NEW DELHI: The government will decide on Saturday whether to press ahead with the Rs 13,000 crore mega project for the private sector to supply 56 medium transport aircraft to the IAF despite only a single bidder, the Tata-Airbus consortium, being in the fray.
Though the defence acquisitions council (DAC) chaired by Manohar Parrikar will take the final decision, MoD sources on Tuesday said the “emerging dominant view” is that green signal should be given to the crucial project designed to promote Indian private sector’s entry into the domestic aerospace arena with foreign collaboration.
“The Tata-Airbus technical and commercial bid is a credible offer submitted in a competitive environment. The other seven contenders backed out for one reason or the other,” said a source.
IAF has now sought the clearance of the DAC — the first such meeting to be chaired by Parrikar after becoming defence minister on November 10 — to begin technical evaluation of the C-295 aircraft offered by Airbus Defence & Space and Tata Advanced Systems.
Though it has become a single-vendor situation, the DAC can approve it if it wants as per existing procurement procedures. Of the eight foreign aviation majors that got the global tender, American Boeing and Lockheed-Martin as well as Brazilian Embraer said they did not manufacture the class of aircraft being sought by IAF.
Refusing to take part in the tender, Russian Rosoboronexport said it wanted a fresh design and development project. Antonov of Ukraine wanted yet another extension of the bid submission deadline due to the ongoing conflict in Crimea. Swedish Saab said it had shut down its assembly line for such aircraft.
Then, Alenia Aermacchi was linked to Italian conglomerate Finmeccanica, which has been slapped with “a partial ban” after the infamous VVIP helicopter scandal. “All this left only the European consortium Airbus. The DAC will have to take a call since re-tendering may lead to the same situation,” said the source.
Incidentally, it was the Modi government’s first DAC in July — then headed by Arun Jaitley – which revived the Avro replacement project after it was put on hold by the UPA-2 regime last year due to strong opposition from the powerful PSU lobby and ministers like Praful Patel, as reported by TOI earlier.
Apart from the critical need to encourage the private sector to enter defence production in a big way, especially in the aerospace arena where Hindustan Aeronautics enjoys a monopoly, its felt the defence PSU’s order books are already overflowing with projects.
Under the new project, the first 16 aircraft are to be bought from the foreign original equipment manufacturer, with the rest 40 to be manufactured by the Indian Production Agency (IPA) within eight years. The IPA could go on to manufacture the aircraft for the civil aviation sector as well after fulfilling IAF’s requirement.
(Source: Times of India November 20, 2014)
UNDER MODI, ISRAEL AND INDIA FORGE DEEPER BUSINESS & DEFENCE TIES
TEL AVIV: At the UN General Assembly in New York last September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set aside time for a critical meeting. But it wasn’t US President Barack Obama he was keen to see. It was Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Since Modi came to power in May, ties between Israel and India have been in overdrive, with the two signing a series of defence and technology deals that have underscored their burgeoning commercial and political relationship.
The same month as the UN meeting, Modi’s cabinet cleared a long-delayed purchase of Israeli missiles for its navy. In October, India closed a $520 million deal to buy Israeli anti-tank missiles. And last week, a jointly developed aerial defence system passed a major trial, which India called a “milestone”.
“There is great momentum in cooperation, on both the defence and economic sides,” Naftali Bennett, Israel’s economy minister and a member of Netanyahu’s inner cabinet, told Reuters.
India is now the largest buyer of Israeli military equipment, while Israel is India’s largest customer after Russia. In the first nine months of 2014, bilateral trade reached $3.4 billion, on target for a record this year.
While that may not be vast in global terms, it has helped push Asia to the brink of overtaking the United States as Israel’s largest export market after the European Union.
India is steadily catching up with China as it buys more Israeli defence and cyber-security technology, an area where China is limited since the United States frowns on Israel dealing too freely with Beijing in defence matters.
The roots of the Israel relationship go back to 2006, when Modi was chief minister of Gujarat and visited the region to explore new ideas in irrigation, an area of Israeli expertise.
As a result, India started buying drip-feed technology, said Amnon Ofer, a friend of Modi’s and chairman of NaanDanJain Irrigation, formed after India’s Jain Irrigation acquired a firm created by two Israeli collective farms.
Under Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh, India kept its relationship with Israel under wraps, in part so as not to upset its Muslim minority, said C. Raja Mohan, head of strategic studies at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.
“Cynics in Israel would point out that Delhi was treating Tel Aviv like a mistress – engage in private but refuse to be seen with in public,” said Mohan. “The Modi government is having none of that.”
The question is where the relationship goes from here. Strategically, Israel is glad to have a rising Asian power as an ally. But for both the focus is really on business.
Israel Ports Co. is partnering India’s Cargo Motors to build a deepwater port in Gujarat, and Israel’s TowerJazz is teaming up with India’s Jaiprakash Associates and IBM with plans to build a $5.6 billion chip plant near Delhi.
At a security conference in Tel Aviv last week, executives from top Indian firms were shopping for systems to secure their pipelines, refineries and other infrastructure.
All the activity has lead to expectations that Israel and India will finalise a free trade agreement in the next year.
“That means trade will double or triple,” said Anat Bernstein-Reich, who chairs the Israel-India Chamber of Commerce, an office hoping and preparing for a boom.
(Source: Times of India November 20, 2014)
INDIAN DELEGATION VISITS CZECH GRIPEN SQUADRON
An Indian delegation from College of Air Warfare (CAW) visited Czech Gripen squadron last week, reports Afbcaslav.cz.
The delegation was welcomed by the 21 tactical air force base Commander Colonel Andrew Rejmanem, after which it went on a tour of the base. The group of officers was briefed about the base, its structure and tasks and was given a static demonstration of Gripen.
College of Air Warfare is a premier Indian Air Force tri-service institution of higher learning, which conducts a number of courses on Air Warfare for officers of the rank of Flt Lt to Gp Capt and equivalents from Indian Army, Navy and Air Force.
Czech Republic Air Force has been operating 14 Gripen C/D since 1 June 2005. This year in May, Czech Republic signed a new Gripen lease according to which it will continue to operate the Swedish fighter aircraft for another 12 years, until at least 2027.
(Source: Gripen Blogs November 20, 2014)
BSF INTERCEPTS PAKISTAN BOAT AT SIR CREEK
At least five years after the illegal intrusions stopped from Pakistan in Harami Nala and Sir Creek at Gujarat-Pakistan border, the BSF (Border Security Force) intercepted a Pakistani boat at Sir Creek on Wednesday.
The boat was found coming close to the Indian waters at the Sir Creek that alerted the Creek Commandos of the force who are right now engaged in the search operations at the spot.
A senior officer from the BSF Operations said, “The boat was intercepted at Sir Creek however a few metres away before it could fully enter into the creek that is supervised by the Gujarat Frontier. When the boat was intercepted, it was found empty. It was checked thoroughly and nothing was found inside it. We suspect that the fishermen or those who were on board fled but we cannot say that they were indeed fishermen since no fish stock was found inside the boat”.
The BSF officials said the boat is 30 to 40 feet long and comparatively smaller to the fishing boats that come from the Pakistani waters. The BSF commandos have however undertaken a search operation from at the Sir Creek and nearby creek areas after this incident.
However since the crew members are missing, the BSF has alerted the State Police, Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard to increase their vigilance. It is also suspected that the crew members might have entered from the Creek and left the boat to mislead the BSF.
The sources in BSF added that the boat was seen coming at around 12:30am by the BSF commandos who boarded their boat to apprehend the Pakistani boat. After keeping a close watch for about an hour, the empty boat was found floating in water at Sir Creek. This act raised the suspicion of the BSF that the crew members were unlike the fishermen who go astray in Indian waters and are caught within minutes of their touching the Indian maritime zone.
The Creek Crocodiles, a commando force of the BSF was raised in 2009 to patrol Harami Nala and Sir Creek as a part of their water wing operations. The intrusions from Pakistan that were observed in high numbers had dropped to the nil, as per the records of the BSF accessed last.
The BSF suspects that the crew members of the boat fled sensing the movement of the BSF or they left the boat near the Indian waters giving a signal of possible intrusion in coming days. The intelligence wing of the BSF was however alerted from last one month about Pakistani intrusion from the border areas in Kutch through land or marshy water areas of the creeks between Kutch and Pakistan.
Similarly, the Indian Coast Guard had apprehended a Pakistani boat off Jamnagar coast and arrested six fishermen in October. The Pakistani boat ‘Al-Rahimo’ had left from Karachi on October 1 and was found near the Indian maritime border. The boat was carrying 150 kilograms of fish.
The ICG had observed that the fishermen had caught this huge quantity of fish within first three days of their fishing yet they hadn’t the water and were found near the Jamnagar coast. In their interrogation, the fishermen had failed to explain why they came deeper into the Indian waters when they had already finished huge portion of their fishing.
The fishermen were interrogated by several agencies where they claimed that they wanted to collect huge stock of fishing so that they had enough stock for two months. However the ICG suspect that the Pakistani crew members had used the stock of fish as a cover to enter the Indian waters to be able to enter inside. The apprehension of the Pakistani boat at Sir Creek has sent a tizzy to the BSF and marine police of State Police who have intensified their patrolling and search.
(Source: Indian Express November 20, 2014)
PAK RUNS TO THE UN IN THE FACE OF AN AGGRESSIVE INDIA
BHADERWAH (JK): Pakistan was forced to take United Nation’s refuge to stop retaliatory action by India in the wake of repeated ceasefire violations, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said today.
“They (Pakistan) went to request the United Nations Security Council to ask India to stop (retaliatory action),” Singh told a public rally here.
“It was the policy of the Congress government to show only white flags even if Pakistan side killed every Indian. We asked the DG BSF to give a befitting reply to the Pakistani side,” he said.
“After ceasefire violations on the International Border by the Pakistani side, I asked the Director General of BSF as to how they have responded. He replied that we (Indian side) are showing white flag as we want to hold dialogue with Pakistan,” he said.
Singh said he then ordered the DG BSF to give Pakistan a befitting reply to the ceasefire violations.
He said it was because of the befitting reply from the Indian side that Pakistan was forced to appeal to the United Nation. “They went to request the United Nations Security Council to ask India to stop,” he said.
Singh said some people were trying to create communal tension. “But, we say that we have special affection for the people of Kashmir that is why post floods, I and Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself went to see the situation in the Valley,” he said.
He said Modi was so moved by the plight of the people of Kashmir that he not only sanctioned Rs 1,000 crore for the flood-hit people, but also offered to extend help to residents of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
“The Prime Minister asked the Pakistan government to allow us to help the flood affected people of PoK as well,” he said.
He said that India strongly maintained that PoK belonged to India and would welcome if it once again decides to return to India.
He said Pakistan has been trying hard to raise the Kashmir issue at the international level, “But, we say that they have completely destroyed the PoK area which is with them.”
Singh said India always wanted good relations with its neighbours, including Pakistan and China.
(Source: Times of India November 20, 2014)
