India To Launch Rockets With Russian,
Singapore Technologies
India is getting ready for two rocket launches next month with Russian and Singaporean
payloads for strengthening space-based communication and remote sensing services back
home.
First to go up would be Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), carrying GSAT-5 Prime
with 24 normal C-band transponders and 12 Extended C-band transponders to augment
communication services vis–vis television, broadcasting and telecommunications.
Sources in the Indian Space Research Organisation here indicated that this GSLV-5P, an exclusive
C-band communication satellite with a 12 year mission life, is slated to be launched in the second
week of December.
Authorities are looking at 10th December as the likely date Top ISRO officials are meeting on 10th
November in Sriharikota, from where the twin launches will take place, to review the upcoming
GSLV mission and finalize the date.
Preparations are also in full swing for launch of the standard PSLV-C16, with six strap-on boosters,
which will carry advanced remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2, auxiliary spacecraft of
Youthsat and X-sat, towards the end of December.
“Resourcesat-2 is a follow on mission to Resourcesat-1 to provide data continuity. Suitable
changes, including miniaturisation in payload electronics have been incorporated in Resourcesat-2,”
an ISRO official said.
Resourcesat-2 is intended to replace Resourcesat-1 launched in October 2003.
This has outlived its designed mission life of five years and is work satisfactorily, ISRO sources said.
The images generated by Resourcesat-1 are being used for advanced applications such as
vegetation dynamics, crop yield estimates and disaster management support.
Youthsat is a participatory scientific mission with a payload from Russia and two from India.
It is a micro satellite carrying scientific payloads. Several universities will participate in the process,
from testing the payloads to analyzing the data generated from the loads.
X-sat is Singapore’s first indigenous satellite. It is designed and built by Nanyang
Technological University (NTU) in the city-state.
Global Recession Has Shifted The Pattern Of fdi
The global recession has shifted the pattern of FDI flow and three major developing economies
Russia, Saudi Arab and India, for the first time have occupied the place among the top ten largest
recipient.
The ASSOCHAM study revealed that China is leading as the priority host economy for FDI
amongst the developing economies and also the 2nd largest FDI recipient in the world,
followed by Hong Kong (4th), Russia (6th), Saudi Arabia (8th) and India (9th).
Obama Lifts Export Controls For India: Dual
Use Has Dual Purpose – D Raghunandan
STRATEGIC
TERMS
One heard a lot about the equipment and their monetary value but little about the nitty-gritty
involved, especially the important inter-governmental agreements that usually go along with
such US military sales and in which their strategic implications really lie.
All the defence deals struck by India with the US are through the government-to-government foreign
military sales (FMS) route. TheUS has been pushing India hard to sign three major defence
agreements which the US regards as “foundational” agreements essential for allies who seek to
acquire military hardware under the FMS. With these allies usually coming under US defence
protection, and often under its nuclear umbrella as well, the US expects full adherence to numerous
conditions that together bind the buyer into a subordinate and dependent relationship. The
agreements ensure that the US retains full control over the use, deployment and maintenance of this
military hardware, even to the extent of compelling buyers to acquire spares only from the US and to
refrain from making any modifications to the equipment as local conditions may require.
The logistics support agreement (LSA) would bring India into a set of US allies that use each
others’ military facilities and equipment, and pay for the same through long- term
arrangements. It takes little imagination to deduce that this is meant chiefly to facilitate US use of
Indian facilities and that the LSA virtually amounts to a military alliance. CISMOA or the
communications, inter-operability and security memorandum of agreement would, apart from
promoting the ability to operate each others’ military hardware in joint operations, also
ensure US control over communications software and sensitive equipment that can be sold
only under CISMOA conditionalities. The US is linking India signing CISMOA to sales of some
military hardware or components, and also to the lifting of some Indian defence-related agencies
from its “entities list” against whom sanctions were imposed following Pokhran-II. The third of
these is the BECA or basic exchange and cooperation agreement. The end-use monitoring
agreement is overarching, but more about this later.
It is well known that the Indian armed forces have been staunchly opposing India signing
such agreements and have resisted attempts by the political leadership and the bureaucracy
to give in to US pressure arguing, like the US, that the agreements are routine and innocuous. They
are nothing of the kind. The ministers and civil servants routinely deny that they have signed an end-
use agreement but concede that they have “agreed on language” concerning end-use of US-origin
military hardware which is referred to in the contract relating to each deal. And no-one knows what
this language is! The Air Force chief and current chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee P V Naik
even went public with his opposition a few months back. Official US documents, with crucial portions
blackened out as confidential, available on the internet, testify that the US is intent on securing
Indian concurrence on these agreements. Indeed, it may already have done so as far as end-use
monitoring goes, even if in a roundabout way.
The joint statement issued after the Obama visit reaffirming the US-India global strategic partnership
in fact pointedly refers to some hitherto secret letters exchanged between the two governments in
2004. It also refers to the end-use visit agreement concluded earlier and signed
between US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and India’s external affairs minister, which specifically
relates to the on-site monitoring of US military hardware by US officials including some posted in
the US embassy in New Delhi. India appears to have gotten away so far without signing CISMOA
and the LSA but is already on the hook on end-use monitoring.
How long can this continue? One of the high points of the Obama visit was the US declaration that it
is ending restrictions on USexport of high-tech dual-use items. But the more India seeks to acquire
such items, the more the US will press India to sign these agreements.
