Sri Lankan Defence Minister Premitha Bandara Tennakoon met Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan and appreciated India for their continuous support for the island countries’ armed forces.
Meanwhile, in establishing a strong defense industrial base Tennakoon also praised India’s progress. At the DefExpo several other countries’ Defence Ministers were also present.
The Sri Lankan Defence Minister met Chief of Naval Staff Admiral R Hari Kumar met on October 18.
Taking to Twitter Indian Navy spokesperson tweeted, “Enriching consultations on collaborative Maritime Security & avenues to strengthen bilateral defense cooperation.”
Earlier on 20 October, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh addressed the HQIDS-FICCI seminar on ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India’ in Gandhinagar.
“If we have to maintain sustainability and reliability of supplies of our defense items, then we must have technological and production capability within the country so that whenever we face a long-drawn conflict, our capabilities remain intact,” Singh said.
“Our armed forces should provide more support to the domestic industry. It’s a matter of happiness that our forces have given full support in the self-reliance of the defense sector,” Singh further stated.
Moreover, Rajnath Singh noted that Indian armed forces are passing through an important phase of transformation.
“Our preparedness to deal with a rapidly changing geo-political scenario, and challenges arising out of it, especially neighborhood threat, has strengthened significantly in the recent past,” Singh said.
“Not only the assurance of procurement of defense products but also the objective of developing world-class technologies is very clear in front of us. For this, for the first time, the government has allocated 25 percent of the Defence R&D budget for industry, start-ups, and academia,” Singh added.
In the country, the government fully understands the role of MSMEs and start-ups in the defense sector.
“Hence, to create more opportunities for MSMEs and start-ups, the scope of the Defence Innovation Start-Up Challenges and Technology Development Fund has been further expanded,” Singh said.
However, at DefExpo 2022 Rajnath Singh also inspected the arms and ammunition which are displayed.