In the world of multibillion-dollar defence contracts, India stands out.<\/p>\n
Home to one of the biggest armed forces on the planet, the country has an uneasy co-existence with neighbours Pakistan and China. Its rapidly aging fighter jets make it a lucrative potential prize for the likes of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. While India wants to upgrade its fleet, there\u2019s one big road block: New Delhi\u2019s famed red tape.<\/p>\n
The country — the world\u2019s biggest arms importer, with an annual defence budget of $43 billion — has been dangling a potential $15 billion fighter jet deal for more than a decade, with Lockheed and Boeing, the world\u2019s two largest contractors, vying for the chance to refit India\u2019s air force. Although drawn-out negotiations aren\u2019t uncommon in the arms world, India took 32 years to seal a deal with the U.S. to buy 145 howitzers from BAE Systems Plc, with arcane procurement rules and shifting specifications contributing to the lengthy delays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the world of multibillion-dollar defence contracts, India stands out. Home to one of the biggest armed forces on the planet, the country has an uneasy co-existence with neighbours Pakistan and China. Its rapidly aging fighter jets make it a lucrative potential prize for the likes of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. While India wants to upgrade its fleet, there\u2019s one big road block: New Delhi\u2019s famed red tape. The country — the world\u2019s biggest arms importer, with an annual defence budget of $43 billion — has been dangling a potential $15 billion fighter jet deal for more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[208,130,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-aviation-the-new-indian-express","category-newspapers","category-the-new-indian-express"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}