Tag: India-US defence relations

India-US defence ties flying high: Maritime patrol aircraft on way

- by India Writes Network

In an increasingly fragile and volatile neighbourhood, India is all set to upgrade its arsenal with a host of new high-tech acquisitions. This also comes at a time when the United States is all set to overtake Russia, Israel and France as India’s largest arms supplier with deals worth $10 billion inked since 2007. With Pakistan and China inking some major deals in the recent past, this acceleration in defence relationship with the US is set to boost the modernization of India’s armed forces. It would also help India strengthen its position with volatility increasing in the neighbourhood.
China Factor
One of the major acquisitions is going to be the deal of $1 billion for four P 8I planes that would be used for maritime patrol. This comes in the backdrop of China strengthening its presence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) as a part of its Maritime Silk Road strategy. With recent reports of Chinese submarines docking in Karachi lurking past Indian waters, it has raised alarm bells in the security establishment at New Delhi.
Pentagon and South Block are also set to begin negotiations in the next few days over the proposed $770 million deal for M-777 ultra-light howitzers under which the bulk of 145 artillery guns to be acquired in a government to government deal, will be made in India. This is also in sync with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, which is expected to spur indigenization of the country’s defence sector.

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Modi-Obama bonding: The new normal high in India-US relations

- by Manish Chand

First-name bonding, “Barack and I.” Tete-a-tete over tea, “chai pe charcha.” Bear hugs, hand-holding and a walk around the rose garden, “chalein saath saath”. Footfalls echo in the memory… Well, one is not talking about puppy love of besotted lovers, but a tightening embrace of the world’s two largest, engaged democracies in an all-embracing agenda whose reverberations are going to be felt in the years to come.
In Delhi’s deepening chill, sparks flew and lit up a moribund nuclear deal and shone a new path of “shared effort, progress for all,” as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama firmed up an ambitious template for re-igniting the defining partnership of the 21st century and walked the talk to deliver substantive outcomes. The new normal in India-US relations, which was construed to mean habituation to sub-optimal engagement, has morphed into the “new normal high.” The big-ticket outcome of the Modi-Obama summit talks on January 25 was not just the nuclear deal, but the decisive shedding of ambivalence and diffidence, which will lead to the interlocking and intermeshing of the two engaged democracies across the full spectrum of economics and geopolitics.
Talking openly, resolving differences, joking with each other, and smiling naturally. This is the way to go for natural partners, and this hopefully should be the new normal high in the India-US relationship. No time for Mr Modi to lose sleep, the deal is done.

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