INDIA: After a 21-year wait, India yesterday finally decided to buy 66 British Aerospace Hawk trainer aircraft for £1.1 billion (€1.6 billion) to cut the air force's spiralling accident rate, now among the world's highest.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) lost 273 fighter planes, or nearly 15 squadrons, mostly Soviet-designed MiG 21s, in crashes between 1991 and 2003, killing more than 100 pilots. The losses led to repeated demands for an advanced jet trainer, the AJT that was first recommended in 1982. Frequent crashes earned the MiG 21 the dubious nickname "the flying coffin".
The cabinet committee on security, chaired by Prime Minister Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, cleared the purchase of the Hawk trainers, which can also be used in combat. The committee also approved the purchase of various other military equipment for the navy and army, in a move that analysts claimed could trigger an arms race with nuclear rival Pakistan.
The neighbours who have fought three wars since independence 56 years ago are constantly locked in tit-for-tat rivalry, especially over nuclear and military matters.
Announcing the committee's decision, Defence Secretary Mr Ajay Prasad said the contract with British Aerospace would be signed "soon", 35 months after which aircraft deliveries would begin, before being completed by 2009.
"The decision [to buy the trainers\] fulfils the long-standing needs of the IAF," Mr Prasad said. The jet trainer would improve the skill of trainee pilots graduating from low-speed trainers to high-performance frontline fighter aircraft, he added.
A recent Public Accounts Committee report declared that 42 per cent of the air force's accidents were due to human error and inadequate training. It severely criticised the IAF's system of training pilots on the locally built HPT 32s and Kirans and then moving them directly onto supersonic MiG 21s without the "intermediate AJT interface", thereby leading to accidents.
Mr Prasad said "difficulties" over price with British Aerospace had delayed the deal.
India will also sign a separate inter-governmental agreement with Britain to ensure "long-term product support" for the Hawk that, at New Delhi's insistence, has been "divested" of all components from the US.
India is wary of buying American military equipment after Washington imposed sanctions on Delhi for its 1998 nuclear tests, delaying critical defence programmes.
India also cleared the purchase of seven electronic warfare systems for the navy from Rafael of Israel, for £65.6 million (€95.2 million), and the upgrading by 2007 of the "ghatak" - lethal platoons in infantry units with enhanced fire power, night-fighting, surveillance and communication capabilities, at a cost of around £428 million (€621 million).
It also approved at a cost of £40.27 million (€58.4 million) the establishment of special units over the next two years to detect and neutralise mines and improvised explosive devices planted by insurgents. These have been responsible for killing a large number of the 4,500-strong security forces personnel in war-torn Kashmir.