Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Abu Dhabi on July 15.
Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd's Chennai-Singapore submarine cable project might encounter a speed-breaker, making it difficult to meet the 2004-end deadline.
Admiral Arun Prakash, who was the chief of naval staff from 2004 to 2006 and is today a leading strategic expert, feels that one should patiently wait for the Navy to finish the inquiry into the explosion and fire aboard the INSSindhurakshak before jumping to any conclusion. "For the media to speculate on unsubstantiated rumours is not correct," he tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel on the telephone from Goa, where he has been living post-retirement.
It is the first mega exercise involving the two aircraft carriers after induction of the indigenously-built INS Vikrant in September.
India has expressed concern about the movement of the Xiang Yang Hong 03 vessel in Indian Ocean waters and also prevailed on Sri Lanka to refuse permission for the ship to dock at Colombo port.
The contracts for the procurement of the platforms and weapons systems were signed in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and defence secretary Giridhar Aramane, under whose guidance these deals fructified, an official readout said.
The coming together of the Quad and the Australia-UK-US grouping would be a formidable adversary, moving toward the creation of a 'thousand ship navy' that reins in the PLA navy in the Indo-Pacific.
Efforts were on to develop systems which could be used to launch the BrahMos cruise missiles from submarines and air platforms, a top official said on Wedsnesday.
The warship is packed with a plethora of sophisticated sensors, modern radar and weapons systems such as surface-to-surface missiles and surface-to-air missiles, according to the Indian Navy.
Tata group company VSNL has signed an MoU with leading global telecom firms to construct a new submarine cable linking India, the Middle East and Western Europe.
India is procuring the long-endurance 'hunter-killer' drones to crank up the surveillance apparatus of the armed forces, especially along the Line of Actual Control with China.
The permission to allow the Chinese ship comes amid strains in ties between India and Maldives after its new President Mohamed Muizzu came to power and made Beijing as his first port of call early this month after assuming office.
Terming the proposed induction of two nuclear submarines into the Indian Navy as a "cause of great concern", Pakistan has said it is taking "necessary measures" to restore the strategic balance in the emerging situation.
India is almost ready with its undersea launch version of the supersonic BrahMos cruise missile and wants the navy to help in preliminary test trials by the end of the year.
The Agency said it has delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale on Thursday.
MTNL and BSNL have joined hands to lay a submarine cable system to connect India to South-East Asia and the West Asia, to provide international bandwidth for their own as well as other commercial requirements.
During an interaction at a conclave in New Delhi, he also said that the Indian Navy is seized of the docking of various PLA Navy ships at ports in Pakistan, and it is 'keeping a watch on it'.
A robotic mini-submarine deployed to unprecedented depths has searched approximately 50 per cent of the focused underwater area of the Indian Ocean floor, as it ended its seventh mission on Sunday with still no sign of wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.
The defence budget was on Thursday increased to Rs 6.21 lakh crore for 2024-25 in a modest hike of 4.72 per cent from last year's allocation of Rs 5.25 lakh crore amid India's continuing border row with China in eastern Ladakh as well as concerns over evolving security situation in the strategic waterways.
Neither the BJP, nor the Congress before it, made any manifesto commitments on defence spending, even though allocations have plummeted from 4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the late 1980s to less than 2 per cent today, points out Ajai Shukla.
The missile firing demonstrated the Indian Navy's firepower at sea, they said.
According to the MND, 15 of the 26 People's Liberation Army aircraft were observed in Taiwan's Air Defence Identification Zone.
A Qatari court has accepted the appeal document on the sentencing of eight former Indian naval personnel to death, sources familiar with the matter said.
A mini-submarine deployed to find the crashed Malaysian jet has touched record depths in the Indian Ocean beyond its operating limits and embarked on a fifth mission on Friday, with still no sign of the plane's wreckage.
Suleman Dawood, 19, was on board the vessel with Shahzada Dawood as a Father's Day bonding trip when their small submarine is believed to have imploded, killing all five on board, including British billionaire-explorer Hamish Hamilton.
In a post on X, the prime minister also urged the people to make contributions to the Armed Forces Flag Day fund.
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).
'An expanding army, rising salaries due to the 7th pay commission, and raised pensions due to OROP are consuming money at the cost of badly needed bulletproof jackets, rifles, artillery, submarines, warships and fighter aircraft,' notes Ajai Shukla.
At a recent Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) meeting, chaired by Defence Minister A K Antony, the urgency in having the second production line was discussed with all seriousness and the nod for the project, codenamed Project 75I, was given, a senior Defence Ministry source said in New Delhi.
According to the PIL, the Government finalised the Rs 16,000 crore deal with French company, Thales, in October 2005. The petition alleged that there were middlemen involved in the deal which was against government's policy. It also alleged that four per cent kickbacks were paid in the deal and the government was trying to protect the middlemen who were influential people. The PIL referred to e-mail and telephonic conversations allegedly between Thales officials & officials.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese became the first foreign leader to visit the pride of the Indian Navy, the INS Vikrant, India's first indigenously built aircraft carrier.
The sixth Scorpene class submarine, constructed by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited for the Indian Navy, was launched in Mumbai.
The missile, Babur-3, was fired from an underwater, mobile platform and hit its target with precise accuracy,
India also went on an overdrive in expanding its military engagement with like-minded countries in its neighbourhood and beyond in the face of China's relentless attempts to become a regional hegemon and establish its primacy in South Asia.
The new Samvat 2080 is viewed as a year of hope for industrial and precious metals. A key reason is the expectation of US interest rates peaking, followed by a reduction in the coming months. Regarding crude oil, its trajectory depends more on how the situation unfolds in West Asia.
'Three decades of intensive discussions, protocols and Confidence Building Measures were jettisoned one fine morning in 2020.' 'The primary lesson that has been learnt is that that there is no reliability about the Chinese.'
The biennial Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise (TROPEX) is aimed at 'validating and refining' the Navy's concept of 'operations' as well as to test overall combat capabilities, officials said on Tuesday.
In a boost to the Aatmanirbhar Bharat campaign, the Indian Navy on Sunday successfully test-fired the ship-launched version of the BrahMos supersonic missile in the Arabian Sea.
TROPEX-23 this year witnessed the participation of approximately 70 Indian Navy ships, six submarines and over 75 aircraft.
In an interview with France24, Wickremesinghe said, "We are a neutral country, but we also emphasise the fact that we cannot allow Sri Lanka to be used as a base for any threats against India."
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