India, Ukraine Ink Defence Cooperation Agreement

A broad defence cooperation agreement was among five pacts signed following delegation-level talks between the visiting Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday.

With Ukraine having consolidated its military enterprises into bodies under governmental control, on the lines of what Russia did to its military-industrial complex a decade ago, New Delhi feels the path has been smoothened for a more intimate defence relationship.

Instead of dealing with a number of defence enterprises scattered over Ukraine, India will find it easier to conduct focussed negotiations, which could help it get a better deal.

During the Soviet times, Ukraine was home to 30 per cent of the country’s military industrial complex and it is now attempting to modernise its defence industry. In this scenario, India senses it will be able to duplicate its approach towards Russia of moving away from the buyer-seller relationship and going in for an R&D-joint production model such as the pacts with Moscow for Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft, Military Transport Aircraft and BrahMos.

Ukraine is already modernising India’s 100-plus fleet of military transport aircraft and has been active in providing engines for naval vessels and military spares.

Ukraine in turn assured India of its support in a bid to join four international export control organisations, including the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. Kiev voluntarily gave up the nuclear weapons arsenal it had inherited from the Soviet Union and its backing to India in this respect is considered important.

The two sides also inked an agreement on exchanging nuclear safety-related information. Ukraine operates 15 reactors of the same type as the ones being put up by Russia at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu. As the Ukrainian reactors are a decade or more older, transfer of safety-related expertise would be of help to Indian nuclear engineers.India pressed hard on the visa issue which, it feels, is a major non-tariff barrier. Official don’t know if the fortnight-long wait for business visas is Ukraine’s retaliation for India clamping down on visas to women of a certain age group from Ukraine and Central Asian countries, but the subject was deemed crucial enough for Dr. Singh to mention it to the Ukrainian President.

India feels one reason for the huge trade deficit with Ukraine is visa issuance delays. It made progress with another approach to reduce the imbalance, currently 5:1 in Kiev’s favour, with Ukraine agreeing to Indian investments in the fertilizer sector.

Sri Lanka to Continue to Train its Military Personnel in India

India provides short-term and long-term training programmes to military personnel from Sri Lanka and other neighbouring countries, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said Monday.

Notwithstanding stiff opposition from political parties in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka on Wednesday asserted that it was "very firm" on continuing the training programme of its defence personnel in India and ruled out sending them to countries like China.

Sri Lanka's powerful Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa, also the brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, said his country looks at India in a "much bigger way" than China.

During an interaction with visiting Indian journalists, Rajapaksa admitted that the recent attacks against Sri Lankan citizens in Tamil Nadu has "hurt" their feelings, but said no one in his country had any "hard feelings" for India or its people.

"No. We have never (thought about it) because in our long history since the days when we moved from British shoulders all training (to army personnel) were done in India or in Pakistan," he said.

The minister was responding to a question whether Sri Lanka was reconsidering the training programme for its military personnel in India and possibly get them trained in countries like China in the wake of protests in Tamil Nadu.

Dwelling on the issue, he said it has been the practice for any new batch to be sent to India for training and that Sri Lanka has no plans to change the tradition.

"There can be various opinions, but we can't (shift the programme). We are very firm on that and we have confidence (that it will continue). We have not even thought about," he said when pressed further on whether Sri Lanka would stop sending its personnel to India.

He noted that starting from the Defence Secretary to Army commanders, everyone has been trained in India. "Everyone go to India first and only then they are sent to other countries like USA (for training)," he said.

Rajapaksa's comments assume significance in the wake of almost all political parties in Tamil Nadu coming on a single platform to oppose the training programme to Sri Lankan military personnel in India.

Initially, the parties protested the presence of Sri Lankan personnel in Tamil Nadu, but later widened their demand by asking the Indian Government to scrap the entire programme and send them back home.

However, India has made it clear that the training programme would continue.

On whether Sri Lanka was moving close towards China, he said: "We look India in a much bigger way."

Speaking about the attacks against Sri Lankan pilgrims in Tamil Nadu, Rajapaksa said that it "hurt" the feelings of Sri Lankan people because it had happened in India, which is regarded as a "big brother and a country which shows the way" for his nation.

"It hurt our feelings, we cannot hide that because we always think India as our big brother or who shows us the way and how should we work. India has taught us all good things.

We never thought this will happen?But we have no hard feelings towards India or its people," he said.

The minister, who is in-charge of reconstruction of the war-torn Northern Province, also noted that most of the pilgrims who were attacked in Tamil Nadu were of Indian-origin Sri Lankans.

Asked whether such incidents will cast a shadow on Indo-Lanka ties, he replied in the negative and appreciated the Indian Government's initiatives to ensure that such incidents are not repeated in the future.

"I believe that the people of Tamil Nadu understand that nobody gains from such incidents," he said.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/sri-lanka-to-continue-to-train-military-personnel-in-india/1/223175.html

Defence Minister AK Antony said : 54 Indian Soldiers May be in Pakistan Jails

AK Antony

New Delhi: Fifty-four Indian military personnel missing since the 1965 and 1971 wars are believed to be in Pakistani custody, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said on Monday.

These include a member of the Border Security Force (BSF), the minister told the Lok Sabha in a written statement.

He said the government had repeatedly taken up the matter with the Pakistani government but "Pakistan does not acknowledge the presence of any such personnel in its custody".

Antony recalled that a delegation of 14 relatives of missing Indian defence personnel visited 10 jails in Pakistan June 1-14, 2007.

"The delegation, however, could not conclusively confirm the physical presence of any missing defence personnel."

He said that in the wake of media reports that some 1971 prisoners of war (POWs) were in a jail in Oman, the Indian embassy in Muscat formally took up the issue with the Omani foreign office.

The mission wanted to know the "factual status and consular access and release of Indian POWs, if any, in Omani jails.

"However, there has been no official and formal response from the Omani side," the minister said.

Israel pips US in anti-tank guided missile supply to India

NEW DELHI: Israel has upstaged the US in the ongoing race to bag the huge deal to supply third-generation anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) to the Indian Army, in a project which could well be worth $1 billion eventually.

Defence ministry sources said the plan to go in for the American FGM-148 Javelin ATGMs has "virtually been shelved" because of Washington's reluctance to provide full military knowhow - licensed "transfer of technology (ToT)'' - to allow India to indigenously manufacture the "tank killers'' in large numbers after an initial off-the-shelf purchase.

 Instead, the Army has already completed extensive trials of the Israeli 'Spike' ATGM, which like Javelin is also a shoulder-launched and fire-and-forget missile, under varied conditions in plains, deserts and mountains. "The staff evaluation is now in progress as the next step in the procurement process,'' said a source.

The Javelin imbroglio has once again rekindled long-held fears in the Indian defence establishment about the US not being a reliable long-term supplier of cutting-edge military technology. India also detests American conditions on "intrusive end-user inspections'' of weapons sold to its armed forces.

The US has notched up military sales worth over $8 billion to India in the last few years, including mega deals for C-130J 'Super Hercules', C-17 Globemaster-III and P-8I maritime patrol aircraft, but they did not involve licensed production in India.

The AGTM project, in contrast, involves ToT since the 1.13-million Army wants to equip all its 356 infantry battalions with the man-portable missiles as an effective counter to Pakistani and Chinese main battle tanks. A bulk of the estimated 2,000 launchers and 24,000 missiles required for this are planned for production by defence PSU Bharat Dynamics (BDL) after getting requisite ToT from the selected foreign vendor.

With General Bikram Singh identifying infantry modernization as a major thrust area, the Army wants to complete the induction of these 2.5-km range advanced ATGMs by the end of the 12th Plan (2017).

At present, infantry units are making do with second-generation Milan (2-km range) and Konkurs (4-km) ATGMs, produced by BDL under licence from French and Russian companies, which are wire-guided and do not have fire-and-forget capabilities.

Overall, the Army has an "authorized holding'' for over 81,000 different kinds of ATGMs, which are critical to stem enemy armoured attacks, but does not have even half of that number in its inventory.

A part of the deficiency will be met by the induction of the long-delayed indigenous third-generation Nag ATGMs, which are vehicle and helicopter-mounted, with a 4-km strike range. The Army has already placed an initial order for 443 Nag missiles and 13 Namicas (Nag missile tracked carriers).

If Israel, the second-largest defence supplier to India after Russia, does indeed stitch up the ATGM project, it will be the third major missile programme between the two countries. They are already collaborating in two surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, under which deliveries are slated to begin soon.

While the DRDO-Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) project for long-range-SAM to arm Indian warships is worth Rs 2,606 crore, the medium-range-SAM one for IAF is worth Rs 10,076 crore.

BEL, Israel’s IAI ink MoU on Naval Missiles

A MoU signed between Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL) and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has set the stage for joint development and indigenous production of a set of Long Range Surface-to-Air Missiles (LR-SAMs) to defend Indian warships from enemy attack.

BEL will be the lead integrator of this set of missiles and produce some of the major sub-systems, the company announced on Monday.

LR-SAMs, along with MR-SAMs (Medium Range SAMs) for the IAF, is among the major pursuits of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which is said to be developing some of them, also in a tie-up with IAI, at a cost of over around Rs. 2,500 crore.

It is based on Israel’s Barak missile system and will give the country an advanced, seeker-based missile capability. Indian missiles are ‘guided’ and the country does not have the ‘seeker’ technology that enables a missile to home in on the target.

The LR-SAM would track and engage multiple targets simultaneously over a 70-km range, defence sources said.

The project could span five to eight years.
‘Significant step’

President and CEO of the Tel Aviv-based IAI Joseph Weiss described the move as “a significant step forward in our joint work with India.” BEL was a strategic partner and this would enhance the IAI’s ability to provide high quality solutions and service to the Indian defence services.

BEL’s Director (Marketing) H.N. Ramakrishna, who signed the MoU in Tel Aviv on December 5, was quoted as saying: “We see the IAI as a strategic partner with a wide range of potential joint activities. This MoU demonstrates that BEL and the IAI can work closely together on the most sophisticated and advanced programmes, for the mutual benefit of both companies.” DRDO would continue to guide the activity.Boaz Levy, Director General of Air & Missile Defense Systems division of the IAI, signed the memorandum in the presence of Mr. Weiss and Eli Alfassi, Corporate VP, India Operations.