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Army chief to head for France to bolster bilateral strategic partnership - The Times of India
NEW DELHI: Army chief General Bikram Singh will be heading for Paris next week to further bolster the already strong strategic partnership with France, which is one of the biggest arms suppliers to India.
During his trip from May 26 to 30, Gen Singh will hold talks with French defence minister Jean Yves Le Drian, chief of general staff Admiral Edouard Guillaud and Army chief General Bertrand Ract-Madoux, apart from visiting defence establishments like the Land Forces Command in Lille.
"France which did not impose sanctions after the 1998 Pokhran-II nuclear tests and India already have a strategic dialogue at the national security advisor-level. Apart from being the first country to enter into a formal understanding with India after the Nuclear Suppliers' Group exempted us from its guidelines, it also supports our bid for permanent membership of the UN Security Council as well as G-8," said an official.
The bilateral defence relations have also transformed from just military cooperation to comprehensive defence cooperation. Apart from the navies and air forces of the two countries holding regular Varuna and Garuda series of combat exercises, the two armies have also begun to conduct the Shakti wargames now.
Defence procurements and joint R&D projects constitute a critical element of the bilateral partnership. France already has two major defence projects underway with India, while it also negotiates to bag the almost $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project to supply 126 Rafale fighters to IAF.
India is building six French Scorpene submarines at Mazagon Docks under the Rs 23,562 crore 'Project-75' at Mumbai. The project, however, has been dogged with huge time and cost overruns. The Navy now hopes to get the desperately-required new submarines in the 2015-2020 timeframe, over four years behind schedule.
Allegations of kickbacks had also swirled around the October 2005 contracts signed with the two French companies Rs 6,135-crore with M/s Armaris (a DCN-Thales joint venture) for transfer of technology and construction design, and Rs 1,062-crore with M/s MBDA for sea-skimming Exocet missiles but nothing much came out of them.
The other big ongoing project is the one for the upgrade of the 51 French-origin Mirage-2000 fighters, which were first inducted in the IAF fleet in the mid-1980s. The overall upgrade programme of the Mirage-2000s is pegged at Rs 17,547 crore, with the first two fighters being upgraded in France and the rest 49 by Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) under transfer of technology.
The upgrade programme has been dubbed very exorbitant by many critics but the IAF says Mirage-2000s will be virtually new and potent fighters after undergoing it. First in July 2011, the upgrade programme was finalized at Rs 10,947 crore, which included both the French and HAL work-shares.
Then, early last year, the second contract worth around Rs 6,600 crore for 490 advanced fire-and-forget MICA (interception and aerial combat missiles) systems to arm the fighters was finalized with French armament major MBDA. The overall upgrade package may even cross the Rs 20,000 crore-mark over the decade it will take to complete it, as was earlier reported by TOI.
But defence minister A K Antony, holding that major upgrade decisions are suitably negotiated in a competitive environment, says the Mirage upgrade programme also includes fitment of advanced multi-mode target radar, reconfigured glass cockpit and advance avionics, state-of-the-art electronic warfare system and capability to launch advanced missiles.
The real prize for France will, of course, be the MMRCA project. There have been several problems in the final negotiations with French aviation major Dassault, which have been meandering for well over an year now after the Rafale defeated Eurofighter Typhoon in the commercial bid stage. The two jets had earlier outclassed the American F/A-18 'Super Hornet' and F-16 'Super Viper', the Russian MiG-35 and Swedish Gripen in extensive field trials
The defence ministry, however, says the workshare problems between Dassault and HAL have now been sorted out to a large extent. Under the project, while the first 18 jets will come in fly-away condition, the rest 108 fighters will be manufactured under licence by HAL over six years.
Dassault was earlier demanding that it would be responsible only for the first 18 jets, while HAL will have shoulder responsibility for the other 108 fighters once the kits for them are supplied to the defence PSU. MoD, however, had rejected this contention, holding that Dassault will be responsible for the execution of the entire project. But even now, it will still take several months before the MMRCA contract is finally inked.
NEW DELHI: Army chief General Bikram Singh will be heading for Paris next week to further bolster the already strong strategic partnership with France, which is one of the biggest arms suppliers to India.
During his trip from May 26 to 30, Gen Singh will hold talks with French defence minister Jean Yves Le Drian, chief of general staff Admiral Edouard Guillaud and Army chief General Bertrand Ract-Madoux, apart from visiting defence establishments like the Land Forces Command in Lille.
"France which did not impose sanctions after the 1998 Pokhran-II nuclear tests and India already have a strategic dialogue at the national security advisor-level. Apart from being the first country to enter into a formal understanding with India after the Nuclear Suppliers' Group exempted us from its guidelines, it also supports our bid for permanent membership of the UN Security Council as well as G-8," said an official.
The bilateral defence relations have also transformed from just military cooperation to comprehensive defence cooperation. Apart from the navies and air forces of the two countries holding regular Varuna and Garuda series of combat exercises, the two armies have also begun to conduct the Shakti wargames now.
Defence procurements and joint R&D projects constitute a critical element of the bilateral partnership. France already has two major defence projects underway with India, while it also negotiates to bag the almost $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project to supply 126 Rafale fighters to IAF.
India is building six French Scorpene submarines at Mazagon Docks under the Rs 23,562 crore 'Project-75' at Mumbai. The project, however, has been dogged with huge time and cost overruns. The Navy now hopes to get the desperately-required new submarines in the 2015-2020 timeframe, over four years behind schedule.
Allegations of kickbacks had also swirled around the October 2005 contracts signed with the two French companies Rs 6,135-crore with M/s Armaris (a DCN-Thales joint venture) for transfer of technology and construction design, and Rs 1,062-crore with M/s MBDA for sea-skimming Exocet missiles but nothing much came out of them.
The other big ongoing project is the one for the upgrade of the 51 French-origin Mirage-2000 fighters, which were first inducted in the IAF fleet in the mid-1980s. The overall upgrade programme of the Mirage-2000s is pegged at Rs 17,547 crore, with the first two fighters being upgraded in France and the rest 49 by Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) under transfer of technology.
The upgrade programme has been dubbed very exorbitant by many critics but the IAF says Mirage-2000s will be virtually new and potent fighters after undergoing it. First in July 2011, the upgrade programme was finalized at Rs 10,947 crore, which included both the French and HAL work-shares.
Then, early last year, the second contract worth around Rs 6,600 crore for 490 advanced fire-and-forget MICA (interception and aerial combat missiles) systems to arm the fighters was finalized with French armament major MBDA. The overall upgrade package may even cross the Rs 20,000 crore-mark over the decade it will take to complete it, as was earlier reported by TOI.
But defence minister A K Antony, holding that major upgrade decisions are suitably negotiated in a competitive environment, says the Mirage upgrade programme also includes fitment of advanced multi-mode target radar, reconfigured glass cockpit and advance avionics, state-of-the-art electronic warfare system and capability to launch advanced missiles.
The real prize for France will, of course, be the MMRCA project. There have been several problems in the final negotiations with French aviation major Dassault, which have been meandering for well over an year now after the Rafale defeated Eurofighter Typhoon in the commercial bid stage. The two jets had earlier outclassed the American F/A-18 'Super Hornet' and F-16 'Super Viper', the Russian MiG-35 and Swedish Gripen in extensive field trials
The defence ministry, however, says the workshare problems between Dassault and HAL have now been sorted out to a large extent. Under the project, while the first 18 jets will come in fly-away condition, the rest 108 fighters will be manufactured under licence by HAL over six years.
Dassault was earlier demanding that it would be responsible only for the first 18 jets, while HAL will have shoulder responsibility for the other 108 fighters once the kits for them are supplied to the defence PSU. MoD, however, had rejected this contention, holding that Dassault will be responsible for the execution of the entire project. But even now, it will still take several months before the MMRCA contract is finally inked.
