Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw
Reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official state visit to the US, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said that the Prime Minister’s efforts towards the independent foreign policy have made the world see India as a trusted partner.
“In the last nine years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts towards the independent foreign policy with importance to national interest have made the world see India as a trusted partner,” Ashwini Vaishnaw said. The Union Minister also said that due to the enlargement of the Indian economy and technology development that has happened in the country for the last nine years, the world now sees India as a trusted supply chain partner.
“In the last 9 years, the Indian economy has grown from the 10th largest to the fifth largest in the world and technology has grown like that too. Hence India is seen as a trusted supply chain partner, value chain partner and strategic partner worldwide,” Ashwini Vaishnaw said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is currently on his sixth and maiden State visit to the US.
A ‘state visit’ holds a special significance as compared to other foreign visits, as this is a formal visit by the head of state to a foreign country at the invitation of the head of state hosting him.
The visit signifies the highest expression of friendly bilateral ties between two sovereign nations. Also, during a State visit, the leader extending the invitation acts as the official host of the visiting head of state through the course of the trip.
During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit, many defence agreements have been signed.
India signed a mega pact with General Atomics to procure Predator drones. The pact will allow American Navy ships to undertake major repairs at Indian shipyards.
President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed India’s plans to procure General Atomics MQ-9B HALE UAVs. The MQ-9Bs, assembled in India, will enhance the ISR capabilities of India’s armed forces across domains. As part of this plan, General Atomics will also establish a Comprehensive Global MRO facility in India, read US-India joint statement.
It would be a game-changer for India’s defence production capabilities. The only countries currently capable of producing their own jet engines are the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and France.
This is indeed a roadmap of a very promising and mutually enriching defence partnership with much more to come. The two sides may sign an agreement on a five-year-old deal to buy MQ-9B Predator armed drones from General Atomics. India had earlier leased 2 in 2020 at the height of Chinese aggressive tactics on the LOAC and attempted ‘salami slicing’ of Indian territory.
The sale of armed drones to India had been approved by the Trump Administration in early 2018, marking the first time such approval had been granted to a non-NATO partner. The MQ-9Bs will sharpen India’s defences against China by allowing it to monitor Chinese troop movements and by improving its naval surveillance capabilities to track Chinese maritime activities in the Indian Ocean and the Indo-Pacific.
The Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), which was launched in 2022, will be taken further in this visit. On January 23, the Indian and US National Security Advisors held the inaugural session of the dialogue in Washington, where they announced initiatives to expand cooperation on strategic technologies and defence industrial production. They committed to new partnerships and cooperation in AI, quantum computing, and advanced wireless communications—including deployment and adoption of ‘Open RAN’ in India—and to connect defence start-up companies to catalyse defence innovation. Washington further committed to lowering barriers for US exports to India of High-Performance Computing technology and source code.
(with inputs from ANI)
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