NEW DELHI — A squeeze in India’s defense budget will hinder all future research and development projects, the chief of the state-run Defense Research & Development Organization (DRDO) says. “We need to make sure that R&D funding is not just maintained but enhanced,” says Avinash Chander, who is also the scientific adviser to the defense minister. “We may be able to meet the present requirement, but any squeeze will keep us out of next-generation products such as multi-static radars, which require high investments.”
A Boeing technical team is in India applying a “modification package” developed for Air India’s 787 fleet, which has been grounded for nearly two weeks by government order. “To ensure reliability and safety, all the 10 787 aircraft in the Air India fleet [have] been taken in for a 10-day maintenance grounding, beginning from Dec. 1, junior Civil Aviation Minister K. C. Venugopal says.
