NEW DELHI — Indian state-run defense manufacturer Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) and Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) gave the go-ahead Oct. 12 to their long-delayed project to develop a Multirole Transport Aircraft (MTA). “With this HAL and UAC-TA will start the preliminary design work immediately at Moscow,” HAL Chairman R.K. Tyagi says.

NEW DELHI — Russia has further delayed the delivery of the refurbished aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov to India. “We have detected a malfunction in the boiler and power plant of the ship. We have given the revised schedule of the delivery of the aircraft carrier to the Indian side,” visiting Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov says. “We believe it will happen in the fourth quarter of 2013. We need to test everything so that we are sure we are transferring an aircraft carrier of perfect quality,” Serdyukov says.

India’s Kingfisher Airlines, failing to resolve a dispute with pilots who have been on strike since Sept. 30 over non-payment of salaries, has extended its grounding until Oct. 20. “All flights across [Kingfisher’s] network will be canceled till Oct. 20 due to operational reasons,” an airline official says. The announcement comes one day after CEO Sanjay Aggarwal appealed to employees, who have not been paid for seven months, to return to work.