NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s opposition events have criticised U.S. President Donald Trump’s provide to promote F-35 fighters to the nation, citing their excessive prices, at the same time as Russia has mentioned producing its most superior jets domestically in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s objectives.
The provide from each U.S. and India’s long-time defence companion Russia comes at a time when the Indian Air Pressure’s squadrons have fallen to 31 from an authorized energy of 42 and it’s in search of to amass extra jets to counter China, which is quickly constructing its navy.
After assembly Modi in Washington final week, Trump mentioned the U.S. will enhance navy gross sales to India beginning in 2025 and can ultimately present the fifth-generation F-35 fighters made by Lockheed Martin.
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India’s major opposition Congress celebration has used Trump ally and billionaire Elon Musk’s previous criticism of the fighter to focus on Modi’s authorities.
“The F-35, which Elon Musk has described as ‘junk’, why is Narendra Modi hell-bent on shopping for it?” requested a publish on Congress’s official X account this weekend, saying that the plane was costly and had excessive operational prices.
The U.S. authorities estimates that an F-35 prices round $80 million.
The Indian authorities has not mentioned it intends to purchase the aircraft and India’s overseas secretary advised reporters final week that the U.S. provide was at a “proposal stage”, including that the acquisition course of had not began.
India’s defence ministry didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The Congress publish cited a November 2024 publish by Musk on X wherein he shared a video of a drone swarm and captioned it: “In the meantime, some idiots are nonetheless constructing manned fighter jets just like the F-35”.
Musk later mentioned in one other X publish: “Manned fighter jets are out of date within the age of drones anyway”.
Final week, Russia supplied to make in India its fifth-generation Sukhoi Su-57 fighter, with domestically sourced parts, saying manufacturing might start as early as this yr if India agreed.
“Russia has by no means shied away from transferring know-how,” mentioned Amit Cowshish, former monetary adviser for acquisitions on the Indian defence ministry.
“The issue isn’t with Russia providing switch of know-how … we’ll proceed to cope with Russia and purchase oil and possibly purchase a few different issues, however such an enormous (defence) deal is more likely to create its personal difficulties vis-à-vis (the) U.S.,” Cowshish mentioned.
(Reporting by Shivam Patel in New Delhi; Enhancing by David Holmes)
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