Defense

The agreement will ensure that Indian warships and air force planes, among other things, will be able to enter, refuel and pick up provisions in Japanese defence bases and vice-versa. This is another example of the growing closeness between the defence establishments of both countries. India has a similar agreement– the LEMOA– with the United States. A similar one with Russia is almost ready for signing.

While the Japan pact may be signed over the next weekend during the maiden 2+2 meet before Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s India visit in December for the annual summit, the Australian agreement is expected during Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s state visit mid-January. In the ‘2+2’ format, the foreign ministers and defence ministers of two countries have a joint meeting to discuss strategic issues.

India’s federal Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the government has approved forming a Defence Cyber Agency to mitigate any possible online threats. He told the Indian Parliament on Wednesday that all the three Services have established their respective Cyber Emergency Response Teams.

It said the Coast Guard Commander (Eastern Seaboard) also informed the Lt Governor that the coast guardhad a proposal to set up a helicopter base in Puducherry to enable it to have enhanced search and rescue operations and also address coastal security concerns here. The role of enhanced security and increased surveillance of the Puducherry and Karaikal coasts came in for discussion during the meeting.

The current budget allocation has little scope for a leap as far as modernization of armed forces is concerned as capital expenditure meant for big ticket procurement did not increase to match the requirements to transform the forces with modern equipment.

With the green signal from the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the task force Commander at sea was given the go ahead to intercept the suspicious vessel masquerading as Mega Rama. By late afternoon, signals from the Western Fleet confirmed that Mega Rama had been successfully intercepted almost 800 kilometres from the Indian coast.

The underwater locator beacon provides an electronic signal at a particular frequency for up to a month. This locator feature was not equipped in the AN-32 transport aircraft that went missing over the Bay of Bengal in 2016. The Indian Air Force (IAF) has equipped all of its aircraft and helicopters with basic search equipment to better trace missing aircraft.

Admiral Kumar had authored a book named ‘A Prime Minister to Remember — Memories of a Military Chief’ which highlighted the key defence-related decisions taken by Late PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He credited Vajpayee for turning the strategic tactical loss into a massive victory. Known for his strategic thinking, the Admiral had pushed for significantly expanding Indian Navy’s presence in the Indian Ocean Region. He was also part of the high-level group devising strategy during the Kargil war in 1999.

The new INAS 314 squadron will be commanded by Captain Sandeep Rai who was commissioned into the Indian Navy on January 1, 1999. Captain Rai has over 3,000 hours of flying experience and has been part of a crew, which set up the Seychelles Dornier Flight for combating piracy off Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, stated the information shared by the spokesperson.

There are 56 ongoing Mission Mode (MM) Projects with a cost of Rs 49,424.54 cr. and 218 ongoing Technology Demonstration (TD) mode projects with a cost of Rs 13,427.45 crore by the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO). The above projects are directed for 100% indigenous productions, however a few projects have collaboration with foreign countries during development phase.