Annual Report 2007 - Observer Research Foundation

INSTITUTE OF SECURITY STUDIES
‘Arming the Arsenal: India’s Defence Industry in Transition’
“Arming the Arsenal: India’s Defence Industry in Transition’ is a research project under a broad
framework of ‘self-reliance in defence’. Undertaken by Deba Mohanty in May last year, the project
tries to examine two inter-related issues – the current and future defence procurement needs of the
Indian armed forces and the abilities of the domestic defence industry to meet the requirements.
The project hypothesizes that although there is a growing gap between demand on equipment side
and supply from the domestic sources which is likely to continue in future, a comprehensive longterm
reform initiative in the domestic industrial sector would be required to address the growing
gap in achieving the much desired ‘self-reliance in defence’.
The project, cumulative output of which is likely to come out as a book length manuscript on the
subject, will be completed by May 2007. It will have four substantive chapters – trends in global
defence industry, trends in Indian defence industry, reforms in the Indian defence industrial sector
and their implications and need for further reforms. The project is primarily a macro study, which
will offer future policy prescriptions for the Indian defence industrial sector.
As part of this project, Deba Mohanty coordinated two major events in the last few months.
One was ‘Public-Private Partnership in Defence: Problems and Prospects’ on 12 October 2006 at
the ORF Auditorium. It was inaugurated by Mr. Rao Inderjit Singh, Minister of State for Defence
Production. Mr. Dhirendra Singh and Air Commodore Jasjit Singh chaired two sessions of the
seminar while Major General H S Sehgal (Technical Manager Land Systems, MoD), Mr Amitav
Mallik, Advisor S & T at ORF), Mr. P K Rastogi (Additional Secretary, Department of Defence
Production), Commander A Ghosh (VXL Technologies), and Lt Gen (Retd.) Vinay Shankar presented
papers in the Seminar.
An important conference on ‘Making Decisions in Missile Defence’ was organised on 15 February
2007 at the ORF Auditorium. Mr Peter J Mantle, President, Mantle & Associates, LLC, of
the United States made the main presentation. Lt Gen (retd) Dennis Cavin (Vice President of the
Lockheed Martin Corp), General (Retd.) V P Malik, Air Marshal (Retd.) Ajit Bhavnani and many
senior officers from the Government and armed forces as well as members of the strategic community
participated in the seminar.
Mohanty has made three presentations at ORF, several presentations at prestigious institutions
like the National Defence College and National Academy of Defence Production. He has written
three commentaries for ORF website, contributed articles to newspapers and journals. He has contributed
ten research papers, five of which have already been published in books and journals,
while the remaining are in the pipeline.
(left to right)
● Gen. V.P. Malik and Air.
Comm. Jasjit Singh at
an interaction.
● Mr. Rao Inderjit
Singh, MoS Defence,
speaking at “Public-
Private Partnership in
Defence”.
● Mr. A.K. Antony, Union
Defence Minister, with
the chiefs of Navy and
Coast Guard.
STUDIES &
INITIATIVES
Annual Report 2007 ◆ Observer Research Foundation
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