TATA Power Co Signs Defence Agreement With Honeywell International
All Is Well: TATA Power Co Signs Defence Agreement With Honeywell International
The defence engineering unit of TATA Power Co Ltd named TATA Power SED has just signed a defence agreement with Honeywell International to produce the TALIN navigator in India. The US based Honeywell International revealed this in a statement to the media. As part of the agreement, Honeywell will linecnse and design the hardware for the purpose of assembling, testing and building production kits for the TALIN navigation system in India. This will really improve the efforts to develop sophisticated defence technology and equipment through indigenous means.
TALIN stands for Tactical Advanced Land Inertial Navigator and it is perfect for navigation for movement of vehicles and artillery. This works in areas which are remote and tough to access through GPS.
India is currently the world's biggest arms exporter. If the country is able to develop indigenous technology to support advanced defence equipment in the field of navigation, some of the dependance from outside sources will lessen. But for this to happen, a lot more resources need to be made available to our scientists and companies. Efforts have been made in this direction already and India's successful MOM Mission to Mars is a strong indication that Indian technology has come of age.
The domestic defence industry should also keep pace with advanced technological developments and knowledge as well as resources based support from advanced nations such as the US will go a long way in making this a success. Agreements such as that between Honeywell and India's TATA Power is a positive step in this direction and the sky's the limit, if all goes well.
FDI in the defence industry as also been raised to 49% keeping this aim in mind.
Rahul Chaudhry, CEO at TATA Power SED indicated to the media in a statement which was released that this agreement and collaboration “will offer the Indian Armed Forces a state-of-the-art inertial navigation technology, made in India and with local product support."
The agreement was announced during the recent 26-30 September visit of Mr. Modi to the US. The Indian PM had recently been on a trip to strengthen Indo-US ties. This is the first time that India will be able to produce such advanced tertial navigation technology in its local setting, Honeywell also said.
"Our strategic agreement with Honeywell supports TATA Power's SED commitment to the 'Make in India' initiative – a priority for India's new Government," Chaudhry was quoted by the media as saying as well He indicated that this “sets the standard for locally produced defense technologies to sustain India's military growth and mission success over the coming years."
