India is writing a new arms acquisition policy intended to prevent the corruption allegations that have marred several of the country's procurement programmes.
Future procurements will be conducted by a board with the process and decisions posted on the defence ministry's web site, India's minister for defence and external affairs Jaswant Singh has told parliament.
Singh has also dismissed as "irresponsible" reports in the Indian press that RSK MiG has blamed the government for the MiG-21 Fishbed's high accident rate in Indian air force service. Vladimir Barkovsky, MiG deputy general designer, was reported to have said that India buys low-cost spares which have been the cause of many of the accidents.
The minister also refuted Russian claims that negotiations with BAE Systems on the acquisition of 66 Hawk advanced trainers have broken down.
Source: Flight International
