(Reuters)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEW DELHI, May 27 – India’s defence minister has approved a framework for building the country’s most advanced stealth fighter jet, the defence ministry said on Tuesday,\u00a0amid a new arms race<\/a>\u00a0with Pakistan weeks after a military conflict between the neighbours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indian state-run Aeronautical Development Agency, which is executing the programme, will shortly invite initial interest from defence firms for developing a prototype of the warplane, envisaged as a twin-engine 5th generation fighter, the ministry said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The project is crucial for the Indian Air Force, whose squadrons of mainly Russian and ex-Soviet aircraft have fallen to 31 from an approved strength of 42 at a time when rival China is expanding its air force rapidly. Pakistan has one of China’s most advanced warplanes, the J-10, in its arsenal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Militaries of nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan faced-off in four days of fighting this month, which saw use of fighter jets, missiles, drones and artillery by both sides before a ceasefire was announced<\/a> by U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was the first time both sides utilised drones at scale and the South Asian powers are now locked in a drones arms race, according to Reuters’ interviews<\/a> with 15 people, including security officials, industry executives and analysts in the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n India will partner with a domestic firm for the stealth fighter programme, and companies can bid independently or as a joint venture, the defence ministry said in a statement, adding that the bids would be open for both private and state-owned firms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In March, an Indian defence committee had recommended including the private sector<\/a> in military aircraft manufacturing to shore up the capabilities of the Indian Air Force and reduce the burden on state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HIAE.NS), opens new tab<\/a>, which makes most of India’s military aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh has previously criticised<\/a> Hindustan Aeronautics for slow delivery of light combat Tejas aircraft, a 4.5 generation fighter, which the firm blamed on slow delivery of engines from General Electric (GE.N), opens new tab<\/a> due to supply chain issues faced by the U.S. firm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Reuters) NEW DELHI, May 27 – India’s defence minister has approved a framework for building the country’s most advanced stealth fighter jet, the defence ministry said on Tuesday,\u00a0amid a new arms race\u00a0with Pakistan weeks after a military conflict between the neighbours. Indian state-run Aeronautical Development Agency, which is executing the programme, will shortly invite initial interest from defence firms for developing a prototype of the warplane, envisaged as a twin-engine 5th generation fighter, the ministry said. The project is crucial for the Indian Air Force, whose squadrons of mainly Russian and ex-Soviet aircraft have fallen to 31 from an approved… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47364,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47362\/revisions\/47364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}