Lucknow: Apurva Chandra, Director General (Acquisition) and Additional Secretary, Department of Defence, said on Wednesday that Israel is a key contributor to ensuring the readiness of India to face its defence challenges.
Speaking at India-Israel Opportunities in Defence Cooperation: Future Vectors of the Digital Battlefield, organised by FICCI, jointly with SIBAT (Israel Ministry of Defence) and Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) at DefExpo 2020, Chandra said that Israel is the largest contributor to Indias preparedness of any adversaries and has been always forthcoming to share high-end technology. He expressed confidence about a continued partnership between India and Israel as all the MoD contracts so far have been concluded on time and the overall experience with Israel has been highly satisfying.
Areas of cooperation
Chandra listed out unmanned vehicles, UAVs, border management and after-sales support/ MRO as the new focus areas of cooperation between the two nations at the seminar that brought together stakeholders from the two nations to deliberate upon the opportunities for cooperation.
‘Hope India-Israel partnership will transform into a strategic partnership’
Brig Gen (Retd) Yair Kulas, Director, SIBAT, Ministry of Defence, Government of Israel, said that the country looks forward to sharing its deep knowledge and technological expertise in the Future Vectors of the Digital Battlefield. He said that cooperation and collaboration are the keys to a strong India-Israel defence partnership.
In his opening remarks, Dr Ron Malka, Ambassador of Israel to India, said that the partnership between the two nations is steadily growing on the foundation of mutual respect, trust, values, interest, tradition and culture. Seeking more joint ventures, he hoped for transforming the cooperation from a buyer-seller relationship to a strategic partnership. He also added that the two nations are world leaders in science and technology and that the scope of cooperation between the two countries is tremendous and across multiple domains.
Future battlefield will be highly digital-centric
SP Shukla, FICCI Defence Committee chairperson and a member on the Group Executive Board of Mahindra Group, said that the future battlefield will be highly digital-centric and cooperation between the two nations on digital battlefield technologies are critical to their future partnership.
