General Indian Defence News

[kurup]

BSF spent over Rs.2,300 crore on upgrade from 2002-11


In its attempt to modernise and upgrade, the Border Security Force (BSF) conceived and executed a financial outlay of Rs.2,330.85 crore from 2002-11, an official said Thursday.

Due consideration was given while drawing up the plan to achieve an edge over the counterparts in neighbouring countries in terms of equipment and technology, said BSF Director General U.K. Bansal an annual conference here.

The conference came ahead of the BSF completing 47 years of service Dec 1, Bansal said.

He said that latest weapons, surveillance equipments – including recce and observation systems, watercrafts and information and technology equipment were procured between 2002-11 to enhance the BSF’s capability.

BSF spent over Rs.2,300 crore on upgrade from 2002-11 | idrw.org

 

[arp2041]

India's Civil Nuclear Energy Programme [2012] - AA Me, IN

 

[SpArK]

 

[kaykay]

www.thehindu.com/news/national/bel-...icle4185502.ece/?maneref=http://t.co/wBXSpLHW

A MoU signed between Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL)
and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has set the
stage for joint development and indigenous
production of a set of Long Range Surface-to-Air
Missiles (LR-SAMs) to defend Indian warships from
enemy attack. BEL will be the lead integrator of this set of missiles
and produce some of the major sub-systems, the
company announced on Monday. LR-SAMs, along with MR-SAMs (Medium Range
SAMs) for the IAF, is among the major pursuits of
the Defence Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO), which is said to be developing
some of them, also in a tie-up with IAI, at a cost of
over around Rs. 2,500 crore. It is based on Israel’s Barak missile system and will
give the country an advanced, seeker-based missile
capability. Indian missiles are ‘guided’ and the
country does not have the ‘seeker’ technology that
enables a missile to home in on the target. The LR-SAM would track and engage multiple
targets simultaneously over a 70-km range,
defence sources said. The project could span five to eight years. ‘Significant step’ President and CEO of the Tel Aviv-based IAI Joseph
Weiss described the move as “a significant step
forward in our joint work with India.” BEL was a
strategic partner and this would enhance the IAI’s
ability to provide high quality solutions and service
to the Indian defence services. BEL’s Director (Marketing) H.N. Ramakrishna, who
signed the MoU in Tel Aviv on December 5, was
quoted as saying: “We see the IAI as a strategic
partner with a wide range of potential joint
activities. This MoU demonstrates that BEL and the
IAI can work closely together on the most sophisticated and advanced programmes, for the
mutual benefit of both companies.” DRDO would
continue to guide the activity.Boaz Levy, Director
General of Air & Missile Defense Systems division of
the IAI, signed the memorandum in the presence of
Mr. Weiss and Eli Alfassi, Corporate VP, India Operations.

 

[arp2041]

Use Of Composites In India's Aircraft Programs - SARAS & LCA Tejas - AA Me, IN

 

[Ankit_Pujari]

makes some interesting points. Very long though. Interesting footnotes

National Security And 'Nuclear Deterrence' In The Indian Subcontinent - AA Me, IN

 

[kurup]

BrahMos chief to be conferred "Padma Bhushan"

Dr. A. Sivathanu Pillai, Distinguished Scientist & Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, BrahMos Aerospace.


NEW DELHI (BNS): Dr. A Sivathanu Pillai, Distinguished Scientist and Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, BrahMos Aerospace, will be conferred the "Padma Bhushan" for distinguished service of high order.

The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs on Friday announced the Padma awards, the country's highest civilian awards, conferred in three categories - Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri.

Under the leadership of Dr. Pillai, the Indian Russian Joint Venture Company BrahMos Aerospace, formed by the amalgamation of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia's Mashinostroyenia Company, has taken phenomenal steps since it was first established in 1998.

Today, the success of BrahMos JV between India and Russia has set the brightest example for the defence industry to build strong partnerships and work jointly towards realising the larger goal of producing sophisticated and highly advanced military systems.

The supersonic cruise missile BRAHMOS having a range of 290 km has been inducted by the Indian Army and Navy. The Indian Army is the only armed force in the world to have land-attack supersonic cruise missile capability.

BrahMos chief to be conferred "Padma Bhushan" - Brahmand.com

 

[Yeti]

India's defence markets become ever more lucrative as the country propels itself to superpower status. However, if India wishes to use offsets to create a strong indigenous defence industry, it needs to foster a transparent and streamlined regulatory environment.


paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a rising power in possession of a good fortune must be in search of a strong defence industry. In the case of India, the problem is becoming acute, with ample evidence that the long-term investments made in state run defence enterprises and previous (minor) attempts at procurement reform have not yielded a defence industrial base capable of producing technologically advanced defence systems in a timely fashion. These shortcomings have become ever more obvious as India seeks major defence platforms that are far beyond the scope of her defence industrial base.

Just as India's geo-strategic position is leading her to want more from the defence industrial base, international defence firms (and their home states) are increasingly seeking to access the lucrative Indian defence market. India accounted for 10 percent of global defence exports during 2007-11 and estimates for likely Indian defence procurement spending during the 12th plan period (2012-2017) range from a conservative US $80 billion to US $100 billion. In an otherwise austere global acquisition environment, this is a market opportunity not to be missed.

Indian Offset Routes
In many ways, defence offsets are the means to marry these two interests and India is keen to ensure that her activities as a recipient serve her development as a producer. Although India has been receiving de facto defence offsets since the 1960s in forms such as licensed production and technology transfers, it is only since the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) of 2005 that she has had an explicit offsets policy. India currently requires a 30 per cent offset on any deal over Rs. 300 million (around US $55 million). Large procurements carry larger offset obligations; the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft deal secured by Dassault in February 2012 involves a 50 per cent offset.

Reflecting her strategic interests, India only accepts defence-relevant, i.e., direct, offsets. Three offset routes are available:

i.Direct purchase of eligible products, components or services from Indian industries. Besides defence goods, since 2011 this category has included purchases from civilian aerospace, internal security and training providers;
ii.Foreign direct investment in Indian defence industries including co-development, joint ventures and co-production of defence products and components. A recent decision put a 1.5 multiplier on investments into small and medium enterprises. In August 2012 technology transfers to a local partner were added to the FDI list, with a potential ten percent offset multiplier available on them and;
iii.Foreign direct investment in government approved research and development projects (recently expanded beyond just defence R&D).
The initial DPP has been revised several times, latterly in response to industry pressures. For example, there has been an evolution in the Indian Governments approach to offsets banking (with three different policies since 2008) and now offsets can be banked for up to seven years.

Challenges to Foreign Investors
The offsets policy has nevertheless created headaches for foreign firms searching for suitable R&D investment opportunities, eligible Indian products with export potential and qualified domestic defence partners. The last requirement is particularly challenging as an Indian Offset Partner (IOP) has to be both approved by the government and have the absorptive capacity for significant defence offsets.

Despite the increasing clarity and direction of the DPP there is still much grumbling about it; increasingly focused more on the implementation of it than on the policy per se. A new audit covering the government's application of the offsets policy provides grist to the mill of critics at home and abroad. The purpose of the audit was to assess whether the terms of the DPP were being adhered to and whether the implementation of offsets contracts was being properly monitored. The conclusions do not make happy reading.

Overall the audit found that the monitoring of implementation of offset contracts was inadequate and had involved failing to recover penalties due for non-fulfilment of annual offset obligations. For foreign firms, two particular issues stand out.

First, according to the audit, of the sixteen offset contracts concluded between 2007 and 2011 five of them did not comply with the terms of the offset policy as set out in the relevant DPP. In particular, in these five contracts with international defence firms the Indian Ministry of Defence had accepted projects as direct offsets which did not provide any added value to IOPs; negating the whole point of the Indian offsets policy.

The audit also found that foreign firms were being permitted by the Ministry to provide foreign direct investment in kind (through provision of infrastructure or products) even after the issuance of a November 2010 guidance note which clarified that in kind foreign direct investments were not eligible as offsets. These implementation issues were judged by the audit to be '...largely due to varying interpretation of various authorities about the legitimacy or otherwise of the offsets being offered.'

Second, the audit also revealed that in some of these offsets contracts the firms accepted as IOPs by the Indian Government were not eligible to play this role due to the size of foreign holdings in the firm (which should not exceed 26 per cent according to the DPP). This raises the spectre that an IOP apparently approved by the government might lose that status and endanger the ability of a foreign firm to fulfil the offsets contract, leaving them vulnerable to a 20 per cent penalty.

For foreign firms operating in this evolving regulatory environment these inconsistencies in policy implementation further increase the risks and complexities of doing business in India. While the mantra to foreign firms has been to invest in India as a long-term relationship - not a short-term sales opportunity - the difficulties of implementing defence offsets remain a barrier to building such successful relationships.



RUSI - The Implementation of India's Defence Offset Policy

 

[kurup]

DRDO Scientists Named For India's Highest Civilian Awards

India has named its three key defence scientists for receiving their highest civilian awards this year.

President Pranab Mukherjee approved their names to receive the Padma awards as part of the 108 persons chosen for the honour.

Dr. Vijay Kumar Saraswat, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Director General, was chosen for the Padma Bhushan award, which is the second highest civilian award of the country.

Saraswat is also the Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister and Secretary to the Department of Defence Research and Development in the Ministry of Defence.

"It is DRDO that has got the award and it is recognition of DRDO's contribution towards nation-building,” said Dr. Saraswat as the first reaction to the news of three DRDO scientists getting honored with Padma awards this year.

Dr. Sivathanu Pillai, Indo-Russian Joint Venture BrahMos supersonic cruise missile Chief Executive Officer, too was named for Padma Bhushan by the President on the occasion. Pillai is also a Distinguished Scientists and Chief Controller of Research and Development in the DRDO.

The third defence scientists to be named for Padma Shri, the third highest civilian award, this year is Avinash Chander, Distinguished Scientist and Chief Control Research and Development (Missiles and Strategic Systems).

Chander headed the Indian project for Agni-V, the over 5,000-km range long range ballistic missile that is capable of hitting targets deep inside India's traditional adversaries on the western and the northern fronts.

President had approved the conferment of 108 Padma Awards this year, including four Padma Vibhushan, 24 Padma Bhushan and 80 Padma Shri Awards. Of all the awardees, 24 are women and the list also includes 11 persons in the category of foreigners, non-resident Indians, persons of Indian origin and posthumous awardees.

Padma Awards, the country’s highest civilian awards, are conferred in three categories, namely, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. The Awards are given in various disciplines and fields of activities, such as art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, and civil service.

'Padma Vibhushan' is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service; 'Padma Bhushan' for distinguished service of high order and 'Padma Shri' for distinguished service in any field.

The awards are announced on the occasion of Republic Day every year. The awards are conferred by the President of India at a function held at Rashtrapati Bhavan sometime around March-April.

DRDO Scientists Named For India's Highest Civilian Awards

 

[SpArK]

HAL working to set up aviation university in Bangalore.

 

[kurup]

HAL to open its Ozar airport at Nashik for civilian flights

Bangalore : State-run defence behemoth Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) will soon open its Ozar military aerodrome at Nashik in Maharashtra to civilian flights as an alternative to the congested Mumbai airport, a top official said Friday.

"As part of our foray into the civilian sector, we are developing the Ozar airport at Nashik, which is being used for flying only military aircraft," HAL chairman R.K. Tyagi told IANS at an aerospace event on the city's outskirts.

Regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has recently permitted HAL to operate its Ozar airport for both military and civil aircraft with additional facilities, including a passenger-cum-cargo terminal as an alternative to the Mumbai airport, which is getting congested.

With state-run (Air India) and private carriers using Ahmedabad airport in Gujarat as an alternative, HAL plans to leverage its proximity as Ozar is about 170 km from Mumbai while Ahmedabad is 560 km away.

"Operating flights from Ozar will be more economical than from Ahmedabad, as airlines will save a lot of money on costly aviation turbine fuel (ATF) and provide an alternative airstrip for long and short-haul flights," Tyagi said on the margins of Aero India, the five-day aerospace trade expo being held at the Indian Air Force (IAF) Yelahanka base, about 25 km from north Bangalore.

In this context, Tyagi said the company would explore similar opportunities to serve the growing civil aviation sector from its dedicated airfields across the country, including Bangalore, Koraput in Odisha and those under the state-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) across the country.

HAL is also open to reviving its airport in the city for short-haul flights and feeder service if the government allows.

"It is for the government to decide when we can re-open our city airport for civilian flights, as the policy of not having a similar airport within 150 km radius of the existing one (Bangalore international airport) is still valid," Tyagi said.

Though HAL airport was used for domestic and international civilian flights over the decades, the operations were shifted since May 2008 to the country's first greenfield airport at Devanahalli, about 40 km from the city, built under the public-private partnership by a consortium of overseas and domestic partners.

Since then, there has been a persistent demand from the passenger community to resume domestic flights from the HAL airport for feeder routes across the state and other cities/towns in the southern region.

The high-powered committee, set up by the government under the chairmanship of former finance secretary Vijay Kelkar, had drawn a blueprint for HAL to foray into the civilian sector as a major MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) player in the country and manufacturer of regional transport aircraft and aero engines for civilian aircraft.

For an early move advantage in the sunrise sector, set to emerge as the world's third largest civil aviation market, HAL plans to invest about Rs.7,500 crore in setting up MRO facilities across the country, manufacturing a 90-seater aircraft under a joint venture with private vendors and aero engines, whose demand is expected to be a whopping 250,000 by 2020.

Indian Defence News - HAL to open its Ozar airport at Nashik for civilian flights

 

[Ankit_Pujari]

HAL Looking For Partners To Develop And Build Unmanned Aerial Vehicles [UAV] - AA Me, IN

Co-Development And Co-Production Of Unmanned Aerial Systems [UAS] - Hindustan Aeronautics Limited [HAL]

 

[ejaz007]

India's Move To Expand Local Firms' Role in Defense Falters


NEW DELHI — Two Indian companies have declined to participate in a US $1 billion tender to supply quick reaction surface-to-air missiles (QRSAMs), dealing a setback to efforts to expand domestic involvement in big-ticket defense projects.

Defence Ministry sources said the domestic companies do not have the necessary technical know-how to team with overseas companies.

An executive with Indian company Punj Lloyd said the firm tried negotiations with overseas companies but found the project commercially unviable. The executive refused to give details.

Although it is the country’s primary defense electronics manufacturer, Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL) has no experience with QRSAM systems and did not enter the competition.

BEL officials declined to discuss the subject, but MoD sources said BEL had not filed papers for the tender.

The QRSAM tender was given in January to Russia’s Rosoboronexport, US company Raytheon, Israel’s Israel Aerospace Industries and Rafael, Tetraedr of Belarus, South Korea’s Doosan Group and LIG Nex1, France-based Thales and Eurosam, Diehl Defence of Germany and pan-European MBDA, in addition to BEL and Punj Lloyd.

Following a helicopter scandal involving Italy’s AgustaWestland this year, the MoD decided to encourage participation by domestic companies in defense projects.

Last month, domestic companies for the first time were asked to participate along with foreign companies in a $1.6 billion air defense program involving integrated gun and missile systems for the Indian Army.

The domestic companies that were invited had never developed such a system, and only by teaming with major overseas defense contractors would these companies be able to meet the Army requirements.

Bidding for QRSAM

The MoD in January floated the tender for the purchase 54 QRSAM systems along with 1,485 missiles on a “buy global” basis.

The QRSAM systems will be used by the Army and will include combat vehicles, transport loading systems, missile-guiding radars, surveillance radars and repair vehicles. The successful vendor will have to transfer technology for the maintenance of the systems.

The Army requires that the QRSAM be able to attack targets at a range of up to 30 kilometers and a height of at least six kilometers.

Some analysts here said involvement by domestic defense companies in these kind of tenders will help build their capabilities, but others said India’s domestic defense industry is still in its infancy and needs time to mature before participating in big-ticket projects.

Asking domestic companies to participate in large projects will encourage collaboration with foreign companies, thus strengthening partnerships, said K.V. Kuber of Sugosha Consultancy Services, based here.

However, local analyst Nitin Mehta said, “The government will have to increase the limit of foreign direct investment [allowed by law] from the current level of 26 percent to around 50 percent to enable big-ticket overseas companies to tie up with domestic defense companies.”

India's Move To Expand Local Firms' Role in Defense Falters | Defense News | defensenews.com

 

[arp2041]

 

[kurup]

Army, IAF called in as floods, landslides ravage North India

ITBP personnel escort stranded Sikh devotees, as flood waters rush by, to a safe place from Hemkund Sahib in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand on Monday | pti

Heavy rains in northern Indian states have resulted in the swelling of rivers and flash floods in parts of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, leaving over 50 people dead and hundreds, including 57 from Chennai stranded, forcing the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force to get involved in relief work.

Flash floods in the Ganga and its tributaries triggered by incessant rains for over 48 hours left a trail of death and devastation across Uttarakhand killing 30 people, injuring 19 and damaging 164 buildings.

At least 15 people were killed in different incidents in Uttar Pradesh as flash floods lashed Saharanpur district following incessant rainfall in neighbouring Uttarakhand. IG (Law and order) R K Vishkarma said nearly 45 people were stranded due to the flash floods and were airlifted from Sarsava airbase to safer places by Air Force helicopters.

Over 700 people, including Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh who was campaigning in the area for the Mandi Lok Sabha by-poll slated for June 23, were stranded in the Sangla valley and Army assistan*ce was sought for rescue operations and airlifting them, State Chief Secretary S Roy said.

Cricketer Harbhajan Singh and his family were among those stranded by landslides and rains on their way to Hemkund Sahib in Uttarakhand.

Army, IAF called in as floods, landslides ravage North India - The New Indian Express