India and Israel build partnership on drones and futuristic defence technologies

Israel, a powerhouse in the world of remotely-manned tools, has signed an agreement with India for the leasing, operation and maintenance of fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to the Indian Defence Forces.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Limited on the sidelines of the ongoing DefExpo 2022 at Gujarat’s Gandhinagar.

Through this MoU, HAL and IAI will collaborate on a prospective programme of leasing UAV systems to the Indian Defence Forces.

Like several other countries, Israel too has sent a high-level delegation to the 12th edition of Asia’s largest defence event.

Naor Gilon, Ambassador of Israel to India, was also present at the venue when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the event on Wednesday.

Fully supporting India’s vision of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and the long-lasting partnership and commitment between the two countries, IAI has also announced the opening of its subsidiary IAI India Private Limited which will provide customer support, marketing, and business development services for IAI solutions.

From radars and defence systems for air, land, and sea to unmanned aerial systems and other intelligence solutions, including satellites and electronic surveillance, cyber and more, IAI has been jointly developing tailor-made, cutting-edge solutions for India’s unique challenges for three decades now.

It also manufactures the famous Heron TP armed drones which have been acquired by the Indian Army to boost its surveillance operations, especially near the LAC.

Focused on their common threat of international terrorism and the use of technology to get rid of it, India and Israel are already working together to produce next-generation drones.

With PM Modi keen on Israeli defence companies benefitting from opportunities of co-development and co-production in India, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had exchanged a ‘Letter of Intent’ on enhancing cooperation in the field of Futuristic Defence Technologies with his visiting Israeli counterpart Benjamin Gantz in June this year.

It followed last November’s Bilateral Innovation Agreement (BIA) between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Israel’s Directorate of Defence Research and Development (DDR&D) to jointly develop next-generation technologies and products such as drones, robotics, artificial intelligence and unhackable quantum computing.

Under the agreement, startups and industries of both countries will work together to bring out next-generation technologies and products in the areas such as drones, robotics, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, photonics, biosensing, brain-machine interface, energy storage, wearable devices, natural language processing, etc.

Products and technologies will also be customised to meet the unique requirements of both countries. The development efforts will be jointly funded by DRDO and DDR&D, Israel. The technologies developed under BIA will be available to both countries for their domestic applications.

Also Read: Tejas on mind, Argentine Armed Forces chief takes close look at HAL’s prowess