India and the US get ahead with their plans that were discussed at the 2+2 Ministerial Meet in Washington DC last week.
Both India and the US will now jointly overlook sea patrolling and exchange crucial intelligence to strengthen the bilateral ties pertaining to maritime and other verticals like cyber security, space technology, and AI. India and the US aim to have a strong Indo-Pacific corridor, majorly to defend truculent China.
A senior spokesman of the Ministry of Defense stated, “India and the US re-assured joint operations over the sea patrolling and intelligence exchange via satellites and other discreet platforms. The 2+2 Ministerial Meet in Washington DC proved successful and operations have begun of cooperation.”
Routine Malabar naval drills are carried out in a phased manner by all the Quad countries (the US, India, Japan, and Australia). The joint sea patrol operation comes in the wake of troublesome China’s continuous encroachments. China has a staggering fleet of 355 submarines and warships in the region of the Indian Ocean.
Last week Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met his counterpart Austin III and senior officials of Boeing and Raytheon to strengthen ties on various fronts apart from the obvious business ties.
The Ministry of Defence’s spokesman further added, “The US will send in their naval team to the Indian shipyards in tandem with India’s pact to repair and maintain American vessels. India will provide state-of-the-art facilities at nominal charges to the US.”
He revealed further, “$ 100 million will be injected by Raytheon for R&D in Bengaluru, Boeing will set up shop for maintenance, repair and overhaul facility for Poseidon maritime aircraft and other variants. India operates a fleet of 12 Boeing P-81 which is evaluated at $ 3.2 billion.”
India and the US renewed their Defence Technology and Trade Initiative alongside 2 major projects in the pipeline, ISTAR (intelligence, surveillance, targeting, and reconnaissance) and counter UAS (unmanned aerial systems) Platforms.
