India and the UK will endeavour to build a range of capability partnerships focusing on varied aspects of military effectiveness such as specialised training interactions and exchange of best practices in the following areas – Counter Terrorism (CT), Counter Improvised Explosive Devices (CIED), Air Force Training, Air Total Safety, Aircraft Carriers, Maritime Safety, Shipbuilding and UN Peacekeeping.
While discussing key issues in a delegation level talk between the visiting UK Secretary of state for defence Michael Fallon, who is equivalent to defence minister, held in South Block in national capital between with Indian counterpart Arun Jaitley, both countries agreed to further strengthen their defence partnership in the fields of manufacturing as per the ‘Make in India’ policy besides more joint exercises and co-ordinate policies to fight terrorism. The two countries also recognised the need for stronger R&D cooperation to enable new and vibrant technology partnerships across the defence domain.
However, Indian defence ministry, which is struggling to weed out corruption in defence deals, could not formally communicate UK about arms dealer Sudhir Chaudhrie, involved in several bribery scandals in defence deals and hiding in UK, to hand him over to the Indian investigating agencies.
According to a joint statement issued by the ministry of defence, both countries will explore establishing a secure communications method in order to share classified materials while agreeing to consider upgrading their bilateral general security agreement.
Defence ministers of both nation also agreed to continue to consult and coordinate policies across a range of global security challenges, especially those intended to eliminate the source of international terrorism.
Besides enhancing co-operation in the field of defence manufacturing, the two sides also decided to place capability and technology development at its core and seek to harness the complementary strengths of both nations. This synergy will enable to use the combined strengths of their respective private and public sectors to develop defence solutions for use in both home and shared export markets, a joint statement issues after the meeting said.
The two Ministers agreed to further strengthen their naval and maritime interactions, including enhanced Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) through the bilateral technical agreement to exchange information to track terrorist and pirate vessels.
The Indian side also UK’s interest in manufacturing in India as evidenced through recent announcements including the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Bharat Dynamics Ltd. and Thales UK on technology transfer opportunities for missile systems and efforts to develop an Advanced Hawk jet trainer jointly by the BAE Systems and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).