HT exclusive: India to get US military tech in 3 key areas

India and the US have agreed to jointly develop and produce cutting-edge military equipment to enhance the reach and muscle of the Indian military.

Updated on: Feb 10, 2015, 01:59:30 IST

Hindustan Times | By Shishir Gupta, New Delhi

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India and the US have agreed to jointly develop and produce cutting-edge military equipment to enhance the reach and muscle of the Indian military.

The Pentagon has agreed to share with New Delhi the electro-magnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), hot engine and extended battery man pack technologies under the defence trade and technology initiative, government sources said Monday.

The world’s biggest importer of weapons, India is looking to promote its domestic arms industry and sharing of technology is a vital part of it.

The deal will be inked when US under secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics Frank Kendall arrives in the Capital on February 24. He was in India in January as well to give final touches to defence issues ahead of US President Barack Obama’s Republic Day visit.

Currently being developed by General Atomics, EMALS technology will replace the steam catapults used to launch jets from aircraft carriers. The technology was offered by Obama to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Washington trip in September.

EMALS will not only allow more sorties and reduce the thermal signature of an aircraft carrier but will also provide launch capability for unmanned aerial vehicles, sources said. The system is low on maintenance and energy consumption. India’s two aircraft carriers — INS Viraat and INS Vikramaditya — use steam catapults.

General Electric’s hot-engine technology permits fighter jets to operate in hot weather conditions without any possibility of an engine failure. This next generation technology is needed in the hot and dry climate of Rajasthan and Gujarat as well as parts of Haryana and Punjab.

Extended battery packs increase the survivability of ground troops and enhances their effectiveness as platoons remain in touch with commanders for extended periods of time without fear of batteries running out. The battery pack has been developed by General Dynamics, an American aerospace and defence company.

Boosting defence production through foreign investors and technology is part of Modi’s ambitious Make in India initiative.

India, which buys 65% of its weapons from abroad, is expected to spend an estimated $250 billion in the next decade to modernise its military. The US has edged out Russia and Israel to emerge as India’s biggest arms supplier in the last three years — 2011-14.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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