India to permit private firms to build military equipment

Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 20.05.2017 -
The Indian Defence Ministry on Saturday cleared the decks for private sector  players to build military equipment such as fighter jets, submarines  and armoured vehicles in India.

It finalised the “broad contours”  of a policy that would work as a template for cooperation between Indian  and foreign firms for military hardware. The government had  released its defence procurement procedure in March 2016 but without a  key chapter on the ‘strategic partnership’ model that would govern  collaboration between foreign vendors and Indian companies for defence  manufacturing.  The ministry held a series of meetings with  defence equipment manufacturers and industry associations before  finalising the model.