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Army suffers as govt delays big gun buy



BANGALORE: The Indian Army’s urgent request for the 155-millimetre towed guns could take some more time to be fulfilled, with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) issuing a fresh tender for the procurement of the same.

The current Request for Information (RFI), issued on July 23, is the latest bid by the government to buy almost 1,600 guns for the country’s military, effectively canceling the earlier tender.

The previous tender, which was for 1580 units, called for 400 units to be purchased off the shelf and the rest 1180, to be license-produced in India by the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) after transfer of technology

BAe Systems, Europe’s largest defence contractor, and one of the front-runners to land the lucrative contract has not confirmed its participation in the new tender.

“BAe Systems are looking at the documents, but have not yet decided how to proceed,” BAe spokesman Guy Douglas told the ET over the phone.

The Army has, time and again, underlined its pressing need for the guns, and has pointed to the acquisition as a vital cog in the ongoing modernisation of its dwindling and largely obsolete artillery systems.

Industry analysts say that the scrapping of the last tender could lead to a delay of 3 to 5 years in procuring the guns. “Since the Kargil War, several guns have landed up on the obsolescence list. The 155-millimeter howitzer was expected to replace guns of lesser calibre. What this amounts to, is that a number of them will remain in service, wellbeyond their shelf life,” Brig. Gurmeet Kanwal, director of the New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Land Warfare Studies. The MoD’s primary reason for canceling the tender was the fact that several contenders were blacklisted resulting in the presence of only one vendor in the race, an unacceptable situation for such a process.

In June, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had recommended the blacklisting of six defence contractors, including Singapore Technologies Kinetics, which had entered its FH-2000 towed howitzer in the tender.

The defence vendor was allowed to participate in the field trials, despite coming under a cloud, but was unable to test its gun, the FH-2000, after citing fears of damage during transit.

Over the last 25 years, the entire process of procuring the guns has been marked with a distinct sense of scandal. Furthermore, the decision not to award the contract to BAe, the maker of the politically sensitive Bofors gun has been criticised.

“The Bofors ghost has to be wiped out. Every successive government, since then, has been apprehensive, fueled by the thought of being tainted,” Deba Mohanty, senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, said.

The Bofors scandal of the 1980s led to the downfall of the ruling Congress Party, after then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and several associates were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning the bid to supply the country’s military with 155-millimetre howitzers. Separately, the disconnect between the main players - the armed forces, MoD and the political executive has played a major role in creating procedural problems.

“The Army has been impacted in an extremely negative way. An integral part of the modernisation process has been stalled . Landbased armament modernisation forms a major part of the process, and that is exactly what has been hit,” Mohanty pointed out.

The MoD-sanctioned artillery modernisation plan is an ambitious strategy to equip the country’s military with the latest land-based armaments, with the government looking to spend about 18,500 crores across multiple tenders.




Army suffers as govt delays big gun buy - Politics/Nation - News - The Economic Times
 
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BEL to Build PNVDs Through ToT

India Defence Online, New Delhi– The Indian Defence Minister A K Antony announced in parliament on August 18th that Bharat Electronics Limited issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) in December 2006 to Vendors, for the procurement of 30,634 Image Intensifier based Passive Night Vision Devices (PNVD) with Transfer of Technology (ToT).

After completion of technical evaluation of the bids received from various Vendors, the sample PNVDs of technically qualified Vendors have been field evaluated by Users (Indian Army). The evaluation of sample Image Intensifier Tubes has been completed by the Directorate General Quality Assurance (DGQA), Ministry of Defence. The procurement of Image Intensifier Tubes has been discussed in the Ministry and a decision has been made to continue with the procurement of Image Intensifier Tubes.

The ToT agreement against this requirement in the event of acceptance of offered PNVDs/I.I. Tubes will enable the manufacture and supply of PNVDs with Higher specification Image Intensifier Tubes.
 
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Pakistani, Indian troops battle on Kashmir border



Pakistani and Indian troops fired mortars at one another on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir early Thursday in one of the biggest breaches of their seven-year ceasefire but no one was injured. By dawn, the border was calm again.

Officials accused the Pakistan Army of firing heavy machine guns and volleys of mortars at three Indian posts in Poonch district in the Jammu region, forcing the Indians to retaliate.

The firing took place at Kranti, Ghoda and Kirpan posts in Mendhar area in Poonch, 230 km from Jammu, the winter capital of the state.

'The firing started around 12.30 a.m. and lasted for more than three hours,' an army source told IANS. 'The Indian side retaliated,' the source added.

Officials said no one was injured on the Indian state despite the intensity of the gun battles and mortar firing.

The Indian Army is expected to take up the matter with its Pakistani counterparts.

Although there have been recurring instances of ceasefire violations, always blamed by India on the Pakistanis, the Thursday battle was intense because of the use of mortars.

Indian sources say there is a clear attempt by Pakistan to raise the temperatures on the LoC, which divides disputed Jammu and Kashmir between the two countries, at time of massive street protests and civilian deaths in the Kashmir Valley.

The military wants the army headquarters in New Delhi to take up the matter at the highest level with Pakistan.

The ceasefire on LoC came into force in November 2003 when the Indian and Pakistani armies agreed to put an end to daily exchanges of fire on both the LoC and the international border.

The ceasefire has mostly held, giving much needed respite to both the armies.

India and Pakistan have fought three major wars, mostly over Jammu and Kashmir. While Islamabad holds the northern third of the Himalayan state, New Delhi controls the southern two-third.



Pakistani, Indian troops battle on Kashmir border
 
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Pakistani, Indian troops battle on Kashmir border



Pakistani and Indian troops fired mortars at one another on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir early Thursday in one of the biggest breaches of their seven-year ceasefire but no one was injured. By dawn, the border was calm again.

Officials accused the Pakistan Army of firing heavy machine guns and volleys of mortars at three Indian posts in Poonch district in the Jammu region, forcing the Indians to retaliate.

The firing took place at Kranti, Ghoda and Kirpan posts in Mendhar area in Poonch, 230 km from Jammu, the winter capital of the state.

'The firing started around 12.30 a.m. and lasted for more than three hours,' an army source told IANS. 'The Indian side retaliated,' the source added.

Officials said no one was injured on the Indian state despite the intensity of the gun battles and mortar firing.

The Indian Army is expected to take up the matter with its Pakistani counterparts.

Although there have been recurring instances of ceasefire violations, always blamed by India on the Pakistanis, the Thursday battle was intense because of the use of mortars.

Indian sources say there is a clear attempt by Pakistan to raise the temperatures on the LoC, which divides disputed Jammu and Kashmir between the two countries, at time of massive street protests and civilian deaths in the Kashmir Valley.

The military wants the army headquarters in New Delhi to take up the matter at the highest level with Pakistan.

The ceasefire on LoC came into force in November 2003 when the Indian and Pakistani armies agreed to put an end to daily exchanges of fire on both the LoC and the international border.

The ceasefire has mostly held, giving much needed respite to both the armies.

India and Pakistan have fought three major wars, mostly over Jammu and Kashmir. While Islamabad holds the northern third of the Himalayan state, New Delhi controls the southern two-third.



Pakistani, Indian troops battle on Kashmir border
Now who wants peblicite in Kashmir????......
I am saying these are a part of a plan!!....
 
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Indian Army officer's bail plea in terror blast case lashed out

The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to Maharashtra government on Malegaon blast accused Lt Col Prasad Srikant Purohit’s petition seeking interim bail and challenging his prosecution under stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

The accused, a serving Lt Colonel, was arrested by the Ant-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra police for his alleged role in the 2008 Malegaon blasts that claimed six lives.

The army officer, who was in the military intelligence, was arrested by the ATS in November 2008 on suspicion of masterminding the Malegaon terror blast along with other accused Sadhvi Prayag Thakur and four others.

ATS had also arrested retired Army officer Major Ramesh Upadhyay, who along with Thakur, was said to be a member of right wing Hindu group Abhinav Bharat.

Purohit, in his petition, had sought interim bail on the ground that he was languishing in jail for the past 18 months and it would take considerable time for the trial to conclude.

He challenged the judgement of the Bombay High Court, which had recently upheld the government’s decision to invoke the MCOCA against him.

According to Purohit, the High Court had erred in upholding the provision against him even though a special MCOCA court had earlier quashed the charges under the Special Act while upholding the charges framed under various provisions of IPC.

Purhoit’s petition claimed that to invoke MCOCA there has to be substantial information about his antecedents. As there was no previous criminal case against him, MCOCA cannot be invoked, he contended.

-via Hindustan Times.
 
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International industry unites, calls on India to reform offset policies

Defence industry associations across North America and Europe will send a jointly signed letter to the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) early next month outlining proposals to overcome what they view as excessive bureaucracy that is stifling defence trade.

The letter will focus on defence companies' frustrations with existing offset policies and make a number of recommendations that industry bodies hope the MoD will include in a revision of the offset policy planned for next year.

Cosignatories of the letter include the Aerospace Industries Association in the United States; the Washington, DC-based US-India Business Council; the UK's ADS (AeroSpace Defense Security); the German Aerospace Industries Association (BDLI); France's Groupement des Industries Françaises Aéronautiques et Spatiales; and the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada.

Confirming the development to Jane's on 19 August, Brinley Salzmann, the director of overseas and exports at ADS, said the letter is a result of international defence industries' desire for a "workable offset policy in India that makes commercial sense for the overseas obligors and also generates value and benefits for Indian industry."

Salzmann said a particular focus of the letter is a request to the MoD that it establish a dedicated body that has authority to make key decisions on how vendors fulfil offset obligations.

Salzmann added that such an agency would address the high level of bureaucracy that has been identified by international defence industries as one of the biggest challenges in doing business in India.

He did not reveal full details of the letter's content, but said: "It will be along the lines of the need for a simplification of the system to try to generate an entity that has the authority to make decisions."

Sounds good to me..... ;)
 
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Captain, caught selling army's diesel, grilled by CBI




An Indian Army officer, allegedly caught selling diesel from the army's stocks in Himachal Pradesh, was interrogated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) here Monday, a CBI official said here.

'Captain Vikalp Purohit appeared in the office of the CBI in the evening. We questioned him for some time and asked him to again appear in the office tomorrow (Tuesday),' CBI Superintendent of Police R. Upasak told IANS.

Purohit was summoned Sunday but he didn't turn up.

Purohit of the General Reserve Engineering Force, a wing of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), was posted at Koksar in Lahaul and Spiti district and caught Friday by a team of CBI sleuths who posed as decoy customers.

The diesel was meant for the BRO's Project Deepak, which maintains a 222-km stretch between Manali and Sarchu, part of the 475-km Manali-Leh National Highway-21.

Upasak said the accused was trapped by two decoy customers, who projected themselves as contractors of the public works department. They entered into negotiations with the accused regarding bulk purchase of fuel. They also bargained the price and later caught him.

The CBI team was on lookout for army officials who were allegedly selling diesel meant for the forces in the open market.

Another CBI official investigating the case said all records of diesel supplies and consumption by the BRO have been sought for verification.

'Only after going through inventory records, we will be able to comment on how large the racket is or involvement of any other official,' he added.

A. Chattopadhya, joint director (Personnel), Project Deepak, told IANS: 'We have informed the higher authorities about the incident.'

However, the CBI has so far not registered any case against Captain Purohit.






Captain, caught selling army's diesel, grilled by CBI
 
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Hundreds of young men line up for army recruitment in Tripura




Hundreds of aspirants turned up at a recruitment camp organised by the Assam Rifles here on Monday.

The Indian Army held the recruitment camp to create awareness among the youngsters and choose able-bodied candidates whose representation in the armed forces is very few.

The youngsters were quite enthusiastic about enrolment in the army and many among them had come from other neighbouring states too.

"I have come here to join the Indian Army, and I want to do something for the country and my family," said Adhir Khera.

The Indian Army has given relaxation to the candidates in terms of height and has set up a special pre-recruitment training for the tribal youths. (ANI)




Hundreds of young men line up for army recruitment in Tripura
 
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Tarmak007 -- An Indian Defence Blog With A Difference: Kapil paaji da jawab nahin!

kapil_dev.jpg


Honorary Lt Col Kapil Dev of the Territorial Army, will participate by being the Chief Guest here in Delhi tomorrow in the Indian Army--Territorial Army's plantation drive to create an awareness among the general public about environment. Around a 2500 trees/plants will be planted in the Delhi-based 132 Ecological TA--Rajput Regiment, also organised by the same battalion, and funded by the Delhi Government. Its a drive to plant trees throughout India. NGOs along with NCC cadets are expected to participate, and there are CRPF volunteers also.
 
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Modernisation of T-72 Tanks Vis-a-Vis Arjun Tanks
The Army follows a philosophy of having a mix of legacy equipment, equipment with matured technology and state-of-the-art equipment. T-72 tank is not an antiquated equipment. Therefore, the Army intends to retrofit/upgrade these tanks to enhance their mission reliability and life expectancy.

Orders for 124 Main Battle Tank (MBT) Arjun have already been placed on the Heavy Vehicles Factory, Avadi. As on date, 85 MBT Arjun Tanks have been issued to the Army. Keeping in view the production capacity for MBT Arjun Tanks and strategic considerations, the Government is also exercising the option for modernising T-72 tanks instead of total replacement of these tanks on completion of their life span.

This information was given by Defence Minister Shri AK Antony in written reply to Shri MV Mysura Reddy in Rajya Sabha today.

Press Information Bureau English Releases
 
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Opening of New Campus by DFRL
The Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) has decided to open a new campus at Hebbal which is about 18 km away from its main campus located at Sriddartha Nagar, Mysore. A sum of Rs. 17 crore has been allocated towards development of new campus.

DFRL has developed energy capsules for Defence Forces at the request of 102 Infantry Brigade, 14 Corps. This honey based capsule has natural medicinal properties, 12 months shelf life, it provides 108 Kcal per 30 gm, and it is ready to eat.

This information was given by Defence Minister Shri AK Antony in written reply to Shri P Rajeeve in Rajya Sabha today.

DM / RAJ
Press Information Bureau English Releases
 
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Indian Army chief on visit to Australia :: Brahmand.com

NEW DELHI (PTI): Army Chief General V K Singh is on a four-day visit to Australia seeking to boost defence cooperation between the two countries.

The Army Chief, who left on Monday, will hold talks with Australian Defence Secretary Ian Watt and its Chief of Defence Forces Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston.

The Indian Army Chief's visit to Canberra comes a month after Pakistani Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had visited for a security dialogue there.

He will also hold talks with his Australian counterpart Lt Gen Ken Gillespie.

Singh will also visit various training institutions, service headquarters and operational units.

India and Australia share common interests in spheres of maritime security, counter terrorism, disarmament, non-proliferation, peacekeeping and disaster management and are members of Commonwealth and various other international forum.
 
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Ex-RAW director granted bail in spying case

After remaining in jail for four years, a retired Director of Research and Analysis Wing RAW arrested for passing sensitive information to a CIA agent was today granted bail by a local court which also restrained him from leaving the country.

Additional Session Judge Inder Jeet Singh gave the reprieve to Brigadier (Retd) Ujjawal Dasgupta, who has been in jail since July 19, 2006, on a personal and surety bond of Rs 75,000 each.

Dasgupta, former Director (Computers), RAW, was arrested for allegedly violating the Official Secrets Act by passing on sensitive information to an American diplomat Rosanna Minchew who was allegedly acting as a spy.

Taking into consideration his advanced age of over 64 years and the fact that that other co-accused in the case were out on bail, the court granted relief to the former Brigadier who has been charged with offences punishable upto 14 years jail term. The court, however, warned him against contacting any witnesses of the case.

The other accused in the case Commodore (Retd) Mukesh Saini, who was working with the National Security Council Secretariat and a Senior System Analyst Shib Shankar Paul at the Secretariat, have already been released on bail. All of them were arrested in 2006 by the Delhi Police Special Cell on charges of passing secret information Minchew. Dasgupta was looking after the development of a ‘Anveshak’, a database management system. The court, in its “prima facie” observation, said Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory analysis of seized hard disk showed that that computer files related to Anveshak were last accessed in March 2005.

The American Diplomat was given visa in August, 2005 to coordinate Indo-US Cyber Security Forum. The Delhi High Court had on July two turned down a plea of a retired Director of RAW seeking direction to disclose information under the RTI Act about the software ‘Anveshak’ which was crucial to his defence in the espionage case filed against him.

-via IBN Live News.
 
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