Indian Military

Images of China's new Jin-class SSBN. The Pentagon says there are significant problems with its Julang-2 missiles






(This is the concluding article of a four-part series on India's critical, yet significantly delayed, submarine programme)
by Ajai ShuklaBusiness Standard, 2nd Sept 10
An increasingly apparent reason for the Ministry of Defence’s slow decision-making on a second submarine production line for the Indian Navy is: the deep divisions within the navy over India’s submarine force. A debate rages between the submarine arm and the surface navy — particularly the dominant aviation wing — on whether the future lies in submarines or aircraft carriers.

The 650-metre dry dock at the Pipavav shipyard in Gujarat. This dry dock can take two aircraft carriers simultaneously and still have space left over for the odd destroyer

by Ajai ShuklaBusiness Standard, 21st Sept 10
I was taken aback last week to receive an invitation from BAE Systems, the world’s third-richest arms corporation, for a four-day media tour to the UK. What surprised me was not the invitation. The rate at which India is buying up foreign weaponry, global arms merchants, eager for publicity, would happily pay for our small defence journalist community to globetrot through the year. What was remarkable in the BAE invitation was the company’s proposal to fly us to Glasgow for the launch of a new Royal Navy destroyer and a tour of other warships. Why, I wondered, was British shipbuilding being showcased to India in the absence of a plan to buy a warship from the UK?
A few phone calls later I had my answer! A cash-strapped UK defence ministry, unable to pay for the two aircraft carriers on order with BAE Systems, had offered one of them to New Delhi.

INS Chennai, the 3rd destroyer of the Kolkata class (Project 15A), being launched into the Arabian Sea at Mazagon Dock on 1st April 2010
by Ajai ShuklaBusiness Standard, 4th Jan 11
For years India’s warship building community has urged the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to create the infrastructure needed for making India a major global hub for building warships. Today, as a first step towards this, Defence Minister AK Antony will lay the foundation stone of the National Institute for Research and Development in Defence Shipbuilding (NIRDESH) at Chaliyam, in Kozhikode district of Kerala.
With the Indian Navy expanding rapidly, the workload on the Directorate of Naval Design (DND) has overwhelmed its tiny establishment. With the DND already busy with five major programmes for building surface warships --- for the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier; Project 15A and 15B destroyers; Project 17A frigates; and Project 28 anti-submarine corvettes --- design capacity has become a serious roadblock to further projects.

Defence Minister AK Antony at the foundation stone laying of the National Institute for Research and Development in Defence Shipbuilding, Kozhikode
Right: INS Chennai, the 3rd destroyer of the Kolkata class (Project 15A), being launched into the Arabian Sea at Mazagon Dock on 1st April 2010
by Ajai ShuklaBusiness Standard, 4th Jan 11
For years India’s warship building community has urged the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to create the infrastructure needed for making India a major global hub for building warships. Today, as a first step towards this, Defence Minister AK Antony will lay the foundation stone of the National Institute for Research and Development in Defence Shipbuilding (NIRDESH) at Chaliyam, in Kozhikode district of Kerala.

Ajai ShuklaBusiness Standard, 10th Jan 11Hyderabad
The ministry of defence has ignored private Indian defence companies by announcing that global arms vendors can channel offsets into the fields of civil aerospace and internal security, instead of exclusively into the defence industry. Meanwhile, several other potentially far-reaching changes to the offset policy have been referred to an internal ministry committee.
The ministry’s apex defence acquisition council decided at a meeting on December 15 that the committee, headed by the director-general of acquisitions, would submit recommendations on: Whether transfer of technology should be eligible for offsets; whether offset multipliers could be introduced allowing vendors to claim enhanced credits for investment in earmarked areas; arrangements the ministry needs to institutionalise to evaluate, monitor and audit anticipated offsets; and whether the current time validity of banked offsets needs to be changed.

New Delhi — With a view to achieve substantive self reliance in design, development and production of defence equipment, weapon systems and platforms, the Defence Minister Shri AK Antony unveiled the first ever Defence Production Policy (DPrP) here today. The policy also aims at creating conditions conducive for the private industries to play an active role to achieve the objective. The DPrP will act as a catalyst to enhance potential of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) for indigenisation as also for broadening the defence research and development base of the country.

Releasing the document, Antony said the Policy aims to achieve maximum synergy among the Armed Forces, DPSUs, OFBs and Indian Industry and Research and Development institutions. The Defence Production Policy has been prepared after extensive consultations with various stakeholders such as the three Services, Coast Guard, Integrated Defence Staff, DRDO and Indian Industry Associations – CII, FICCI, and ASSOCHAM etc.

This new HAL production line expects to build 8 Tejas fighters per year at about Rs 180 crore apiece
By Ajai ShuklaHAL, BangaloreBusiness Standard, 5th Feb 11
India’s home-built Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) is poised to grab a large share of the limelight at the five-day Aero India 2011 air show in Bangalore on 9th Feb. For the first time ever, a formation of five Tejas fighters will roar past the spectators during the inaugural fly-past. And, jostling with the world’s premier fighters, two Tejas prototypes will perform aerobatics displays that the pilots describe as, “well beyond anything that we have ever displayed before”.
Besides the seven Tejas in the skies, a fully built fighter will also be displayed on the ground. This will be the latest Tejas, built to the specifications that won it last month a landmark Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) for entering service with the Indian Air Force.

NEW DELHI: A high level delegation from the US energy department is on a 10-day visit to India to discuss ways of cooperation and partnership in the nuclear energy sector, the US embassy said on Monday.
Representatives from the US department of energy are visiting India to learn more about the country's nuclear energy community and identify nuclear development opportunities and partnerships that will benefit both countries, according to a US embassy statement here.
During the visit, representatives from Idaho National Laboratory (INL), the US government's lead nuclear engineering and science laboratory, will interact with leaders and researchers in the government, industry and academia.
"All advanced nuclear energy nations benefit by understanding each other's nuclear enterprises and collaborating where appropriate," said Idaho National Laboratory director and delegation head John Grossenbacher.
Top US nuclear energy companies are eying to expand their business in India capitalising on the civil nuclear agreement signed between the two countries in 2008.

Defence Minister AK Antony releasing the Defence Production Policy last month, which talks about building up Indian defence industry. The Procurement Policy (DPP-2011), released the same day, undermines that aim by diluting offsets.
by Ajai ShuklaBusiness Standard, 8th Feb 11
Defence Minister AK Antony’s apparent probity is set to naught by his dismal lack of judgement. In a heated internal debate on offsets that has polarised his ministry, Antony has backed a group of bureaucrats that argue exactly what foreign arms vendors have lobbied for since offsets were instituted in 2005. They agree that India’s nascent defence industry is incapable of executing the offset projects that would arise from our weapons purchases. Consequently, the 30% plough back that foreign vendors were required to make into the Indian defence industry, on all contracts above Rs 300 crore, has now been permitted in civil aviation, internal security and aviation.