PNS, NEW DELHI: The Indian measures to provide more teeth to its air force and navy have once against created the chances of an arms race in the region as no country can remain oblivious of its security and survival,” said defence and diplomatic observers here.
Commenting on the announcement of the Indian Air Chief S. Krishnaswamy that the country has begun to induct the second batch of the Russian-made Sukhoi MKI aircraft, they said the recent attempts by India to equip its armed forces with all sorts of lethal weapons had all the dangers of starting a new arms race in the region because no country could ignore the pending threat to its security and survival.
It may be mentioned here that Russian had recently provided the IAF with the first batch of the upgraded Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter get, amalgamated with Indian, Israeli and French Systems on Russian engines.
The Indian Air Chief told correspondents that the latest batch was even more advanced. “The new batch of the aircraft has arrived and they are absolutely on schedule. The aircraft is being assembled. It is the next phase so it's got some new system on board so these will be taken over. Our pilots will start flying them,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Controller of Warship and Acquisition, Vice Admiral P. Jaitly, said in Panaji that the Indian Navy plans to acquire a fleet of Extra Fast Attack Craft (XFAC) with the Israeli technology to strengthen surveillance along the coast.
Speaking after launching the XFAC built by the Goa Shipyard at a function at Vasco, he said that India's vast coastline had placed enormous responsibilities on the Navy with an EEZ encompassing 2.2 million km. The XFACs are being deployed to protect these zones, he added.
The XFAC, it may be mentioned here, has been designed for putting to the sea in the shortest possible time for day and night surveillance and reconnaissance coordinated sea-air search and rescue operations, beach insertion of commando forces and high speed interception of small, maneuverable intruder craft over territorial waters.
