The new outreach from a traditionally inward-focused DRDO is rooted in a realistic assessment that the international sanctions regimes have loosened; global arms majors are eager to provide technologies that can fill in gaps in the DRDO's own technology bank.
The long wait for the global arms industry is drawing to a close. Top sources in the Ministry of Defence have confirmed to Business Standard that a revamped policy for defence procurement and production is almost finalised.
In its 29th report, which was tabled in Parliament earlier this week, Parliament's Standing Committee on Defence writes that it is 'startled' to be told that the tank had performed poorly in winter trials, and that it was miles away from meeting the army's requirements.
With the MoD loosening its hold over its shipyards, Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers buzzes with a capitalist energy never seen before in the 124-year history of that shipyard.
A single armed sentry post and a strand of barbed wire atop the boundary walls are all that hint at an ultra high-security installation -- the Directorate General of Naval Design -- that has fathered battleships like the INS Mumbai, which turned heads across the globe when it sailed into war-torn Beirut in 2006 to evacuate hundreds of Indians stranded by Israel's attack on Lebanon.
Amongst the most aggressive of India's hopeful new Lockheed Martins is the Rs 1,30,000-crore Tata Group, which has launched a carefully crafted bid to become a major player in India's defence industry.
In 2001, George Fernandes was in the cross hairs of the Comptroller and Auditor General over the purchase of allegedly overpriced coffins for soldiers killed in battle. Seven years later, the CAG has zeroed in on Fernandes' pet project -- a new ordnance factory in his parliamentary constituency, Nalanda, to manufacture 155 mm ammunition for Bofors guns -- slamming it as a poorly planned project that was rushed through urgently.
The DRDO says the programme has now reached maturity, and that international sanctions cannot hurt it. There is also a degree of self-confidence in the DRDO, which allows it to acknowledge the role played by other countries. International collaboration is no longer a bad word.
The problem is not just India's. China, too, must deal with a commercially resurgent Russia. Beijing had signed, in 2005, a $1-billion order for 34 giant IL-78 transport planes and 4 IL-78 refuelling aircraft. Now Russia has realised that it cannot meet its own as well as Beijing's requirements. That contract is being renegotiated at a higher price.
India's Defence R&D Organisation has announced that it would conduct a full-scale test of a two-stage anti-ballistic missile system by June 2008.
Today, largely because of constant redesigning, India takes almost ten years to build a warship and introduce it into the fleet.
The Ministry of Defence has added another important change to the series of internal decisions on the Defence Offset Policy: foreign vendors can offer transfer of technology as a way to fulfil its offsets liabilities in a deal.
Now, in the case of subsidised R&D, private companies hope that MoD audit requirements will make it mandatory to test the products that they develop.
As dawn broke on the Pokhran field firing ranges late last year, three of India's latest T-90 tanks readied themselves on the firing line.
Symbolism was evident at the Aero India 2007 air show that concluded in Bangalore on Sunday.
If confirmation was required that the Indo-US nuclear deal has opened doors for business between the two countries, it is here.
Air traffic controllers are skilled at the tense and complex jugglery of separating fast-flying aircraft from one another by keeping them at different altitudes and areas. But it takes time and causes delays.
When Wing Commander Rajiv Kothiyal resigned in 2002 as one of the most qualified test pilots in the Indian Air Force and quickly found a flying job in a start-up airline, Deccan Airways, he felt he had won a jackpot.
Inefficient diversions of civil flights at Hyderabad are caused because the airport is bordered by a vast swathe of restricted airspace belonging to the Indian Air Force flying academies of Hakimpeth and Bidar.
The relationship between civil aviation and the military is so close that it often goes unnoticed.
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