Lucknow: With the aim to showcase India's potential as a global defence manufacturing hub, the biennial DefExpo kickstarted in Lucknow on Wednesday.
The 11th edition of DefExpo promises to bring new technologies and solutions on a single platform for defence manufacturing firms from India and abroad. The main theme of the Expo is 'India: The Emerging Defence Manufacturing Hub' and the focus will be on 'Digital Transformation of Defence'.
During the event, Israeli Ambassador to India, Ron Malka spoke exclusively to ETV Bharat on issues like defence cooperation, Navy, Army, missiles and also UAVs.
Speaking about the areas of defence cooperation between India and Israel Malka said: "Israel and India defence cooperation is steadily growing and increasing. Israel and India are world leaders in science and technology, five nations that have reached the moon, two are Israel and India. So the scope for cooperation between Israel and India in the field of science and technology. We are cooperating in the air force, navy, maritime, it’s all over the spectrum."
One being questioned about Israel's support to India in the field of drone technology Malka said: "This is something that we have been focusing on…these unmanned vehicles, unmanned armoured and unmanned airborne vehicles, our companies are coming to India, doing joint ventures with India and hopefully in the next stage we will export from India."
Speaking about the agricultural cooperation between India and Israel Malka said: "Agriculture is something that is not new between Israel and India. And we have a very successful project which has been going on for 10 years and this is the most successful agriculture project that we have with any other country in the world."
"We are just studying water technology, water management technology. What we want to do here in India, especially in UP is to have a project to showcase our holistic approach of agriculture and water together, so we are going to take an area in UP and we are going to bring all our ecosystem, all the ways that we manage water, resources and usage and agriculture together and make a holistic project," Malka added.
He also said that the UP project is likely to be ready by 2022.
Also Read: DefExpo to open today, focus on showcasing India's potential to become manufacturing hub
