Defense

During the June 2017 meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump, the US had agreed to sell surveillance version of the Guardian drones to India.

Named ‘IndSpaceEx’, the exercise will basically be a ‘table-top war-game’, with all stakeholders from the military and scientific community taking part in it, but it does underline the seriousness with which India is taking the need to counter likely threats to its space assets from countries like China.

“The institute will be known as Young Leaders Training Wing and is planned to be established inside the premises of the Officers Training Academy (OTA), Chennai. It will focus on developing communication, leadership and team-building skills in soldiers,” Army officials told ANI.

Formed in 1998, BrahMos is a joint venture between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya. The supersonic cruise missiles can be fitted on all the three platforms — land, air and ships and submarines.

SPICE bomb has a standoff range of 60 kilometres and approaches the target as its unique scene-matching algorithm compares the electro-optical image received in real-time via the weapon seeker with mission reference data stored in the weapon computer memory and adjusts the flight path accordingly. SPICE 2000 consists of an add-on kit for warheads such as the MK-84, BLU-109, APW and RAP-2000.

Once the contract is finalised, 16 helicopters will come from the OEM directly and the balance will have to manufacture in India with almost 60 per cent indigenisation. In a process which will take a couple of months, all the technical bids will be scrutinised by the Indian Navy, before intensive trials start for evaluating the performance of each machine in different terrains and weather conditions.

According to sources, the new Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will include Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.

Eco-friendly measures include use of biodiesel and biogas Pilot projects utilizing wind or a mix of both solar and wind (hybrid) are also being taken up progressively which would not only reduce the carbon footprint but also help achieve self-sustenance in energy security, the Navy said.