India and the United Kingdom have announced a 2030 roadmap to strengthen relations across a range of sectors including defence. The two sides said the new arrangement, which was announced on 4 May, elevates bilateral ties to a ‘comprehensive strategic partnership’ that will encompass deeper co-operation in defence industry and technologies.
The roadmap is aligned with India’s efforts to secure technology-transfer agreements with military suppliers and the UK’s recently published Integrated Review, which calls for closer UK defence trade and industry links with countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
India and the UK have agreed to deepen defence industrial ties with potential areas of co-operation including the Indian Air Force’s Tejas light fighter programme. (HAL)
According to Roadmap 2030, the two countries will expand joint work on defence technologies through a series of dedicated government- and business-level projects. It added that a focus of this work includes air combat capabilities such as India’s programme to develop and build the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA).
The roadmap added that some of this work will be channelled through existing dialogues, including the UK-India defence consultative group that was set up in the 1990s, and build on co-operation under way through a bilateral defence-technology memorandum of understanding (MOU) that was signed in 2019.
“[India and the UK will] embark on a new, ambitious strategic collaborative partnership on research, innovation, technology, and industry to develop transformational defence and security capabilities,” said the 2030 roadmap.
It added, “[The two countries will also] establish a portfolio of UK-India collaborative projects to support the development of new technologies and capabilities, including government-to-government and business-to business arrangements and projects.”
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