Indian Military

NEW DELHI: Retreating from his hard positions in the last few days, Army chief Gen V K Singh said "rogue elements" were trying to project a "schism" between him and defence minister A K Antony and made it clear that he was duty bound to serve the country.

Facing flak and demands for his removal over some of his comments and moves, Gen Singh issued a statement today trying to clear the air saying that projections of schism between him and Antony was "untrue and needed to be guarded against".
He said for the media to constantly project every issue as a battle between the government and the army chief is "misleading".
The Army chief's attempt to further cool tempers comes a day after Antony expressed government's confidence in the service chiefs.
Antony also vowed to give maximum punishment to those behind the leak of Gen Singh's letter to the Prime Minister in which he had spoken about lack of defence preparedness.
Gen Singh had also issued a statement calling the leak a high treason and its source should be treated ruthlessly.

New Delhi – International and national defence majors are eagerly anticipating the government approval for the development of the aerospace special economic zone (SEZ) near the Bangalore international airport in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.

The aerospace SEZ in Karnataka will enable various defence players to set shop in India and tap the defence aerospace business here as well as cater to the export market. Out of the 1,000 acres of land acquired by the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB), around half of the area will be given to firms for the creation of factories. The SEZ will also capitalise from the growing defence offsets market in India besides creating a dedicated Maintenance Repair and overhaul centre (MRO) in the aerospace SEZ.

According to sources, Amada of Japan, Dynamatics Technologies, Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) have acquired land at the Aerospace SEZ in Karnataka. State-owned BEML has invested $70 million in its set-up and products to be manufactured at this plant include aircraft components, assemblies and MRO activities related to aerospace applications.

Indian Defence Online, New Delhi — After a spate of scrapped tenders and trials for the Indian Army’s artillery gun, defence public sector undertaking Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) has announced that it is ready with the indigenous 155mm, 52-calibre wheeled gun.

BEML has been made the nodal processing agency and the Indian government has permitted BEML to invite global tenders for the 155mm guns and the proposed contract for over 1,000 guns, besides other ranges of artillery guns including Howitzers. The estimated worth of these contracts is 20,000 crore.

The Indian Army has been desperately short of artillery firepower and a long-range state-of-the-art gun has been due for two decades since the Bofors gun controversy in the 1980s. The Indian Army’s 180-odd artillery gun regiments, each having 18 guns, have not received any new weaponry since the Bofors gun was bought in the late 1980s.

The selection of a suitable 155 mm, 52-calibre towed howitzer to fill this gap began only in 2002, when the Defence Ministry began evaluating three guns from BAE Systems, Israeli firm Soltam and Denel of South Africa.