India to US: Ease defence sale norms, transfer of technology

At the meeting, officials said, India also conveyed to the US side in detail that Pakistan cannot be trusted with western military equipment and platforms as they could share the technology with China for them to be reverse engineered.

Austin arrived in New Delhi from Singapore on Sunday. It’s his second visit to India.

At the meeting, officials said, the Indian and the US sides discussed military capacity building, ensuring a greater maritime domain awareness, strategic infrastructure and logistics, besides future collaboration on a range of defence technologies, with an emphasis on the underwater domain.

Stating that a greater collaboration with the US on critical and advanced technologies were discussed in the bilateral talks, an official said the possibility of collaborating on more such newer technologies was discussed.

“While talks on inking a partnership between state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s (HAL) and American firm General Electric (GE) for joint manufacturing of indigenous jet engines of fighter aircraft are at an advanced stage, both sides will look for other critical technologies to collaborate on,” an official said.

“It is in this context that easing of stringent US rules and regulations on sales of defence equipment and technology transfers was discussed,” the official added.

India is also learnt to have told the US that sourcing of parts should be increased from India in context of the Air India-Boeing deal announced in February this year. “India also conveyed that for equipment and platforms purchased from the US, there should be Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facilities set up in India as with them going out of the country for the purpose creates a gap,” an official said.

Singh told Austin that a greater number of US ships should be sent to India for overhaul, maintenance, and repair. Since last year, two US ships docked at a L&T facility in Chennai for a few days for maintenance and repair work. A third ship is likely to come to India for this purpose soon.

In a statement later, the US said that Austin and Singh committed to strengthen operational collaboration across all military services, with an eye on supporting India’s leading role as a security provider in the Indo-Pacific, the statement said.

“Secretary (Austin) and Minister Singh welcomed the conclusion of a new Roadmap for US-India Defense Industrial Cooperation, which will fast-track technology cooperation and co-production in areas such as air combat and land mobility systems; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; munitions; and the undersea domain,” the US statement said.

This initiative, the US statement said, aims to change the paradigm for cooperation between US and Indian defence sectors, including a set of specific proposals that could provide India access to cutting-edge technologies and support India’s defence modernisation plans.

“The Secretary and Minister Singh also pledged to review regulatory hurdles impeding closer industry-to-industry cooperation and to initiate negotiations on a Security of Supply Arrangement and a Reciprocal Defense Procurement agreement, which will promote long-term supply chain stability,” it added.

The two sides also discussed the growing importance of defence innovation and cooperation in emerging domains such as space, cyberspace, and artificial intelligence. They welcomed the establishment of the India-US Defense Acceleration Ecosystem (INDUS-X), a new initiative to advance cutting-edge technology cooperation. The initiative, which will be launched by the US-India Business Council on June 21, is designed to complement existing government-to-government collaboration by promoting innovative partnerships between US and Indian companies, investors, start-up accelerators, and academic research institutions.

As per the US statement, in his meeting with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Austin exchanged views about regional and global security issues of concern, including maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region.

A statement by the Indian side said Singh and Austin explored ways of building resilient supply chains. Both sides will identify opportunities for co-development of new technologies and co-production of existing and new systems and facilitate increased collaboration between defence start-up ecosystems of the two countries.

“Towards these objectives, they concluded a roadmap for US-India Defence Industrial Cooperation which shall guide the policy direction for the next few years,” it added.

Senior officials from the Ministry of Defence, including Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan, Defence Secretary Shri Giridhar Aramane and Secretary, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Dr Samir V Kamat, participated in the meeting.