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Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will embark on a five-day visit to Mongolia and Japan beginning Monday with an aim to expand India's defence and security ties with the two countries. In Japan, Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will join their Japanese counterparts under the framework of '2+2' foreign and defence ministerial dialogue, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday. Singh will visit Mongolia from September 5 to 7 while his tour of Japan will be from September 8-9. It is learnt that the '2+2' dialogue is planned for September 8. The dialogue is taking place over five months after Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited India for the annual India-Japan summit. At the summit in New Delhi, Kishida announced an investment target of five trillion Yen (Rs 3,20,000 crore) in India over the next five years. In the 2+2 dialogue, the two sides are expected to deliberate on ways to further expand bilateral cooperation in the areas of defence and security .
India and Russia on Monday inked an agreement for joint production of over six lakh AK-203 assault rifles at a manufacturing facility in Uttar Pradesh's Amethi besides firming up another pact on military cooperation for 10 years. The rifles will be manufactured for the Indian armed forces at a cost of around Rs 5000 crore. The agreements were signed at the 20th meeting of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military and Military-Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-M&MTC). The meeting, co-chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his Russian counterpart Gen Sergey Shoigu, also discussed ways to further boost strategic cooperation including ramping up of joint production of military equipment. The two sides also inked a pact on amending the agreement on cooperation in the field of manufacturing of the Kalashnikov series of small arms that was originally sealed in February 2019. Another agreement was signed on the protocol of the 20th IRIGC-M&MTC, officials said. The ..
The Defence Ministry on Friday inked a nearly Rs 20,000 crore contract with Airbus Defence and Space of Spain to procure 56 C-295 medium transport aircraft which will replace Avro-748 planes of the Indian Air Force. The long-pending procurement was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Security two weeks back. "Contract signed between #MinistryOfDefence and @AirbusDefence &Space, Spain for procurement of 56 C-295 transport aircraft for the #IAF," Defence Ministry Spokesperson A Bharat Bhushan Babu tweeted. Under the deal, 16 aircraft will be delivered in a flyaway condition by the Airbus Defence and Space within 48 months of signing the contract. The remaining 40 planes will be manufactured in India by a consortium of the Airbus Defence and Space and Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) within 10 years of signing the contract, officials said. The C-295 MW aircraft is a transport plane of 5-10 tonne capacity. This is the first project of its kind in which a military aircraft will b