Drones, Israeli-rifles and Shimon Peres Chowk
India has started manufacturing Israeli rifles in its own backyard.
Hello everyone.
The India-Israel relationship is evolving. Not a week goes by without a new deal, a new agreement or a new tweet almost entirely meant to gloat over the burgeoning ties between the two countries.
For me, these were the biggest developments over the past two weeks:
Earlier this month, it was reported that the Indian government had started manufacturing Israeli Tavor X 95 rifles in India itself. In fact, production has already started. Some police departments have already received the products.
The project is part of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ or ‘self-reliant India’ or the ‘Made in India’ initiative, created by the Indian PM Narendra Modi in a bid to boost the local economy. It is certainly not the only thing India is making in its backyard.
The Indian defense company Bharat Electronics Limited said earlier this month that it would be soon manufacturing Italian Beretta rifles in India itself.This does not mean India is no longer buying weapons from Israel. In January, India received 6,000 Israeli Negev Light Machine Guns (LMGs) out of the 16,000 it had ordered in late 2020. The next consignment is due in March 2021.
Fact: India is the largest buyer of military equipment from Israel. After Russia, Israel is the largest defence supplier to India.
In early February, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu personally ensured that an Israeli delegation (made up of 80 people) would be allowed to travel to India for an arms fair, despite the ban on travel due to covid-19 restrictions.
All that trouble for just another arms fair, you say? Not quite.
“The The Aero India aerospace and defense industry exhibition is considered the second largest aviation fair in the world after the Paris Air Show,” the Haaretz explained.
“Israel exports $7.5 billion in arms a year (representing 10 percent of its industrial exports). Forty percent of those sales are to Asia and around 50 percent of the sales are in sectors participating in Aero India – flight, missiles, radar and aerial defense.”Neither the Israeli officials nor the Israeli companies could afford to miss out.
Fact: India is the tenth-largest trade partner of Israel, and the third-largest from Asia.
A few days ago, Indian media reported that the Indian Army had leased 4 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) aka Heron drones from the Israeli military at a reported cost of $200 million.
The purpose? To assist the Indian military with intelligence gathering along the Line of Control (defacto border between Indian-held and Pakistan-held Kashmir).
The decision to get the four drones was inked in mid-January, under the new’ emergency powers’ granted by the Indian government following clashes with China in mid-2020.About the The Heron drone: It is 8.5-metre (28-foot) long medium-altitude long-endurance combat UAV with a payload of up to 250kg (550lbs). It has a top speed of 200km/h (155mph), can operate for up to 52 hours and has a service ceiling – or maximum altitude – of 10,000 metres. It can carry a payload of over 1000 kg.” In other words: tt is perfect for the mountainous region.
Fact: Between 2010–2014 Israel supplied 7% of India’s arms imports. Enter Modi and between 2014-2018, this figure doubled to 15%. The weapons trade between India and Israel is now worth $1bn per year.
The Israeli embassy in India has been aggressively marketing the so-called Abrahamic Accords in India. This week, Israeli Ambassador Ron Malka participated in a webinar to promote the Donald Trump-mediated deals between the Gulf and Israel, urging Indians to consider how they might be able to benefit from the thawing of relations between Israel and the Gulf. The Indian government has broadly welcomed the ‘Abrahamic Accords’, seeing it as a possibility to build closer relations with Israel and the Gulf, despite the setback it represents for Palestinian self-determination.
📢Want to know more about how #AbrahamAccords have opened new opportunities for #India 🇮🇳, #Israel 🇮🇱, and the #Gulf? Join Ambassador @DrRonMalka, @navdeepsuri, @AJCGlobal’s Jason Isaacson, and @arjunhardas in a webinar on February 14, 2021, at 6:30 PM IST. Zoom details ⬇️Fact: India’s ties with the UAE have also blossomed over the past five years. In 2015, Narendra Modi became the first Indian PM to visit the UAE in 34 years. Two years later, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, was the chief guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations. Ron Malka, Israel’s ambassador to India, describes the India-Israel-UAE relationship as the ‘trilateral block’ in West Asia.
Side bar: Last week, a junction in a prominent Mumbai neighbourhood was named Shimon Peres Chowk, after the former Israeli politician, making it the first time a junction in Mumbai would be named after a foreign leader.
Incidentally, the neighbourhood in which this junction resides, is known as Kala Ghoda (Black horse). The area took the name of a statue of King Edward VII riding a black horse that once stood in the neighbourhood. The statue is no longer there today, but Kala Ghoda is home to boutiques, museums and the Knesset Eliyahoo, an iconic Orthodox Jewish synagogue built in 1884, and at one point a sizeable Baghdadi Jewish community, too.
It is not clear why the junction was named after Peres. He is not known to have had any connection with Mumbai, India or the horse.
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Until next time,
Azad