"The
Russian design dovetails with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
concept ‘Make in India’", the newspaper quotes
naval expert Alexander Mozgovoi as saying. The technology transfer is
a key aspect of the aircraft carrier construction issue. "At
present, only Moscow is ready to share with New Delhi both weapons and
other systems, on the one hand, and their development and manufacturing
technologies, on the other," the expert said.
Last week, New Delhi and Washington discussed the feasibility of cooperating
in aircraft carrier construction technologies but reached no agreement.
Similar difficulties have been encountered with the French too. Under
the Indian-French contract for Rafale fighters, India insisted on the
transfer of the active electronically scanned radar technologies. France
refused to do so.
Meanwhile, Russia and India have implemented several successful strategic
military-technical programs on co-developing the BrahMos supersonic
cruise missiles, license-producing Sukhoi Su-30MKI (NATO reporting name:
Flanker-H) fighters by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and developing
the Mikoyan MiG-29K (Fulcrum) carrierborne fighter version for the Vikramaditya
aircraft carrier just to name a few. "Russia is the only country
that has leased a latest nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarine, K-152
Nerpa, to India. A resolution is being worked out to lease another submarine
of the type. We have also assisted India in designing its Arihant nuclear-propulsion
ballistic missile submarine," the daily quotes Vadim Kozyulin,
professor with the Academy of Military Sciences, as saying.
"According to Kozyulin, it is the sum of these factors that favors
the Russian design. The Storm’s deck is designed to accommodate
the MiG-29K. There will be the Russian-Indian Fifth-Generation Fighter
Aircraft (FGFA) further down the line. Its design is commonized with
Russia’s T-50. This means that a carrierborne variant will be
derived from the baseline model in the future. Anyway, the Russian Defense
Ministry has announced its development. It is very unlikely that New
Delhi will resist the temptation to deploy cutting-edge fighters on
deck after investing $25 billion in the joint program. Naturally, it
needs the right parameters in such a case," the Izvestia wrote.
Russia remains India’s primary arms supplier, with the total value
of the contracts having exceeded 340 billion rupee (over $5 billion)
over the past three years, according to a news release by the Indian
Ministry of Defense. According to the ministry, the United States ranks
second, with India having spent 300 billion rupee (about $4.4 billion)
between FY2012-2013 and FY2014-2015. During the period, India awarded
162 armament orders, including 67 to other countries, including Russia
(18 contracts), the United States (13) and France (6).
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A
nuclear powered Project 23000E Storm aircraft carrier may displace 80,000
to 85,000 tonnes with some 70 aircraft on board.