Defense

The project will be a stepping stone for the Goa Shipyard to construct weapon-intensive and technologically advanced warships in future, and will bolster the ‘Make In India’ objective of the Union government, Naik said.

“We have bagged a multi-million dollar order from the Ministry of Defence to make rucksacks for the Indian army. It is an unchartered territory but creating an ideal rucksack for an Indian jawaan who spends maximum time outdoors in challenging terrain will be good learning. The order will be executed next year,” said Siddharth Sood, cofounder of Wildcraft India, at a press meet to announce the launch of a new category of travel cases.

On the agenda will be sorting out the terms of an acquisition and cross-servicing agreement, or ACSA, to be used by their armed forces. If agreed, India will become the sixth nation with which Japan has inked an ACSA, following the U.S., U.K, France, Canada and Australia. Japan has already signed agreements concerning the protection of classified military information and transfer of defense equipment and technology with India.

Delivering its much-awaited ruling on the matter, the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to review its earlier decision of giving a clean chit to the government while rejecting pleas for registration of an FIR by the CBI for alleged irregularities in the deal.

The Ministry of Defence has started the process of procuring around 550 robotics surveillance units with minimum 25 years of service life for counter-insurgency ops in Jammu and Kashmir, sources said on Wednesday. A senior Indian Army officer told IANS that these robots should be capable of climbing stairs and negotiating obstacles apart from throwing grenades at terrorists in built-up areas. “These robots should be capable enough for water fording with minimum 20-cm depth,” the officer said.

Sources said Lt-Commander (equivalent to an Army Major) Karabi Gogoi, a naval engineer currently posted at the Karwar base in coastal Karnataka, has been selected for the post of the assistant naval attaché also at the Indian embassy in Russia. “Lt-Commander Gogoi will finish her Russian language course this month. She is likely to take over the new post in Moscow in December after requisite approvals,” said a source.

“Cost negotiations for the C-295 deal have been completed. It is now being processed to put it up for clearance from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS). It is expected to be signed in the next few months,” a senior Defence official said. As part of the deal, 16 aircraft will be built by Airbus at its manufacturing facility and delivered in fly away condition and the remaining will be built locally by the Tata-Airbus joint venture under transfer of technology.

Code-named AK-203, the gun has been designed by the Kalashnikov Concern and is thus one of the new generations of the AK family, the descendants of the famed AK-47. Press reports declare that as many as 750,000 rifles are to be produced this way, a vast majority of which are to be provided to the Indian Armed Forces. If these numbers are correct, the AK-203 is poised to become one of the main weapons of the Indian Army.

India will fund at least 250 defence startups over the next five years as it seeks new give a cutting edge to the armed forces. The plan is to achieve at least 50 ‘tangible innovations’ by the startups that can be inducted over the coming years.

The landing at 1845 hours was to demonstrate the ease of handling and confidence achieved in arrested landing technologies of the indigenous aircraft being made at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The LCA which is made in India and designed and developed by Indians has been showing success at critical tests which are being carried out for the Indian navy.