-
IRELAND: “From 800 to 7,000”: Ireland’s Education Appeal Soars Among Indian Students - May 4, 2024
-
TORONTO: Canada Sets Weekly Work Hour Limit For Indian Students At 24 - May 3, 2024
-
TORONTO: India strongly protests ‘Khalistan’ slogans at a public event attended by Canadian leaders - May 2, 2024
-
TOKYO: Japan Offers Scholarships To Indian Students Pursuing Research - May 1, 2024
-
ZAGREB: India-Croatia Foreign Office Consultations (FOC) - May 1, 2024
-
BUCHAREST: Government Of Romania To Offer Scholarships To Indian Students - April 30, 2024
-
WASHINGTON: India Now Second-Largest Source Country For New Citizens In US- Report - April 30, 2024
-
LONDON: Run For Modi” Event In London To Drum Up Support For PM Modi - April 29, 2024
-
LONDON: Indian-Origin Candidate On How He Plans To Win London Mayoral Polls - April 28, 2024
-
HARVARD: No Country Is Perfect”: Physics Wallah Urges Indian Students At Harvard, Stanford To Return - April 27, 2024
NEW DELHI: India, Russia drawing up mega defence plan
NEW DELHI: From clinching deals on
Kalashnikov assault rifles and very-short range air defence missile systems
(VSHORADS) to a military logistics pact, upgraded combat exercises and more
joint projects, Russia is now looking to challenge the US as India’s
pre-eminent strategic partner and defence supplier.
Ahead of the annual Modi-Putin summit on December 6, coinciding with the inaugural
two-plus-two dialogue between their foreign and defence ministers, hectic
negotiations are currently underway to put finishing touches on a wide-ranging
strategic-defence agenda.
While there is now deep India-US
strategic congruence across the spectrum, with New Delhi also inking defence
deals worth over $21 billion with Washington since 2007, Russia wants to assert
its long-standing special strategic partnership with India. Russia,
incidentally, has notched up military sales worth well over $65 billion to
India since the early-1960s.
Russia is also apprehensive about India’s
determined push for self-reliance in defence production. But it can take heart
that the decks have finally been cleared for the long-pending Rs 5,124 crore
project to manufacture over six lakh AK-203 Kalashnikov rifles at Korwa
ordnance factory in UP’s Amethi, even as the $1.5 billion deal for India to
acquire VSHORADS from Russia is also now in the “final stages”, said sources.
The shoulder-fired Russian anti-aircraft missile system IGLA-S, which was
selected over French and Swedish systems in the fray, is designed for use
against visible enemy targets like aircraft, helicopters and drones.