Defense

After successfully carrying out its first-ever night-time ‘arrested’ landing at Shore Based Test Facility INS Hansa, Goa, the naval version of the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft is getting ready for the Deck Landing trial soon. This has been a major success for all the agencies including the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and the Indian Navy which has been part of all these trials.

The first woman pilot, Lieutenant Shivangi, will join naval operations on completion of operational training here on December 2. “Shivangi will graduate to become the First female Pilot of Indian Navy. She hails from Muzzafarpur, Bihar and completed her schooling from DAV Public school, Muzzafarpur,” the source told PTI.

The SITMEX exercise underscores the shared responsibility of the three countries to work together in keeping sea lines of communications open and strengthens interoperability among them. “The participating Navies have found value in the exercise and have agreed to conduct the exercise on a yearly basis,” said a statement issued after the meeting.

While the implementation committee, appointed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and headed by national security adviser Ajit Doval, is still to define the charter for the CDS, people familiar with the matter said the chief will be a single-point military adviser to the government, as suggested by the K Subrahmanyam-led Kargil Review Committee.

Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that there is “no proposal under consideration of the government” to merge the Assam Rifles with the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. While the Assam Rifles guards the 1,643-km long India-Myanmar border, the ITBP is tasked to secure the 3,488-km long Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.

Three Rafale fighter jets have been handed over to the Indian Air Force and are being used to train IAF pilots and technicians in France, the government said on Wednesday. India and France signed an Euro 7.87 billion (Rs 59,000 crore approximately) deal in September 2016 for 36 Rafale jets.

“Two Prithvi-2 missiles were test fired consecutively and both tests met all parameters,” the official said from the Interim Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur. The trial of the missile, which has a strike range of 350 km, was carried out from a mobile launcher from launch complex-3 of the ITR between 7 pm to 7.15 pm, he said.

India has become one of the few countries that the US decided to sell its latest version (Mod 4) of its naval guns. The other countries to have been sold these include Australia, Japan and South Korea.
US Clears Sale of $1 Billion Worth of Naval Guns to India for Use against Warships, Anti-aircraft Warfare. The proposed foreign military sale of up to 13 MK-45 5inch/62 caliber (MOD 4) naval guns and related equipment is at an estimated cost of $1.0210 billion, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in its notification to the Congress on Tuesday.

It is being conducted as the partner countries have resolved to take the international counter-terror offensive, preparedness, mitigation and synergy to the next level and therefore the table-top exercise would be attended by CT (counter-terrorism) officials and security experts of the Quad countries, they said.

India and UAE share historic political, economic and cultural ties that have evolved and expanded considerably over the years. India remains UAE’s second-largest trading partner with bilateral non-oil trade amounting to $18.2 billion in the first half of 2019, marking a 20 per cent year-over-year increase. Bilateral trade between the two countries is expected to cross $100 billion by 2020 from over $57 billion at present.