By the year-end, Israel could sign an agreement to upgrade Indian 130mm and 105mm artillery and 81mm mortars and cooperate in high-tech communication, and significantly, it wants to set up manufacturing units here with transfer of technology in select areas.
Israel wants to customise the artillery with night fighting capability and weapon locating sensors and make the mortars automatically towed, while offering multi-frequency UHF systems for better communication between various military commands.
Because of a heightened threat perception and increased terrorist infiltration from Pakistan, a bulk of army units are permanently engaged, and while the load on the communication networks is enormous, being of the Seventies and Eighties, they are easily penetrable.
Both during the Kargil War and in Operation Parakram, Pakistan had near-precise intelligence of our troop movements on the border from intercepted communications, and India approached Israel for modernising and securing them in view of the confused merger and acquisitions situation with European defence firms.
Defence sources said that Israel has procured the necessary permissions for license manufacturing communication equipment from the US and Netherlands and would tropicalise them to suit India’s dusty and desert conditions.
