India to Buy 66 British 'Hawk' Trainers

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, September 04, 2003

India to Buy 66 British 'Hawk' Trainers

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India announced Wednesday that it will spend 17.4 billion US dollars on the acquisition of 66 British "Hawk" trainers and five executive jets for its VIPs, according to the Press Trust of India (PTI).

The Cabinet Committee on Security (ACS), chaired by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Wednesday approved a massive modernization program that would entail a whopping expenditure of some 27 billion US dollars to "give the armed forces new teeth," PTI said.

Importing of lethal counter-explosive devices, hand-held thermal imagers, night vision devices and electronic counter-warfare systems will form part of the modernization drive, PTI added.

The major contract cleared was the decision to purchase "Hawk-115" trainers, of which 24 would be bought in "fly-away" conditionand the rest 42 are manufactured under license at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) at Bangalore.

As many as 230 MiGs have crashed since 1990 that led to dubbingof the aircraft as "flying coffins." Following public outcry over the crashes on Tuesday, the Air Force for the first time made public report of the inquiry into the crash of MiG 21 in Srinagar recently which blamed a trainee pilot for the mishap.

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