The aircraft would be procured somewhere around the end of this decade and no specific deadline is set for it.
The defence ministry is shooting to achieve an annual export target of $5 billion by 2025.
Meanwhile, Congress president Rahul Gandhi took a swipe at the Modi government and Anil Ambani over the Rafale issue, saying that in order to bag India's biggest defence contracts one has to be a "defaulter of Rs 45,000 crore" and have "no relevant experience".
The contracts with Israel Aerospace Industries will condemn the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft to a marginal presence in the IAF's future fleet.
The transmogrification of Prime Minister Modi to Saint Modi began with the ground-breaking ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. By identifying himself with Lord Ram, Modi raised himself in popular imagination to a saintly person.
The disengagement process between India and China in eastern Ladakh is in final stages and on the brink of completion, top officials of the country's defence establishment on Thursday told a parliamentary panel during a meeting, which sources said turned 'stormy' amid several questions asked by opposition members including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Top HAL sources say the AMCA, which is being developed as the IAF's next-generation stealth fighter, is slated to be assembled at HAL Nashik.
'The US will not want to tangle with China landwards.' 'Nor will the US confront the Chinese navy seawards on India's account.'
The Chinese air force is now a 400,000-person force that flies some 2,000 combat aircraft -- more than thrice the size of the Indian Air Force.
The constitution of both countries begins with the "three words -- We the People -- as President Biden just mentioned", said Modi, who is on his first state visit to the US.
An ill-informed public narrative centres on expensive weapons platforms instead of the little things that would improve capability.
HAL is poised to sell the Philippines at least seven Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters and eight Dornier 228 aircraft for Rs 30 billion, reports Ajai Shukla.
Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt said the major defence equipment that were imported included helicopters, aircraft radars, rockets, guns, assault rifles, missiles and ammunition.
Starting Tuesday, the four-day Aero India 2017 event will kick off which will feature several state-of-the-art aircraft. Here's a tiny preview of what's to come.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has asked the Indian Air Force to focus on safety and conservation of available resources as he interacted with top commanders in New Delhi just days after India decided to buy 36 Rafale jets.
The armed forces will completely ban the import of clothing, required to sustain its soldiers at extreme temperatures across the country, if the Indian textile industry is able to innovate and manufacture them, said Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat.
The world needs to wake up to this new dimension of war at sea and be prepared to face the 'unknown enemy' who have the advantage of attacking at their choice of location and time, cautions Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
A fighter aircraft's lethality in air-to-air combat is governed by the air-to-air missile that it carries. Since the Independence, the Indian Air Force has mounted French, Russian and British missiles on its fighters. On Sunday, an IAF Sukhoi-30MKI fighter conducted the first test launch of the indigenous Astra air-to-air missile, which the Defence R&D Organisation is developing at its missile cluster in Hyderabad.
It is baffling how the PM chose the LCH as an indigenous product to celebrate on Rashtriya Raksha Samarpan Parv, even while his Cabinet holds up manufacturing clearance for 15 LCHs on the grounds that they are not Indian enough.
HAL's HTT-40 aircraft have outperformed both Swiss Pilatus planes and the IAF's performance criteria. Why then does the IAF prefer the Pilatus to the HTT-40?
With no payments coming in, HAL for the first time ever taken a bank loan of Rs 7.81 billion.
What the new defence minister does with the Rafale fighter jet deal will decide if India wants to build genuine, long-term defence capability through an indigenous product that slashes life-cycle costs, or opt for glitzy signing ceremony with foreign vendors that would please the public, says Ajai Shukla.
'IAF is expanding at a rapid pace'
From 2018-19 onwards, 16 'Standard of Preparation-18' Tejas fighters, which involves four major upgrades, will roll off the line each year.
'The most ambitious part of the BAE-HAL agreement involves building an advanced version of the Hawk, which could be used as a light, manoeuvrable, fighter that could operate in the narrow valleys of India's Himalayan frontier, where high-performance fighters cannot turn,' reports Ajai Shukla.
The parade began after President Ram Nath Kovind conferred the Ashoka Chakra -- India's highest peacetime gallantry award -- to Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, a militant-turned-soldier who laid down his life fighting a group of terrorists in Shopian in Kashmir in November.
In the light of India's increasingly 'darkening' threat environment and the convergence of strategic interests between China and Pakistan, the IAF's declining combat capabilities are a cause for concern, says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'My adrenalin kicked in and the happiness returned! It was time to go in for the kill again.' IAF Veterans Group Captain Dilip Kumar Dass tells Air Commodore Nitin Sathe about how the IAF decimated tanks in the famous Battle of Longewala.
'The Indian Navy has sufficient combat power in areas of interest to India that can quickly scale up operations if the need arises.' 'This includes all the choke points leading into the Indian Ocean as also areas within.'
The defence ministry on Wednesday announced a fresh list of 351 sub-systems and components that will not be allowed to be imported under a staggered timeline beginning December next year.
There is considerable discomfort within the defence ministry about the Rafale deal.
The Akash missile systems have over 96 percent indigenous components and the weapon can hit targets at a range of 25 km.
The Light Combat Helicopter will enable the army to provide fire support to soldiers at altitudes of 15,000 to 20,000 feet, where the oxygen-depleted air prevents them from carrying weaponry heavier than their personal rifles and light machine guns.
The IAF is down to 34 squadrons. This will dip to 30 squadrons by the end of this decade, as nine squadrons of MiG-21 and MiG-27s retire.
Though this time India's first astronaut remained earth bound, P Rajendran/Rediff.com finds out more about his journey off the beaten track along America's East Coast.
Currently women are allowed in a number of select areas including in medical, legal, educational, signals and engineering wings of the army.
The Bengaluru skies dazzled with somersaults and stunts by metal birds.
Defence Minister A K Antony is flying down to Bangalore to award the Tejas its initial operational certificate on Friday. The Sitara's success in intensive flight-testing this year means that he could soon be making another trip to award an identical certification to the Sitara.
The defence ministry took the decision to hold the biennial event as scheduled following inputs from major stakeholders including the domestic defence industry and global aerospace majors, official sources said.
'Make in India is one of the priorities identified by Minister Sitharaman and this is our great weakness,' warns Vice Admiral Premvir Das.
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