NEWS
Thanks to its aggressive shopping in the international arms bazaar and very limited indigenous supplies, India was the world’s largest arms importer between 2007 and 2011, according to the latest data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). India accounted for 10 per cent of global arms imports in 2007-11, SIPRI said. The four next largest recipients of arms in the same period were South Korea (six per cent of arms transfers), Pakistan (five per cent), China (five per cent) and Singapore (four per cent). The figures were not surprising given India’s huge reliance on imports, at about 70 per cent of its total defence requirements.

VIEWS
The global armS market is indeed flourishing. Purchases by all nations put together, the total quantity of major conventional weapons systems transacted internationally in the period 2007 to 2011 was 24 per cent higher than that transacted in the period 2002 to 2006. Globally, the Asian region tops the list in respect of import of conventional weapon systems. With the induction of 120 Su-30 MKI and 16 MiG-29K from Russia as also 20 Jaguar aircraft from the United Kingdom during the last five years, India was ranked as the largest importer of conventional weapon systems in the world. As compared with the previous five-year period i.e. from 2002 to 2006, the volume of import of conventional weapon systems by India alone in the last five years since 2007 has gone up by 38 per cent.

On the other hand, China, which was leading the world in the import of weapon systems till as recently as 2007, has fairly rapidly created a robust domestic military industrial base through diligent effort at reverse engineering of frontline sophisticated weapon systems developed by advanced nations and procured by her openly or in a clandestine manner. In this period, China has achieved a quantum jump as also a qualitative change in the capability of her indigenous aerospace industry thereby reducing dependence on foreign sources, primarily the Soviet Union in the past and now Russia, for military hardware. China has thus moved to the fourth place as an arms importing nation in global ranking. A major feat indeed!

China has also enhanced the level of export of military hardware, primarily if not only to Pakistan which ranks in the third in the global list of arms importing nations. In the period 2007 to 2011, Pakistan acquired 50 JF-17, the most modern combat aircraft from China, paid for possibly through funds received from the US as aid; civil or military. Pakistan has also received 30 F-16 Fighting Falcons and a fairly large number of armoured vehicles from the US, also through a military assistance programme. In the overall ranking, China figures as the sixth largest arms exporting country in the world coming after the US, Russia, Germany, France and Britain.

In an effort to create a potent and capable high technology defence industrial base aimed at achieving self-reliance in respect of conventional military hardware, India has made huge investments since the 1950s. Today the defence industry in the public sector consists of eight defence public sector units (PSUs) and 39 ordnance factories technologically supported by an elaborate Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) with a large number of laboratories and establishments across the nation and a lofty aim of developing indigenous technology. These establishments, however singly or collectively, have failed to deliver, compelling India to continue to depend on foreign sources for 70 per cent of its need for military hardware.