US offers India state-of-the-art gear for new aircraft carrier

India and the US have taken another leap in defence cooperation with the joint working groups (JWG) on new generation aircraft carriers and jet engine technology conducting their first video conferences. The two working groups were created after President Barack Obama’s Republic Day visit this year, and defence minister Manohar Parrikar had sought high-end critical technologies from Washington during US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter’s visit to the Capital this week.

Updated on: Jun 6, 2015, 24:12:24 IST

Hindustan Times | By Shishir Gupta, New Delhi

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India and the US have taken another leap in defence cooperation with the joint working groups (JWG) on new generation aircraft carriers and jet engine technology conducting their first video conferences. The two working groups were created after President Barack Obama’s Republic Day visit this year, and defence minister Manohar Parrikar had sought high-end critical technologies from Washington during US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter’s visit to the Capital this week.

South Block sources said US is offering state-of-the-art electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), advanced arresting gear (AAG) and latest three-dimensional electronic warfare suite for the proposed second indigenous aircraft carrier, the 65,000-tonne INS Vishal.

A Vikrant-class carrier, INS Vishal is still in the design stage and could have nuclear propulsion. The JWG on aircraft carrier technology, sharing and design is headed by US Commander, Naval Sea Systems Command, and Chief Controller, Warship Production and Acquisition from the Indian Navy.

“The aircraft carrier group has already moved ahead with India planning to send a team to US to study the aircraft carrier technology. The EMALS system, a quantum technology upgrade from traditional steam catapults, is built by General Atomics and will be used for the first time in Gerald Ford class US aircraft carriers. The jet engine group represented by air force from both sides has also met over video conference with India seeking hot engine technology that allows fighters to perform in extreme hot conditions like those existing in Thar desert,” said a senior official.

While India has a long history of naval aviation and operates two aircraft carriers, including INS Vikramaditya, China’s sole aircraft carrier Liaoning was launched in 2012 but is still under trial stage and far from active service.

India is the only country in Asia that fully operates aircraft carriers though Thailand also purchased a carrier in 1997.

Although India-US finalized joint development of mobile electric hybrid power sources and nuclear-biological-chemical protective gear, it was evident from Secretary Carter’s exchanges with Indian leadership that the latter was interested in big ticket transformative technologies which would give an orbital jump to Indian military capabilities.

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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