NEWS

Media reports, especially the ones emanating from across the border in Pakistan, suggest India has yielded to US pressure to allow annual inspection by American technocrats of its Boeing BBJ VIP jets fitted with Special Protection Suits (SPS). The aircraft, with a range of 3,000 to 4,000 nautical miles, can deflect missile attacks and will be used to fly the country’s top dignitaries, including the President, the Prime Minister and senior Cabinet ministers. India has agreed to the jets’ inspection after six months of wrangling. Pentagon had stopped delivery of the aircraft to push for periodical inspection of the aircraft by US Air Force officials. The move apparently aimed to ensure that Indians do not tinker with the technology deployed in the SPS mounted on these aircraft.

VIEWS

Admittedly, there is a degree of truth in the media reports but certainly not the whole truth. Around May-June this year, barely a month before the first of the three BBJs were scheduled to arrive in India, the US placed restrictions on the export of the systems, citing concerns over the safe custody of the SPS systems and the need for annual inspections by US officials to oversee security aspects of the SPS had not been jeopardised.

General opinion was that such a move would severely dent Washington’s image of a reliable and dependable supplier of high-tech equipment to India. The US precipitated crisis would not only jeopardise the much advertised and massive Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft deal worth over $10 billion (Rs 45,000 crore), for which US companies appear to be among the frontrunners, but also put to question the very sanctity of the ‘Strategic Partnership’ both countries are supposed to be so assiduously building upon.