India test-fires nuclear-capable Nirbhay cruise missile

BALASORE (Odisha): India’s indigenously developed nuclear capable sub-sonic cruise missile ‘Nirbhay’, which can strike targets more than 700 kms away, was today test-fired from a test range at Chandipur near here.

“The missile was test-fired from a mobile launcher positioned at launch pad 3 of the Integrated Test Range at about 10.03 hours,” said an official soon after the flight took off from the launch ground. “Flight details will be available after data retrieved from radars and telemetry points, monitoring the trajectories, are analysed,” the official said. It is the second test of the sub-sonic long range cruise missile ‘Nirbhay’ from the ITR. The maiden flight, conducted on March 12, 2013 could not achieve all the desired parameters as “the flight had to be terminated mid-way when deviations were observed from its intended course,” sources said. India has in its arsenal the 290 km range supersonic “BrahMos” cruise missile which is jointly developed by India and Russia. Source: Defence News

Army chief to visit all neighbours except Pakistan

India will be focusing efforts on strengthening military ties with countries in the immediate neighbourhood. Army chief General Dalbir Singh’s first set of foreign tours in the coming months will be to Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

This is in line with the new government’s plans to revitalise ties with neighbouring countries. The army chief is likely to travel to Bhutan and Nepal later this year followed by visits to the other neighbouring countries next year. Bhutan’s significance as one of India’s closest allies was evident when Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose to visit Thimphu in June barely three weeks after being sworn in as PM. China, which shares a 470-km long boundary with Bhutan, has unresolved border issues with the Himalayan kingdom. New Delhi had established the Indian Military Training Team (IMTRAT) in Bhutan in 1962 to train Bhutanese officers. During the years of the royal autocracy and the initial years of peace process when there were restrictions on the military’s operations, India had stopped supplying arms to the Nepal Army. But supplies have now been restored. There remains a special relationship between the two armies, with their chiefs treated as honorary generals of the other army. The visits to Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are also significant in view of growing Chinese presence in these countries. Source : Defence News

Make in India : Honeywell, Tata Partner To Produce TALIN Systems

NEW DELHI — Coinciding with the visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US Sept. 25-30, Honeywell International has inked a partnership agreement with India’s Tata Power to license-produce the tactical advanced land inertial navigator (TALIN) system.

“TALIN represents the latest in global positioning system (GPS)-free navigation and positioning technology, designed to improve asset safety and ultimately mission success,” said Arijit Ghosh, Honeywell president for aerospace in India, according to a statement released Sunday. An executive of Tata Power said TALIN would be sold to the Indian Army for use in artillery systems and also sourced to the Honeywell supply chain worldwide. TALIN systems are ideal for environments where GPS signals are not available, the Tata executive said, so they would find a ready market with the Indian Army. Tata Power will license the design and hardware to assemble, test and build the production kits for the navigation system in India. The Indian government wants to boost the domestic defense industry and the Tata-Honeywell partnership will help Indian industry get advanced technology, the Tata Power executive said. Ghosh said, “By partnering with Tata Power SED on the production of TALIN we are aligning with the government’s aim of increasing locally manufactured technologies for India’s defense industry and giving the Indian armed forces an easy-to-justify option for navigation on the 21st century battlefield.” Source : Defence News

Indian PM Modi rocks Madison Square Garden – New York

NEW YORK: Indian-Americans from across the nation gave a “rock star” treatment to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the prestigious Madison Square Garden in the Big Apple, where nearly 20,000 strong gathering of Indian Diaspora welcomed the Indian leader.

Shouting slogans like ‘Narendra Modi Zindabaad’, ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ and ‘Welcome Modi’, Indian-Americans started arriving at the venue since early in the morning. People were seen waiting in long queues. By 9 p.m. a large number of people were dressed in Modi T-shirt with portrait of Modi on it. Many were holding banners and slogans like ‘America Loves Modi’. Some 20,000 people packed the Madison Square Garden for the largest event of its kind for the Indian-American community organised by the recently formed Indian-American Community Foundation (IACF), and supported by more than 400 Indian-American organizers from across the country. “He is a rock star,” said young college going Deepa Kaur. “We have a lot of expectations from him,” she said. Never seen before, the organisers had lined up a number of cultural events including popular songs, folk dances. People were seen dancing to the tune of these cultural events. More than 200 media, a significantly large number of them from India, had registered for the event; which organisers said is unprecedented for an Indian American event. “He is the first Prime Minister who is connected to the NRI (non-resident Indian community). That’s why you see such a large number of people. We filled up the seats in just two weeks. It has never happened in the history of the Madison Square Garden that seats gets filled up some three weeks before the event,” said Anil Sharma, one of the volunteers of the event. In fact, more than 2,000 volunteers worked day and night for the past three weeks to make he program a success. “It’s Modi Mania,” said Ankit Patel. “It’s a life time event,” he said. In fact the event attracted some three dozen Congressmen including several power lawmakers like Senator Robert Menendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, and Congressman Ami Bera. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal were also present. A huge contingent of Indian-American corporate leaders and IT professionals came in from the Silicon Valley for the mega event. The New York Times in a headline ‘Indian Leader Narendra Modi, Once Unwelcome in US gets a Rock Star Reception’ story today wrote Modi will receive a rally fit for a rock star. Modi’s fans were seen carrying the Indian tricolour and wore traditional Indian garb with several groups of performers carrying drums and ‘dhols’ to give him a rousing welcome. There was also a group of Tibetan women carrying banners in support of Modi. Strict security arrangements are in place with police barricades at several locations. Besides the main venue, there would be at least 50 other locations across the country where special arrangements have been made for the live telecast of the prime minister’s speech and other events that include a nearly two-hour-long entertainment programme. At 16.4 per cent, Indian-Americans are the third largest Asian-American group in the US, numbering 2.8 million strong, which is almost 1 per cent of the US population. Source: Defence News

Air Force Takes off With Plans to Make Aero India Bigger

BANGALORE: The Indian Air Force (IAF) has begun the preliminary rounds of preparations for the 10th edition of the biennial air show to be held at the Air Force Station (AFS) Yelahanka, in Bangalore, from February 18 to 22, 2015.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ pitch the Aero India-2015 will be seen through ‘a new window of opportunity’ by the aerospace and defence industry now. The IAF officials said they are preparing the ground to accommodate more participants during the air show. Speaking to Express on the sidelines of a media visit to AFS Yelahanka on Wednesday, ahead of the 82nd IAF Day celebrations on October 8, Air Commodore S C Gulati, Air Officer Commanding of the station said initial talks with various state government agencies have already begun. “These are early days of preparations and we have the SOPs (standard operating procedures) in place. We hope that the coming show will be bigger in all aspects and AFS Yelahanka is warming up for the task,” said Gulati, a seasoned IAF pilot with close to 8,000 hours of flying. Survey of hospitals and helipads in Bangalore are underway as part of the disaster management plan. To a query whether the training activities at AFS Yelahanka would be hit if HAL Airport is reopened for commercial operations, Gulati said the IAF’s modern traffic management systems were capable of handling the situation. To another query whether the current activities at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) have eaten into the traffic space of the base (as reported by the media earlier), he said the training schedules have not been affected. “Our training patterns have not changed and are proceeding as planned. We operate on the assigned air space and both the HAL and KIA too do the same. Paris has got three airports and London has four,” said Gulati, who was part of the Air HQ Communication Squadron, flying the Boeing Business Jets, carrying VIPs. The AFS Yelahanka has the record of being the single largest base in India with maximum number of flying hours. It has to its credit over 20,000 hours of flying, annually. As part of the IAF’s ongoing modernisation mission, AFS Yelahanka will soon get a new station HQ with the construction work almost entering the last lap. An official said the induction of AFS Yelahanka is poised to increase in the near future. SOurce : Defence News

India-U.S. Relations: The View from New Delhi

In this India-U.S. Policy Memo, W.P.S. Sidhu writes that the India-U.S. relationship has progressed significantly over the last 25 years. He outlines areas ripe for deeper cooperation, as well as issues that have the potential to derail ties.

There was a time when India-U.S. relations were summed up in platitudes like “world’s largest democracies,” while seasoned pundits lamented that they were in fact “estranged democracies” that had very little in common. Today, with nearly 30 separate dialogues, the India-U.S. agenda involves issues ranging from the TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) to the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and a spate of acronyms in between.
For New Delhi, the principal driver behind the transformation of its relations with Washington lies in the Indian ambition to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2025 and, consequently, also emerge as one of the key global political and security actors. This fundamental objective requires two external conditions: first, at the very least, ensuring a no-war environment, particularly in India’s immediate neighborhood; and second, the ability to shape global rules in terms of existing and emerging norms and institutions that have a direct impact on India’s ambitious development goal and economic well-being—particularly multilateral norms and institutions related to climate, cyber, energy, food, outer space, trade, and water (rivers and oceans) policy.
New Delhi grudgingly recognized that a partnership with the United States was indispensable to attain these twin external conditions. Consequently, it was essential to cooperate not only at the bilateral level but also critical to reach common understanding (if not agreement) in various multilateral and plurilateral fora.
Such bilateral and multilateral interactions have the potential to take India-U.S. relations forward but also to stymie them. Thus, it is crucial to manage the ever widening and deepening India-U.S. relationship carefully if it is to make progress and contribute to India’s primary objectives.
At present three areas are particularly ripe for cooperation and should be prioritized by New Delhi and Washington: clean energy, defense, and infrastructure and investment.

Clean energy: In the lead-up to his election, Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pledged to “give a thrust to renewable sources of energy,” and the Modi government’s first budget included significant investments for research and development of solar, wind, clean coal, and other renewable energy sources. The joint statement of the fifth strategic dialogue strengthens institutional structures to enhance cooperation in this area. Now India and the United States need to operationalize these mechanisms for additional cooperation.

Defense: In an effort to bolster domestic arms production and create jobs, the Modi government has raised the limit on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the defense sector from 26 percent to 49 percent. U.S. officials applauded the adjustment and the Indian government and American corporations have said they would like to move forward on a host of sales, and co-development and co-production projects. The parties should capitalize on this moment of mutual agreement.
Infrastructure and investment: Prime Minister Modi’s budget allocated massive sums for urban renewal, transportation, and sanitation projects, and eased restrictions on FDI for construction. The establishment of two collaborative infrastructure efforts launched during a recent visit by top U.S. officials suggests this is another area ripe for movement.

While traction in each of the areas above can help to re-energize India-U.S. ties in the near term, a handful of other issues have the potential to derail them:

Free trade: India’s blocking of the World Trade Organization (WTO) trade facilitation agreement (TFA)—while the fifth strategic dialogue was ongoing—disappointed U.S. officials. India’s justification of its actions, on the grounds that it did not get assurances on food subsidies and stockpiling programs, was grudgingly acknowledged by the U.S. However, diplomats on both sides should find a compromise solution to ensure that the WTO fracas does not derail the revived dialogue.
Intellectual property rights: Western pharmaceutical companies have been at loggerheads with India for years over patent laws and regulations on generic drug production, and India is one of just 10 countries currently on the U.S. Trade Representative’s intellectual property rights watch list. With the Indian government and electorate focused on growth and development, discussion of any measures that could significantly hinder Indian industry and deprive access to cheap medication could backfire.
Regional geopolitics: India is anxious about the upcoming U.S. withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, suspicious of the American approach vis-à-vis a rising China, and disdainful of U.S. coziness with Pakistan. With hard national interests and a slew of historical grievances at stake, differences of opinion here will be immensely challenging to reconcile.
Diplomatic decorum: The bungled arrest of an Indian consular officer in New York in December 2013 and the lasting—if presently downplayed—effects of the denial of a U.S. visa to then-Chief Minister Modi over his alleged involvement in the 2002 Gujarat riots highlighted a considerable lack of understanding and coordination between the two sides. Rebuilding trust and comfort will take time and dexterity.

Finally, the two parties would do well to seek an early resolution of a couple of other vexing issues, which have the potential either to provide a fillip to or to wreck bilateral relations. If, however, an early resolution is not possible, then both sides should shelve the issues until the new Indian government has had the opportunity to flesh out its policies more clearly.

Civil nuclear deal: The landmark India-U.S. civil nuclear deal lies dormant, due to a dispute over India’s Nuclear Liability Act and the United States backsliding on key elements of the nuclear agreement. Prime Minister Modi has expressed a desire to implement outstanding bilateral nuclear agreements, and American officials have registered hopes that progress will be possible. Still, if large gaps remain, then it might be more sensible to put off trying to find solutions to a later date.
FDI in retail: While India has taken steps to open up various sectors of its economy to FDI—defense, insurance, e-commerce—the multi-brand retail sector remains largely insulated due to sourcing requirements. Reports suggest the BJP-led government is considering a number of adjustments to its retail FDI policies; until their approach is ironed out, it is best to hold off on any related discussions.

Prime Minister Modi’s election provides a unique opportunity to re-energize relations between India and the United States. The parties should recommit themselves to a dialogue of candor and mutual respect, and focus on those areas ripe for progress in order to build much-needed confidence. Only then can India-U.S. ties become what President Obama has called “one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century.”

Source : Brookings