Submarines to choppers: A sneak peek into Modi's defence agenda

happy

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Major decisions and policy announcements aimed at beefing up the country's defence are going to be on the front burner of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the next few weeks.

Multi-billion dollar deals for acquisition of submarines, attack helicopters, heavy-lift helicopters, missiles and fighter aircraft are on Modi's radar screen.

In fact, the Prime Minister's foreign policy in near term too will have heavy defence agenda, be it in terms of his forthcoming foreign visits to Japan and the United States or in-bound trips of leaders of major powers like Russia during the rest of the year.
Here is a sneak peek into the Modi government's defence agenda in near future.

Submarines
This is a crucial sector and a major area of concern as the former defence minister AK Antony, the longest serving defence minister of India, did more harm than good to the cause of modernisation of Indian armed forces. To protect his image of "Mr Clean" Antony brought the defence armaments' acquisition process to a virtual halt for a major part of his tenure and woke up to the crying needs of the armed forces only at the fag end, a classic case of too little too late.

After INS Sindhurakshak was lost to the Indian Navy due to a massive fire and multiple explosions in Mumbai naval dock yard on 14 August, 2013, and operational issues with several other aging submarines the navy has been left with just 13 conventional diesel-electric submarines, 11 of which are 20-27 years old.

Interestingly, it was the previous NDA government of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee which had approved in 1999 a long-term ambitious project, called Project 75i, aimed at adding 30 new submarines to the naval fleet by 2030. It is for the Modi government now to put this project back on the rails.

A major decision of clearing pending submarines project is awaiting the nod of the new Indian government. This pertains to issuing RFP (defence jargon for Request for Proposal) for six submarines. The project is going to cost at least Rs 50,000 crore, slightly more than $8 billion. The six-submarine project is part of Project 75i.

The UPA II government had issued RFI (Request for Information) for the six-submarine project towards the end of its tenure. The next stage of the acquisition process is issuance of a RFP (call for a global tender) and the UPA government failed to issue the RFP.
Clearing hurdles for acquisition of six new submarines should be one of the highest priorities of the Modi government's defence policy.

Helicopters
This is another area where the Indian armed forces are feeling distressed for years but no decision could be taken by the UPA government.

The armed forces are in dire need of attack helicopters and heavy-lift transport helicopters. The US is the frontrunner for grabbing the deal for off-the-shelf purchase of these two types of helicopters — 16 Chinuk heavy-lift helicopters and 22 Apache attack helicopters.

The helicopter deal, likely to cost up to $3 billion, is going to dominate the India-US conversations in the coming weeks in the run up to Prime Minister Modi's bilateral visit to the US in September this year. Modi is likely to hold a summit meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington on 30 September.

But then this won't be an easy decision for the Modi government as several major foreign powers, including Russia, have been wooing India for this lucrative deal. Russia has even expressed its annoyance for India reaching out to the US for purchase of helicopters saying that it can sweeten the deal for India by offering similar product at much cheaper price along with Transfer of Technology which the US normally does not give.

However, the US this time may pip Russia to the post as Washington too has given signals that it would be transferring technology in case of the helicopters. Moreover, India has had spate of issues with Russia on maintenance and quality control aspects.

MMRCA (Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft) Project
This mega project, though awarded in principle to France by the UPA government in January 2012, is still in a limbo as final commercial negotiations with the French company Dassault are lingering on. The Modi government has to come up with its decision of 'clearing' the deal.

The project is going to cost a whopping $20 billion involving 126 fighter aircraft. The project is of utmost necessity for the Indian Air Force which is currently down to just 34 fighter squadrons as against a minimum requirement of 44 fighter squadrons.

All these acquisitions are the dire need of the Indian armed forces in view of India's twin objectives of maintaining unquestionable superiority over arch-rival Pakistan and minimum deterrent for China.

Later this month, Modi is going to travel to Kolkata to commission INS Kolkata, the country's largest indigenously-built 6700-tonne warship. Just a few days ago, Modi had boarded INS Vikramaditya in Goa and dedicated the aircraft carrier to the nation. INS Kochi and INS Chennai, sister ships of INS Kolkata, will be the next on the Prime Minister's heavy defence agenda.

Clearly defence is going to hog a lot of time and attention of Prime Minister Modi.

Submarines to choppers: A sneak peek into Modi's defence agenda
 

W.G.Ewald

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This a comment which follows the article in First Post:
This is called paid news. Since Modi has taken over, these sellers of aircrafts are planting "news" items like these and calling them "low hanging fruits". India must focus on developing it's own aircrafts, submarines and armaments with private long term partnership. This model of private long term partnership is being followed in western nations and is a successful model.
 

jackprince

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but dont you think buying top notch aircrafts, helis or missiles with TOT will only help india in developing there own?

If you buy theose 'top notch' machines in top price, you won't have the need and the money to invest in R&D. So home R&D dies.

How did our ballestic & Cruise missile R&D advanced so far? "coz since none will part with the goodies we had to build them ourselves.
 

laughingbuddha

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If you buy theose 'top notch' machines in top price, you won't have the need and the money to invest in R&D. So home R&D dies.

How did our ballestic & Cruise missile R&D advanced so far? "coz since none will part with the goodies we had to build them ourselves.
For one, these couldn't be purchased. Not to forget the "help" received in development.
 

Ashutosh Lokhande

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If you buy theose 'top notch' machines in top price, you won't have the need and the money to invest in R&D. So home R&D dies.

How did our ballestic & Cruise missile R&D advanced so far? "coz since none will part with the goodies we had to build them ourselves.
what i believe is it will only help r&d, i see it as a shortcut and wud save some serious time of r&d, we wud be wasting decades to try reinvent the wheel.
you see how china leaped in defence field? it re engineered russian and american equipments. so it helped them to cut time on r&d.
therefore same way by TOT india wud leap forward too.
 

Ray

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Modi is going to the USA to ask for a nuclear powered aircraft carrier?

That will surely spook the Chinese and the Pakistanis.

Pakistanis of course will not be able to afford it.
 

happy

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what i believe is it will only help r&d, i see it as a shortcut and wud save some serious time of r&d, we wud be wasting decades to try reinvent the wheel.
you see how china leaped in defence field? it re engineered russian and american equipments. so it helped them to cut time on r&d.
therefore same way by TOT india wud leap forward too.
The Chinese bought only few pieces of each weapon that they wanted and reverse engineered them. As a matter of fact, I too wonder if our scientists are themselves upto the chinese level of reverse engineering ?? !!

Also considering the fact that China is member of the P5 and enjoys veto rights on any kind of embargo decisions by others, I guess it is in a pretty strong position to get away scot free even though everyone knows that it is stealing technology.

So IMHO, we are in no position to try and emulate the chinese as far as reverse engineering is concerned.
 

Ashutosh Lokhande

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The Chinese bought only few pieces of each weapon that they wanted and reverse engineered them. As a matter of fact, I too wonder if our scientists are themselves upto the chinese level of reverse engineering ?? !!

Also considering the fact that China is member of the P5 and enjoys veto rights on any kind of embargo decisions by others, I guess it is in a pretty strong position to get away scot free even though everyone knows that it is stealing technology.

So IMHO, we are in no position to try and emulate the chinese as far as reverse engineering is concerned.
am not talking about reverse engineering am talking about the legal way via TOT.
 

happy

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am not talking about reverse engineering am talking about the legal way via TOT.
Never heard the chinese entering into any legal agreement for TOT. Also, never heard the Americans willing to give access to system critical software and technology to any country other than the UK.

Also I believe the highlighted part of your post talks about reverse engineering.

what i believe is it will only help r&d, i see it as a shortcut and wud save some serious time of r&d, we wud be wasting decades to try reinvent the wheel.
you see how china leaped in defence field? it re engineered russian and american equipments. so it helped them to cut time on r&d.
therefore same way by TOT india wud leap forward too.
 

Ashutosh Lokhande

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Never heard the chinese entering into any legal agreement for TOT. Also, never heard the Americans willing to give access to system critical software and technology to any country other than the UK.

Also I believe the highlighted part of your post talks about reverse engineering.
you misunderstood me,
i was trying to say that how china didnt invested decades on r&d and didnt build from scratch. instead they reverse engineered existing top equipments. hence it saved them time.

similarly if india buys equipments from the US with TOT it will help india not waste decade on r&d and it wont need to build from scratch by trial and error method.therefore with help of tot the r&d in india will move at much fast pace.

to cut long story short, china fast paced its r&d via reverse engineering.
india should fast pace its r&d via tot.

if you stil unable to understand what am trying to say, i blame it on my lack of ability to express. sorry.
 

Ashutosh Lokhande

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You're not talking about reverse engineering our stuff, are you? :shocked:
no, am not talking about india reverse engineering US stuff.

what am saying is,
china reverse engineers foreign defence equipments of russia's, americas etc to boost there r&d
india shud boost theres by taking help from TOT which US will provide if we buy there stuff, for some of there defence equipments.


why is it so hard for some ppl to understand what am trying to say? its not like i am explaining some rocket science :(
 
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abhi_the _gr8_maratha

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no, am not talking about india reverse engineering US stuff.

what am saying is,
china reverse engineers foreign defence equipments of russia's, americas etc to boost there r&d
india shud boost theres by taking help from TOT which US will provide if we buy there stuff, for some of there defence equipments.


why is it so hard for some ppl to understand what am trying to say? its not like i am explaining some rocket science :(
US never provides TOT.
.
we do use TOT for su30mki, scorpion class submarine, t90, rafale etc.
 

Ashutosh Lokhande

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US never provides TOT.
.
we do use TOT for su30mki, scorpion class submarine, t90, rafale etc.
ignore my previous comment i misread your statement.

so ya coming back to the topic, i have heard that US is trying to woo india by offering some tot if india buys from them. is it true?
 

abhi_the _gr8_maratha

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ignore my previous comment i misread your statement.

so ya coming back to the topic, i have heard that US is trying to woo india by offering some tot if india buys from them. is it true?
I think you read about next gen javelin joint venture proposal by US. Well, I think spike is better ATGM than javelin. Though we will have joint venture but it doesn't speaks how much technology will be transferred to indians. And there is TOT for spike.
 

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