Meeting on the sidelines of the QUAD Summit in Tokyo, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden discussed strengthening defence partnerships under ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat‘ with India inviting American companies to manufacture in India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday extended a warm and strong invitation to American companies to participate in co-development, co-design, and co-manufacture even absolute manufacturing under the Make in India and the Atmanirbhar Bharat programmes under the rubrics of defence.

The question of the India-US defence partnership did come up in discussions between Prime Minister Modi and President Biden. But it was very clear the focus of the discussion was on defence manufacturing by the American companies in India under the framework of Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat,” Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said during a media briefing here.

PM Narendra Modi invites American defence companies to manufacture in India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended an invitation to American defence companies to set up manufacturing units in India.

It was reported by a Western media outlet that the package under consideration would include foreign military financing of as much as USD 500 million to wean off India from purchasing military equipment from Russia. The report said that if the deal works out, it would make India one of the largest recipients of such aid behind Israel and Egypt. It’s unclear when the deal would be announced, or what weapons would be included.

It’s pertinent to mention here that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, in his recent visit to the USA in April 2022, met the heads of Raytheon Technologies and Boeing. He urged them to shift from ‘Make in India’ to ‘Make for the world’ by taking advantage of the policy initiatives announced by the Indian government.

Under the India US 2+2 dialogue too, defence cooperation remained a highlight under which both sides discussed boosting the bilateral cooperation, especially in areas such as defence.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, “We’ve decided to review the processes and procurements for the speedy decisions and project implementation in defence trade and technology initiatives. I’ve also invited American companies for defence, aerospace and the make for India world program. We conduct a co-development and co-production course with US companies and have requested US defence companies to invest more in the UP & Tamil Nadu defence industrial corridors.”

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