NEW DELHI: India and Israel have decided on Friday to set up a new Task Force during the 15th India-Israel Joint Working Group meeting in Tel Aviv. The decision to form a sub-working group was also taken in the meeting.
"India-Israel Joint Working Group (JWG) on Bilateral Defence Cooperation has agreed to form a Task Force to formulate a comprehensive Ten-Year Roadmap to identify new areas of cooperation," said the Ministry of Defence in a statement.
The meeting was co-chaired by Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar and the Director General of Israel's Ministry of Defence, Maj Gen (Retd) Amir Eshel.
During the meeting, the two sides reviewed the progress made in Military to Military engagements including exercises and industry cooperation. The co-chairs were also appraised on the progress made by the Sub Working Groups (SWG) on Defence Procurement & Production and Research & Development.
It was also decided to form a SWG on Defence Industry Cooperation and in this regard a Terms of Reference was signed between the two sides.
"The formation of this SWG would enable efficient utilisation of bilateral resources, effective flow of technologies and sharing industrial capabilities. It was also decided to schedule the Service level Staff talks in a specific time frame," said the Ministry of Defence.
The JWG is the apex body between the Ministry of Defence of India and Israel's Ministry of Defence to comprehensively review and guide all aspects of Bilateral Defence Cooperation. The two sides agreed to hold the next JWG in India on mutually convenient dates.
Meanwhile, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and an Indian Air Force (IAF) team on Friday jointly flight tested indigenously developed Long-Range Bomb (LRB) successfully from an aerial platform. The LR Bomb, after release from the IAF fighter aircraft, guided to a land-based target at a long-range with accuracy within specified limits. All the mission objectives were successfully met.
"The flight of the bomb and the performance was monitored by a number of range sensors including Electro Optical Tracking System (EOTS), Telemetry and radar deployed by the Integrated Test Range, Chandipur in Odisha." the Ministry of Defence said.
The LR Bomb has been designed and developed by Research Centre Imarat (RCI), a DRDO laboratory located at Hyderabad in coordination with other DRDO laboratories.