The navy's need for shallow water anti-submarine craft stems from the peculiar nature of the Arabian Sea bed, which is extremely shallow even tens of nautical miles from the coast.
Defence projects worth a whopping Rs 80,000 crore were on Saturday cleared by the government which decided that six submarines will be made indigenously and over 8,000 Israeli anti-tank guided missiles and 12 upgraded Dornier surveillance aircraft will be purchased.
India will get its first Akula class Russian nuclear submarine next year, equipping its navy with the quietest and lethal underwater war machine after a gap of 17 years, to enhance its water warfare capabilities.Factory trials of the multi-role nuclear submarine, christened INS Chakra, which India-will get on a 10-year-lease, commenced on June 11 at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur shipyard and will be followed by sea trials, Russian defence sources said.
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.
Government auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General has slammed the Navy, defence ministry and a state-run shipyard for the protracted delay in carrying out refit of submarine INS Sindhukirti because of which the force was unable to operate one of their lethal platforms since June 2004.
British-Pakistani billionaire businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman were also on the sub, the BBC reported on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Abu Dhabi on July 15.
It is the first mega exercise involving the two aircraft carriers after induction of the indigenously-built INS Vikrant in September.
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.
The Agency said it has delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale on Thursday.
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 submarine, capable of remaining underwater for months, will be rechristened as 'INS Chakra' and it would be for the first time in more than two decades that the Indian Navy would have a nuclear attack submarine
The fate of three crew members onboard Coast Guard's Dornier aircraft that went missing on Monday remained unknown on Wednesday even as Navy deployed a submarine as part of massive search operations off Tamil Nadu coast.
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.
Two US warships and a nuclear submarine will join the 'Malabar' series of exercises along with Indian Navy frigates and a German-made 'Shishumar' class HDW submarine.
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.
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.
Ready to protect the waters, India's first indigenously-built anti-submarine warfare corvette INS Kamorta will be handed over to the Indian Navy on Saturday, defence officials said.
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'.
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.
Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd's Chennai-Singapore submarine cable project might encounter a speed-breaker, making it difficult to meet the 2004-end deadline.
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).
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.
In a post on X, the prime minister also urged the people to make contributions to the Armed Forces Flag Day fund.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances