India has chosen to buy anti-tank guided missiles from Israel, rejecting a rival US offer, as the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party clears projects worth US$13.1 billion to modernize the nation’s aging military, official sources said yesterday.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government plans to buy 8,356 Spike missiles and 321 launchers from Israel in a deal worth 32 billion rupees (US$525 million), defense ministry sources told reporters.
The government is moving to speed up long-delayed defense orders and bolster its military. The Israeli deal comes after recent firing along India’s border with nuclear-armed rival Pakistan and tensions with China.
Photo: Reuters
The procurement deals, worth 800 billion rupees in total, were cleared at a meeting of India’s Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), headed by Indian Minister of Defense and Finance Arun Jaitley, on Saturday.
“It [the council] has cleared a deal for Spikes,” a defense ministry official, who asked not to be named, told reporters.
“It’s a fire and forget kind of missile,” the official said, referring to the fact the missile locks onto targets before firing.
“You can say there was a rival bid from the US for its Javelin missiles,” the official said, adding that India’s army trialled the Spike missiles “successfully last year.”
India, the world’s biggest arms importer, is in the midst of a US$100 billion defense upgrade program and cleared proposals worth nearly US$3.5 billion in June. Modi, who stormed to power at elections in May, has said India must build up its military might to the point that no other country would “dare cast an evil eye” on the nation.
A series of corruption scandals under the previous government had brought defense procurement to a near standstill.
Modi and US President Barack Obama agreed on greater defense cooperation during a meeting in Washington last month, when the US reportedly lobbied for India to purchase US-made Javelin missiles.
“The DAC took the decision based on purely technical reasons and based on hard facts. It had been on the agenda for some time,” another unnamed defense ministry official told reporters.
“The process of bringing them [equipment] here will be done over a period of time, in stages,” he added without giving details.
The council also agreed to go ahead with building six submarines domestically, in collaboration with a foreign partner, in a project worth US$8.2 billion, according to reports in local media outlets yesterday.
French, Russian, German and Spanish firms are interested in partnering with India for the project, according to the Hindustan Times.
The government has raised the foreign investment cap on India’s defense industries to speed up the military’s modernization. Twelve Dornier aircraft are also to be bought for the navy and 362 infantry combat vehicles, reports said.
Indian soldiers earlier this month were embroiled in days of deadly tit-for-tat exchanges of fire along the border with Pakistan, while tensions were also hiked at a remote border frontier in September during a stand off with Chinese troops.
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