{"id":42302,"date":"2025-04-29T21:31:42","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T16:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=42302"},"modified":"2025-04-29T21:32:54","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T16:02:54","slug":"india-france-agreement-rafale-m-jets-navy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/29-04-2025\/india-france-agreement-rafale-m-jets-navy","title":{"rendered":"India, France Inter-governmental Agreement on Rafale-M Jets for Navy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS2\/ International Relations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>India and France <\/strong>formally concluded an <strong>Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA),<\/strong> valued at nearly \u20b964,000 crore, to procure <strong>26 Rafale-M fighter jets for the Indian Navy.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>G2G is a mode of <strong>defence procurement<\/strong> involving <strong>direct negotiation between the government <\/strong>of the importer country with that of the exporter country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Major Highlights of the Agreement<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Deliveries are set to begin from<strong> mid-2028 and likely to be completed by 2030<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It includes<strong> 26 Rafale-M aircraft, <\/strong>it\u00a0 also covers <strong>training of crew members in both France and India.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The package includes <strong>extra equipment for the existing Rafale fleet of the Indian Air Force.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Transfer of Technology: <\/strong>The ToT provisions for the <strong>integration of indigenous weapons<\/strong> such as the<strong> Astra Beyond Visual Range (BVR) air-to-air missile on the Rafale aircraft.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It also includes the establishment of a production facility for the Rafale fuselage in India, as well as <strong>Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) <\/strong>facilities for aircraft engines, sensors, and weapons.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Significance: <\/strong>This initiative is expected to generate thousands of jobs and create significant revenue for numerous Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Modernising Indian Navy&#8217;s Requirements<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The Indian Navy currently operates two aircraft carriers:<\/strong> INS Vikramaditya, which was acquired from Russia, and INS Vikrant, which was indigenously developed and commissioned in 2022.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>These carriers currently operate the MiG-29K fighter jets, 45 of which were procured from Russia.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Due <\/strong><strong>to their low availability rates <\/strong>and the <strong>approa<\/strong><strong>ching end of their service life,<\/strong> the Navy sought to<strong> acquire a new fleet of carrier-based fighter jets.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Although the original plan was to <strong>acquire 54 jets,<\/strong> the number was reduced to 26 following the DRDO\u2019s proposal <strong>to develop the indigenous Twin Engine Deck-Based Fighter (TEDBF).<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Indian armed forces will also receive <strong>31 MQ-9B armed High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS)<\/strong> under a deal with the U.S.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Of the 31 RPAS, also known as Sea Guardians, 15 are meant for the Navy and eight each for the Army and IAF.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Deliveries are scheduled between January 2029 and September 2030.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/india-france-conclude-inter-governmental-agreement-for-26-rafale-m-jets-for-navy\/article69500725.ece\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>TH<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h3>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">India and France formally concluded an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA), valued at nearly \u20b964,000 crore, to procure 26 Rafale-M fighter jets for the Indian Navy.\u00a0<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Major Highlights of the Agreement<\/strong><\/h3>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">Deliveries are set to begin from mid-2028 and likely to be completed by 2030.<\/li>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">It includes 26 Rafale-M aircraft, it\u00a0 also covers training of crew members in both France and India.\u00a0<\/li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/29-04-2025\/india-france-agreement-rafale-m-jets-navy\" class=\"btn btn-primary btn-sm float-end\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42302"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42324,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42302\/revisions\/42324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}