Indicating that another test of the country's most advanced nuclear capable Agni-Ill missile is in the offing, top defence scientist M Natarajan January 14 said the DRDO was close to developing a supersonic fighter trainer. "Along with undertaking full development of the air force and naval versions of the LCA, we have developed the capability of making in the shortest time of next 10 years a supersonic fighter trainer," Natarajan said.

Union Defence Minister A K Antony said on Tuesday that the Government was in the process of tightening the security and surveillance apparatus all along the coastal regions as these were vulnerable to inimical interests, who wanted to destabilise the country through these routes. The Minister said a tougher security apparatus should be put up along the costal regions and the Navy, the Coast Guard and other security agencies would be called upon to play a more vigilant role.

The US military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half dozen times to middlemen for countries including Iran and China who exploited security flaws in the defence department's surplus auctions. The sales include fighter jet parts and missile components.

The Government is likely to make a final decision on the troop pull out from Siachen glacier very soon as the top political leadership is favourably inclined to demilitarise the world's highest battle field. Eager to step up the peace process between India and Pakistan, the political leadership may skirt the concerns raised by the Army that Pakistan should first agree to authenticate the troop positions on the glacier divided by 110-km long actual ground position line (AGPL).

India's foreign policy planners are chilled at the new freezing of relations between Moscow and Washington. New Delhi, which has been trying hard to repair its chequered relations with washington, is taken a back as hawks in the Bush administration succeeded in imposing sanctions against a number of Russian companies that have deep business relations with Indian companies.

The army has produced a terror-fighting bible for its soldiers, complete with its set of ten commandments.The 45-page handbook, titled`Doctrine for Sub-conventional Operations', lays down the rules for soldiers operating in counter-insurgency scenarios in the Northeast and in Jammu & Kashmir.

The Border Security Force has installed a high-tech thermal imager along the Indo-Bangla border in the eastern frontier to curb infiltration along the border. Apart from the high-tech thermal imager the personnel guarding the eastern frontier would soon be equipped with the Battle Field Surveillance Radar (BFSR.

From the time of the 707s the Boeing brand in India is synonymous with large passenger aircraft. The $52 billion, global aerospace major which has over half its revenues coming in from military aviation, missiles, satellites and communication systems, hopes that this will change soon. Indian defence forces are expected to award aircraft contracts worth roughly $10 billion in the next few years.

The Indian Navy has renamed the American USS Trenton landing platform dock (LPD) as the Jalashva (the Sanskrit word for hippopotamus). Navy officials said that the Indian Navy will be taking possession of the USS Trenton at Virginia (in the US) on January 16. The mammoth 17,000-tonne USS Trenton was purchased in a Rs 2.15 billion deal, naval officials said. India has also purchased six Sea King helicopters, along with the USS Trenton, at a cost of LPD will take about three months and the Indian naval personnel will use that time to acclimatise themselves to the LPD," said a naval official.

Indian navy's war doctrine is undergoing critical changes. It is reflected in the operationalisation of a Landing Ship Tank (Large) (LST (L)), INS Shardul, the third such vessel of the class. On January 17, 2007. the Indian navy will formally take over from the US navy at a ceremony to be held at Naval Base. Norfolk, Virginia the 17,000-ton INS Jalashva (ex 11SS Trenton), an Austin-class Landing Platform Dock (LPD).

Pakistan is buying 700 air-to-air missiles made by US defence group Raytheon for $284 million.Pakistan is purchasing 500 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM), the largest international order for this weapon,and 200 short-range AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles,Raytheon said in a statement on January 15.

Russia has delivered new antiaircraft missile systems to Iran and will consider further requests by Tehran for defensive weapons,Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on January 16. "We have supplied the modern short-range anti-aircraft systems TOR-M1 in accordance with our contracts," Ivanov said.