India and France are very close to sealing an agreement on jointly designing, developing and manufacturing high-tech platforms required to fight future wars.
Strategic allies India and France have decided to set up a joint working group on the operational, military-logistics and political lessons learnt from the ongoing war in Ukraine. The working group will have members drawn from the national security and foreign ministry of both countries
French defence minister Sebastien Lecornu met defence minister Rajnath Singh, external affairs minister S Jaishankar and national security advisor Ajit Doval on November 28 to deepen the seabed-to-space cooperation between two countries with a focus on joint design, development and manufacturing of hardware platforms in India under the rubric of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” project.
India and France have also decided to synergize and cooperate in cyber-security and space regarding technology sharing and the exchange of futuristic implementable ideas.
The India-France alliance, guided by PM Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron, is now discussing joint research and development of aircraft engines, fighter planes, long-range submarines and hardware that are key to winning future wars.
At the meeting with NSA Doval, it was decided that both sides would jointly identify the hardware projects on a priority basis and then co-develop them under the “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” initiative.
Specific timelines will be set for each design, development and manufacturing of the military products to cut through the bureaucratic red tape within Indian military-civilian babudom. The products include platforms for sub-surface awareness to maritime time awareness on the surface and in the skies.