India, US agree to pursue collaboration between their defence industry & start-ups

Washington, August 3: Underlining the importance of collaboration between the defence industry and start-ups, India and the US has agreed to pursue a policy environment. An understanding in this regard was reached during the 15th meeting of the India-US Defence Policy Group (DPG) in Washington on Friday. The meeting took stock of the progress made in various fields of defence cooperation in recent years, including in defence trade, technology, procurement, industry, research and development.

 

Defence Secretary of India, Sanjay Mitra, and U. S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Mr. John Rood, jointly chaired the meeting. The DPG is the apex official-level meeting mechanism between the Ministry of Defence of India and the U.S. Department of Defense, comprehensively reviewing and guiding all aspects of bilateral defence cooperation between the two countries.

The meeting took stock of the progress made in various fields of defence cooperation in recent years, including in defence trade, technology, procurement, industry, R&D and mil-to-mil engagement. They recognised the benefit of the enabling defence agreements concluded by the two sides and appreciated India's designation as a Major Defence Partner of the U.S.. They underlined the importance of collaboration between the defence industry and start-ups in the two countries and agreed to pursue a policy environment conducive to this.

Various working groups and mechanisms under the DPG briefed the Co-chairs of the progress made in their respective areas and got the latter's guidance on addressing process issues for meaningful, sustainable and mutually beneficial cooperation.

 

The two sides reaffirmed the role of the DPG as an important part of the Ministerial 2+2 mechanism, helping translate the shared strategic vision of cooperation into reality. They agreed to hold the next meeting of the DPG in India at mutually convenient dates.