Defense

The largest carmaker in the country won’t be manufacturing the Gypsy for private customers though as it will be exclusively made for Indian armed forces. Several reports emerged on the internet a while ago indicated that just over 3,000 units will be produced by Maruti Suzuki to meet the requirements of the Indian Army.

The first defence acquisition council meeting to be chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is scheduled to take place in August first week in the south block. This is also the first time that the DAC would be meeting after the Narendra Modi government returned to power.

The Navy signed a contract with HAL in August 2017 for 8 Chetaks to be delivered by August 2020, with the first two by August 2019. HAL’s helicopter complex chief executive G.V.S. Bhaskar said the company had revived the Chetak production line after upgrading it with the latest technologies.

“This is the second edition of the MWE. Last year we participated as an observer and this time we are a full participant. We have four personnel participating carrying diving equipment,” a Navy source said on Monday. In the first edition, there were two officers and two sailors as observers in the exercise held at the same location, the source stated.

The tri-Service integrated defence staff (IDS) under the defence ministry is conducting the two-day “IndSpaceEx”, with all military and scientific stakeholders on Thursday and Friday, in the backdrop of China’s rapidly expanding space and counter-space capabilities.

The commandants and their second-in-command officers have been asked to strictly follow the directive and monitor their units to check “each and every” movement along this front, which is highly sensitive and vulnerable from the point of infiltration of terrorists from the Pakistani soil and unprovoked firing incidents.

Russia has been the largest supplier of defence hardware and military equipment to India and the IAF chief said that the two countries can join hands for the production of components and spare parts in India. “Using the example of the Su-30, I can say that Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is already producing the Su-30MKI under the original licence. With them, we signed a contract for aftersales service of the Su-30MKI aircraft.

Naravane will be the senior most army officer when the incumbent Army Chief General Bipin Rawat retires on December 31. Naravane was commissioned into the 7th Sikh Light Infantry in June 1980. He has handled several appointments in peace, field and active counter-insurgency environments in the North-East, Jammu and Kashmir and as part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka.

All stakeholders have been asked to submit reports related to the completion of the mega-exercise – codenamed ‘Sudarshan’ – aimed at tightening vigil along the infiltration-probe border, he said. Commanders of the forces were directed to strengthen their watchtower and man sentry posts more efficiently, besides organising multiple patrolling.

he year 2018 witnessed the lowest number of insurgency incidents and civilian deaths since 1997,” said the report. It said that the overall security situation in the North Eastern (NE) states improved substantially since 2013. The report said that compared to 2017, insurgency incidents have registered a decline of 18 per cent in the year 2018.