beijingwalker
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Why Indians don't design their own rifles? AK platform is almost a century old antique.
Nepal regretted using pos Indian INSAS rifles. Their soldiers died in a gun fight because of Made in India quality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INSAS_rifle#cite_note-31During the 1999 Kargil War, the rifles were used in the high altitudes of the Himalayas. There were complaints of jamming, the magazine cracking due to the cold and the rifle going into automatic mode when it was set for three-round bursts.[1] There was also a problem of oil being sprayed into the eye of the operator. Some injuries during firing practice were also reported.[20] In 2001, the 1B1 variant was introduced to solve problems regarding the rifle's reliability back in the Kargil War, but it opened up other problems such as broken magazines.[21][19]
Similar complaints were also received from the Nepalese Army.[1] In August 2005, after 43 soldiers were killed in a clash with Maoists, a Nepalese Army spokesman called the rifle substandard and their counter-insurgency operation would have been more efficient with better weapons. The Indian embassy released a statement that rejected the claim and attributed it to improper use, it also offered training for the rifle's correct use.[22]
On 8 August 2011, Pallam Raju, then Minister of State for Defence, replying to a question in the Lok Sabha said that all the reported problems had been rectified.[20] Soon afterwards in a press release, the Ministry of Defence reported the number and details of the injuries that had happened during firing practice since 2009. The statement also acknowledged the problem of oil-sprays reported in 2003 and said that the problem had been completely fixed. The report attributed the injuries to improper usage and the rifle's material.[23]
In November 2014, the CRPF requested to drop the INSAS as their standard rifle due to problems with reliability. The Director General of CRPF Dilip Trivedi said that the INSAS jams more frequently compared to the AK-47 and the X-95.[24]
In December 2014, a parliamentary committee presented its report, after investigating why a high-quality assault rifle was not being produced.[25] In 2015, a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the Delhi High Court by a retired lieutenant colonel. He claimed that the lack of a modern rifle was causing soldiers to lose their lives. In April 2015, the Court asked the Ministry of Defence to file its response.[26] The Ministry defended the use of the rifle, saying that casualties cannot be blamed on the weapon as it was inducted after thorough trials and had undergone three major upgrades since. They also pointed out the rifle had been not blamed by the Court of Inquires which had investigated the Naxalite operations.[27] In November 2015, the Court dismissed the petition stating that there was not enough evidence to show any defects in the INSAS. It also noted the government was in the process of acquiring new rifles.[28]
In April 2015, the Indian government replaced some INSAS rifles of the CRPF with AK-47s.[29] In early 2017, it was announced that INSAS rifles were to be retired and replaced by rifles capable of firing 7.62×51mm NATO cartridges.[30] In March 2019, media reported that Indian military were set to replace the INSAS with Russia-designed AK-203 assault rifles, manufactured in India under a joint venture.[31]
