India, U.K. to firm up defence links:

India, U.K. to firm up defence links:

Context

• India and Britain  meet focuses on concrete measures to take forward their defence partnership by next year.
• The meeting of the two leaders is widely expected to take place at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in London in April 2018.

Talks of co-operation

• India’s Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra in his three-day visit met with Michael Fallon, Ministry of Defence(U.K) to hold meetings of the Defence Consultative Group.
• The visit consolidates India-UK defence cooperation in the framework of the Defence and International Security Partnership (DISP), agreed in November 2015.
• The defence partnership will encompass cooperation in the defence industry, stronger military to military engagement, including training and joint exercises.
• The renewed engagement will place capability and technology development at its core and use the private and public sectors to develop defence solutions for use in home and shared export markets.
• The Defence ministers will continue to coordinate policies across a range of global security challenges, especially those intended to eliminate international terrorism.
• The ministers agreed to further strengthen their naval interactions, including enhanced Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) to exchange information to track terrorists and pirate vessels. This is key to the DISP.
• The two ministers recognised the potential for further cooperation in defence manufacturing between the UK and Indian companies under ‘Make in India’.
• Recent announcements were made including the MOU between Bharat Dynamics and Thales UK on technology transfer opportunities for missile systems. And to develop an Advanced Hawk jet trainer jointly by the BAE Systems and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
• Both nations will explore establishing a secure communications method to share classified material.
• The two ministers recognised the need for stronger R&D cooperation, including access to Defence R&D training.

Make in India push

• India puts the defence sector as one of the major areas where the bilateral partnership could be expanded around the “Make in India” campaign.
• During Mr. Modi’s visit in 2015, the two sides agreed to move towards a new Defence and International Security Partnership that would “intensify cooperation on defence and security, including cybersecurity, and maritime security” pushing for joint working in key strategic areas.
• India is hoping that U.K. firms participate in ‘Make in India’ process thus strengthening the strategic partnership exercise between the two countries.

India- UK relation in the present day context:

• India and the United Kingdom share a modern partnership bound by strong historical ties.
• The bilateral relationship that was upgraded to a strategic partnership in 2004, was further strengthened during the tenure of British Prime Minister David Cameron to India who visited India thrice in his first term.
• The successful visit of Prime Minister Modi to the UK in November 2015 gave further impetus to the bilateral relationship.
• Interactions at the highest political level have continued as is reflected from UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s latest visit to India in November 2016, her first overseas bilateral visit after assuming office in July 2016.

India – U.K Defence Cooperation

• Cooperation in defence sector is another important pillar of bilateral cooperation.
• At all the three services level, joint exercises and wide ranging exchanges between the three services are conducted regularly.
• The last Army Joint Exercise ‘Ajeya Warrior’ was held in the UK from 7-28 June, 2015.
• The Indian Air force participated in the Exercise ‘Indradhanush-IV’ in the UK from 21 July – 1 August, 2015. The Joint Navy Exercise ‘Konkan 2017’ was held in May 2017 at Plymouth in the UK that witnessed participation by INS Tarkash.
• During Prime Minister’s visit to UK in November 2015, the two countries agreed to elevate their Defence relationship by establishing capability partnerships in strategic areas through which we will work together across the spectrum of doctrine, training and other elements upon which military effectiveness depends.
• The institutionalized dialogue to discuss defence cooperation viz. Defence Consultative Group Meeting, is held annually at Defence Secretary level. The 17th DCG meeting was held on 15-16 November 2016 in New Delhi.