Despite “indigenisation” being an important policy objective in defence procurement it will be useful to observe the recent US regulatory developments on detection and avoidance of counterfeit components in defence procurement. The new US developments could also perhaps inform the MoD efforts for streamlining its own Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP)

The country is witnessing protests which are the biggest in over a decade and will only worsen unless a political accommodation is arrived at soon. The efficacy of multilateral institutions like the UNASUR, not subservient to US interests, is also on test.

White House has sought to assuage the West Asian states’ feelings that the ties with Asia-Pacific would not be at their expense. On the other hand, there are strong prescriptions from within the US calling for quietly downgrading involvement in the sorry mess of West Asia as the problems there can at best be managed, but never solved.

The interim deal was signed by seven foreign ministers of US, UK , France, Russia, China, Germany and Iran but the deal was not negotiated mainly in Geneva, but in Muscat and other locations where the US and Iran met secretly for months. Essentially, it is a deal between US and Iran and the rest were there to serve a choreographic purpose.

India-US defence ties are shifting away from a ‘buyer-seller’ path to one of co- development and co-production. In Washington this is viewed as a change from a ‘culture of presumptive no to one of presumptive yes’.