Inclement weather conditions on Saturday prevented rescue teams from reaching the wreckage of a Kamov-28 helicopter of the Navy, which had crashed near Belgaum in Karnataka on Friday.\n
The copter took off from the Goa base at 1150 IST and soon after it lost communication links with the tow
As Navy chief, Admiral Singh's immediate priority will be to expedite the long-delayed modernisation of the Indian Navy, including by inducting new warships, submarines and aircraft.
This will be the first instance since Independence that two of the three service chiefs will be the government's chosen men.
An S-400 unit located near Delhi for protecting the capital would be able to shoot down Pakistani aircraft even before they cross the border to India, and Chinese aircraft while they were still in Tibetan or Nepalese air space.
There is concern about the poor state of readiness of the navy's 140 warships which face severe shortages in sonar equipment, helicopters and torpedoes.
But private Indian defence firms prefer to do business with the West. Indian CEOs say they encounter difficulties in obtaining full and timely payment from Russian partners.
The S-400 Triumf long-range air defence missile system has the capability to destroy incoming hostile aircraft, missiles and even drones at ranges of up to 400 km.
Admiral Puri says it would be wasteful to buy a foreign helicopter, pay for transfer of technology, and develop manufacturing capability in an Indian private sector strategic partner when all this already exists with HAL.
'The defence minister needs to focus on human resources-related issues at the same pace in 2017 as he did on acquisitions in 2016,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
India will launch its first indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant on Monday, making an entry into a select club of countries capable of designing and building a carrier of this size and capability.
'With Pakistan's 'first use doctrine' threatening the use of nuclear weapons early in a war with India, the S-400 will shield vulnerable targets like Delhi and Mumbai, complicating Pakistan's targeting calculations.'
The defence ministry on Friday scrapped a scam-tainted tender worth over Rs 6,000 crore to procure 197 light helicopters from foreign vendors and decided to allow indigenous players to manufacture these choppers for the armed forces.
Dhruv and LUH helicopters must supply provisions to, and evacuate casualties from Siachen Glacier posts like Sonam, which, at 20,997 feet, is the highest inhabited spot on the planet.
The capital outlay for the three services, for modernisation, stood at Rs 78,586.68 crore
If India signs the deal, it would be the second customer of the prized missile system after China which had struck a $3 billion contract last year.
"When you tell one lie, you need to keep spinning out more lies, to cover up the first one. In her eagerness to defend the PM's Rafale lie, the RM lied to Parliament," Gandhi tweeted.
Still, there remains a worrying shortfall of frigates, which are the navy's workhorses. 'We need to have at least 24 frigates,' says a senior admiral. 'Currently we are 10 short.'
The light utility helicopter will replace the military's obsolescent fleet of Chetak and Cheetah helicopters that have flown for over three decades.
Big ticket defence deals including purchase of missile systems, frigates and joint production of helicopters were sealed on Saturday.
'It was deliberate,' the Russians allege.
India and Russia on Thursday decided to expand cooperation in various sectors as they signed 16 pacts, including on joint manufacture of 226 military helicopters.
Mikheev said Russia and India are holding talks with a view to sign a contract for 48 (Mi-17V-5) helicopters.
Once in each President's term in office, he or she carries out a "naval fleet review", a deliberately public assembly of the entire fleet.
'An ASW corvette without towed array sonar and an ASW helicopter is nothing more than a feeble joke,' says a retired navy commodore.
India on Tuesday barred scam-tainted Italian defence firm Finmeccannica from participating in future tenders while deciding to carry out ongoing contracts with the group and its subsidiary AgustaWestland, more than a month after putting all deals on hold.
With the expected launch of The People's Liberation Army (Navy)'s second aircraft carrier on April 23, China will match India in carrier numbers.
The Indian Navy's flagship carrier, the INS Viraat will be decommissioned on March 6 after serving the nation for 30 glorious years.
The $10.5 billion arms and equipment deal helped to arrest the recent drift in the 'special and privileged' strategic partnership, observes Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Russia is a strong and reliable friend of India and both countries have a "truly strategic" partnership, PM Modi on Thursday told President Vladimir Putin.
How will the Modi Sarkar's likely return affect other nations?
The success of Anil Ambani's ambitious defence plan will depend partly on whether he can persuade government officials and international partners that he can build sophisticated equipment and partly on whether the PM can get India's notoriously slow procurement process to work, say Paritosh Bansal, Sanjeev Miglani and Promit Mukherjee.
With the United States delivering an increasing share of India's arms imports, New Delhi must work with it to retain control of our regional waters
'What should worry India and which needs to be expressed is Russia's simultaneous proximity to both China and Pakistan from a strategic angle. That hasn't happened ever before,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
INS Vikramaditya is not the only thing on Defence Minister AK Anthony's agenda during his current visit to Moscow. Also on the anvil is the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft joint development project which, if finalised and signed, could emerge as India's largest joint defence programme costing around 11 billion dollars, reports Nandan Unnikrishnan.
'IAF is expanding at a rapid pace'
'The range of purchases throw a light on India's threat perception as also its perceived role of being a stabilising influence in the region,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
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