making a strong business case for

China has a long history of fostering civil-military partnerships to make technological advances

The agreement, announced at the Aero India 2023, includes transfer of intellectual property (IP) for the design and manufacture of the OAS for Indian helicopters and potential future exports

"Now, we are one of the leading states in aerospace and defence. 65 per cent of our capabilities in the country are from Bengaluru," he said

The defence allocations for 2023-24 represent an enhancement of Rs 68,371 crore

Chief of the Army Staff General Manoj Pande on Wednesday said no country is willing to share the latest, "state-of-the-art" technologies and it implies that security of the nation can neither be outsourced nor be dependent on the largesse of others. He was speaking at the foundation day of the Army Institute of Technology in Maharashtra's Pune city. "The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict has brought to fore certain key facts such as the impact of asymmetric warfare, the potential of information warfare, digital resilience, weaponisation of economic mechanisms, communication redundancy, space based system and many more, all are driven by possession of technology prowess," he said. Today's security, therefore, is founded in the technological edge over the adversary, General Pande said. "No country is willing to share the latest, state-of-the-art technologies, it hence implies that the security of the nation can neither be outsourced nor be dependent on the largesse of others. ...

62 critical projects to be awarded by FY25

Margins too should move up as the proportion of these segments improves in the revenue mix