![]() ![]() New Delhi is also concerned over Beijing's increasing presence in the Indian Ocean, seeing the region as firmly within its sphere of influence. Their troops fought a high-altitude skirmish in 2020 along the border dividing Tibet from India's state of Ladakh, killing 20 Indian and at least four Chinese soldiers, and precipitating a sharp deterioration in relations.īut both countries this month began pulling back soldiers from around the site of that incident after more than a dozen rounds of top-level military talks - and after a two-year stand-off. New Delhi and Beijing have regularly accused each other of trying to seize territory at key flashpoints along their 3,500km divide, known as the Line of Actual Control. He will take up the role of chief of defence staff "until further orders", a defence ministry statement said late on Wednesday (Sep 28).Ĭhauhan commanded ground forces on India's eastern front - including much of the disputed border with China - before stepping down.īoth countries fought a full-scale war in the region in 1962 for control of India's north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety and considers part of Tibet. India has been wary of its northern neighbour's growing troop presence along their immense frontier, and border disputes - including deadly Himalayan clashes in 2020 - have been a perennial source of tension.Ĭhauhan, described as a "China expert" by local media, had been serving as counsel to India's national security adviser after his retirement from active service last year. ![]() Lieutenant General Anil Chauhan's appointment comes in the midst of a root-and-branch reform of India's armed forces, and nearly a year after the previous defence chief died in a helicopter crash. Wrapped in secrecy, the programme is under the direct oversight of the Prime Minister’s Office and the National Security Advisor.NEW DELHI: India has appointed as its new defence chief, a general who led forces on its disputed frontier with China, as New Delhi seeks to counter Beijing's growing military assertiveness. Very little technical detail about the UCAV project is available due to its classified nature. The Ghatak programme formally received sanction as a ‘Lead-in Project’ in May 2016 and started receiving funding from early 2017, Livefist has reported. The programme is linked to the development of India’s fifth-generation stealth fighter Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft or AMCA. Work on the project, which was earlier called AURA (short for Autonomous Unmanned Research Aircraft), began sometime around 2009. The Bengaluru-based Aeronautical Development Agency is developing the UCAV with participation from the Defence Electronics Application Laboratory and many other labs of the Defence Research and Development Organisation. Ghatak is intended to be an unmanned aircraft which can not only be used for surveillance but also to fire precision weapons at designated targets, using its stealth features to avoid detection by enemy sensors in contested airspace. Ghatak’s undercarriage and landing gear were seen in this model, which was sitting in the background as an IIT Kanpur professor delivered a lecture in the institution’s Aeromodelling Lab. ![]() It was most likely a “ mockup or a sub-scale flying model” of the SWiFT. The main intent of SWiFT UAV is to demonstrate and prove the stealth technology and high-speed landing technology in autonomous mode," the DRDO has said.Ī model of this platform was recently seen in a video lecture published by the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, which is involved in the fundamental research and testing related to the stealth UCAV programme. ![]() "SWiFT UAV is a Technology Demonstrator and is a scaled-down version of Ghatak UCAV (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle). In a technology bulletin released in October 2020, the DRDO had said that it had completed the designing of the landing gear for the programme and the manufacturing of the airworthy components was under progress. The DRDO has not confirmed the date of taxi trials.Įarlier this year, reports said that the Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment, a Chennai-based lab of the DRDO, has handed over retractable landing gear systems for SWiFT. The trial appears to have been conducted on 18 August this year at the Aeronautical Test Range near Challakere in Karnataka's Chitradurga district. ![]()
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