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Will Antony bite the bullet on critical but controversial missile deals with Israel?
Will defence minister A K Antonybite the bullet this time? An important meeting of the Antony-led Defence Acquisitions Council (DAC) is slated for Monday to consider two mega defence deals that are controversial but considered critical to plug operational military gaps.
Both the deals are with Israeli firm Rafael on “a single vendor” basis without global competition. They have also been kept pending for several years despite red alerts being sounded by the Army and Navy due to different pulls and pressures as well as “leaks” of top-secret documents and a seven-year-old CBI probe.
The first is the acquisition of Israeli “Spike” anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) for all the 355 infantry battalions of the Army. The over Rs 15,000 crore project will involve an initial import of the man-portable “tank killers”, followed by transfer of technology (ToT) to defence PSU Bharat Dynamics for indigenous manufacture.
The second – a Rs 393 crore deal – is for acquisition of additional 262 missiles to arm the Israeli Barak-I anti-missile defence (AMD) systems fitted on 14 Indian frontline warships, including solitary aircraft carrier INS Viraat, say sources.
Faced with a fast-depleting stock of Barak missiles, which intercept hostile incoming sea-skimming missiles at a nine-km range, Navy chief Admiral D K Joshi has even written to Antony for a quick decision on this “critical operational requirement”, as was reported by TOI earlier.
But the government has dithered till now due to the pending CBI probe into the infamous Barak kickbacks case of October 2006, which named former defence minister George Fernandes, his party associates Jaya Jaitely and R K Jain, alleged arms dealer Suresh Nanda and former Navy chief Admiral Sushil Kumar among the accused.
Army’s requirement for third-generation ATGMs (1,914 launchers and 37,860 missiles) is equally critical. If DAC clears the Israeli project, it will be a strong rebuff to the US that has been aggressively hawking its own “Javelin” ATGMs. In September, US deputy secretary of defence Ash Carter had even offered a joint project to manufacture next-generation Javelin missiles during his visit to India.
But the DAC on Monday will take a call on the Spike project, which was earlier referred for a “technology scan” to ascertain whether such ATGMs were available from elsewhere. The MoD also has had to contend with the “leak” of classified documents about the ATGM project.
The UPA government has refrained from blacklisting Israeli Aerospace Industries and Rafael despite the 2006 CBI case on the ground that it would be “counter-productive”. IAI and DRDO are also collaborating on two major but delayed projects to develop a long-range surface-to-air missile (LR-SAM) system for Rs 2,606 crore to arm Indian warships and a medium-range SAM system for IAF at a cost of Rs 10,076 crore.
Link - Will Antony bite the bullet on critical but controversial missile deals with Israel? | idrw.org
Will defence minister A K Antonybite the bullet this time? An important meeting of the Antony-led Defence Acquisitions Council (DAC) is slated for Monday to consider two mega defence deals that are controversial but considered critical to plug operational military gaps.
Both the deals are with Israeli firm Rafael on “a single vendor” basis without global competition. They have also been kept pending for several years despite red alerts being sounded by the Army and Navy due to different pulls and pressures as well as “leaks” of top-secret documents and a seven-year-old CBI probe.
The first is the acquisition of Israeli “Spike” anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) for all the 355 infantry battalions of the Army. The over Rs 15,000 crore project will involve an initial import of the man-portable “tank killers”, followed by transfer of technology (ToT) to defence PSU Bharat Dynamics for indigenous manufacture.
The second – a Rs 393 crore deal – is for acquisition of additional 262 missiles to arm the Israeli Barak-I anti-missile defence (AMD) systems fitted on 14 Indian frontline warships, including solitary aircraft carrier INS Viraat, say sources.
Faced with a fast-depleting stock of Barak missiles, which intercept hostile incoming sea-skimming missiles at a nine-km range, Navy chief Admiral D K Joshi has even written to Antony for a quick decision on this “critical operational requirement”, as was reported by TOI earlier.
But the government has dithered till now due to the pending CBI probe into the infamous Barak kickbacks case of October 2006, which named former defence minister George Fernandes, his party associates Jaya Jaitely and R K Jain, alleged arms dealer Suresh Nanda and former Navy chief Admiral Sushil Kumar among the accused.
Army’s requirement for third-generation ATGMs (1,914 launchers and 37,860 missiles) is equally critical. If DAC clears the Israeli project, it will be a strong rebuff to the US that has been aggressively hawking its own “Javelin” ATGMs. In September, US deputy secretary of defence Ash Carter had even offered a joint project to manufacture next-generation Javelin missiles during his visit to India.
But the DAC on Monday will take a call on the Spike project, which was earlier referred for a “technology scan” to ascertain whether such ATGMs were available from elsewhere. The MoD also has had to contend with the “leak” of classified documents about the ATGM project.
The UPA government has refrained from blacklisting Israeli Aerospace Industries and Rafael despite the 2006 CBI case on the ground that it would be “counter-productive”. IAI and DRDO are also collaborating on two major but delayed projects to develop a long-range surface-to-air missile (LR-SAM) system for Rs 2,606 crore to arm Indian warships and a medium-range SAM system for IAF at a cost of Rs 10,076 crore.
Link - Will Antony bite the bullet on critical but controversial missile deals with Israel? | idrw.org
