India and Israel have decided to enhance bilateral defence cooperation in areas such as trade in military goods, counter terrorism, intelligence sharing and joint R&D projects, reports noted. The decision was taken at a meeting of Joint Working Group on Defence in New Delhi, co-chaired by Director-General of Israeli Defence Ministry, Brigadier-General Pinchas Buchris (Retd) and Indian Defence Secretary, Pradeep Kumar. Notably, Israel is one of the largest defence suppliers to India, supplying nearly $9 billion worth of military products since 1999. Defence Minister, A K Antony informed the Lok Sabha that India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) are presently working on two projects worth over Rs. 12,680 crores to develop long and short-range surface to air missiles for the Air Force and Navy.1

• 1. ‘India, Israel decide to step up defence ties’, The Times of India, December 23, 2009; Government of India, Ministry of Defence, ‘Joint development of missiles’, Press Release, December 14, 2009