India, Russia seek clear millitary path
10 Oct 2012 12:23 AM GMT
Sergei Lavrov, Russian defence minister’s day-long visit to the country’s capital Wednesday, is not an issue of concern to either side of South Block – the northern end where the prime minister’s office and the ministry of external affairs are located or to the southern side where the defence ministry is ensconced.
To the central government, Lavrov’s recent cancellation of India visit or his tour of Pakistan the same month is also of no concern. The officials in the building say that the depth of the Indian and Russian relationship is such that, that these kinds of developments don’t really affect.
The partnership of India and Russia had gone through good times and bad. There was a time in the early 1990’s when the Indian authorities were deeply troubled on the basis of the country’s national security. The spares of the defence materiel became so scarce as the far flung Soviet military industry made it difficult to source, that the armed forces’ were really on tenterhooks about how to deal with the situation.
Those times, in a smaller scale, appear to be returning despite New Delhi maintaining the ratio of 70 per cent Russian products in the country’s total kitty of defence products. For example, a senior defence ministry source says, ‘We have been trying so hard to carry the level of the reportage by the media to a different point, but we are always dragged down the by Gorshkov narrative.’
Russia and India have recently become aware that the ill-fated aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, just keep getting embroiled in controversies. Till two years ago, the revised price demanded by the Russian’s continued to dominate the discussion about Indo-Russian defence relationship in negative terms of the former arm-twisting India.
Now the last straw on the camel’s back seem to have broken as the delivery of the carrier seem to have been postponed again to 2013.
To the central government, Lavrov’s recent cancellation of India visit or his tour of Pakistan the same month is also of no concern. The officials in the building say that the depth of the Indian and Russian relationship is such that, that these kinds of developments don’t really affect.
The partnership of India and Russia had gone through good times and bad. There was a time in the early 1990’s when the Indian authorities were deeply troubled on the basis of the country’s national security. The spares of the defence materiel became so scarce as the far flung Soviet military industry made it difficult to source, that the armed forces’ were really on tenterhooks about how to deal with the situation.
Those times, in a smaller scale, appear to be returning despite New Delhi maintaining the ratio of 70 per cent Russian products in the country’s total kitty of defence products. For example, a senior defence ministry source says, ‘We have been trying so hard to carry the level of the reportage by the media to a different point, but we are always dragged down the by Gorshkov narrative.’
Russia and India have recently become aware that the ill-fated aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, just keep getting embroiled in controversies. Till two years ago, the revised price demanded by the Russian’s continued to dominate the discussion about Indo-Russian defence relationship in negative terms of the former arm-twisting India.
Now the last straw on the camel’s back seem to have broken as the delivery of the carrier seem to have been postponed again to 2013.
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