Russia supplied India with around $13 billion of arms during the past five years. New Delhi has orders placed with Moscow for weapons and military equipment exceeding $10 billion, as per Russian state news agencies.

Key-highlights

• India is the world's biggest buyer of Russian arms, accounting for around 20% of Moscow's current order book.
• Annual arms exports were about $14-15 billion, and the order book has remained steady at around $50 billion.

India’s say in the Russia-Ukraine war

• New Delhi has not explicitly condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
  • Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for dialogue and diplomacy to solve the conflict, now in its 12th month.
• Despite the unprecedented pressure on India from Western countries led by the United States in connection with Russia's special operation in Ukraine, it continues to be one of Russia's main partners in the field of military-technical cooperation.

What are Russia’s more exciting systems?

• Asian customers are particularly interested in Russia's-
  • S-400 Triumf missile defence systems
  • short-range surface-to-air missiles systems such as the Osa, Pechora or Strela
  • Su-30 warplanes
  • MiG-29 helicopters and drones

India-Russia Defence Cooperation

• Agreement on the Programme for Military-Technical Cooperation: India-Russia defence cooperation is guided by the Agreement on the Programme for Military Technical Cooperation signed between the two countries.
  • The Agreement for 2021-2031 was signed during the inaugural meeting of the India-Russia 2+2 Dialogue in 2021.
• Important Major Contracts
  • Bilateral projects currently underway include licensed production of T-90 tanks and Su-30-MKI aircraft, supply of MiG-29-K aircraft and Kamov-31, upgrade of MiG-29 aircraft, etc.
  • Production of the Brahmos cruise missile.
  • The joint venture, Indo-Russia Rifles Private Limited (IRRPL), has been established and started production of AK-203 rifles in India under the “Make in India” initiative.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) is reportedly working on a ChatGPT-powered WhatsApp chatbot to help Indian farmers learn about various government schemes. 

Key highlights of the development

• Bhashini, a small team at the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), is currently building a WhatsApp-based chatbot that relies on information generated by ChatGPT to return appropriate responses to queries.
  • Essentially, voice memos could be used to make requests to the chatbot, which would then respond with a voice-based response produced by ChatGPT.
• Benefits: The ChatGPT-powered WhatsApp chatbot will let users send a question via voice notes. This will help numerous farmers in India who may not be familiar with typing on smartphones.
• Why WhatsApp: WhatsApp has more than 500 million users, and even those with relatively low digital literacy know their way around the app.
• Background: This development comes as the competition between Google and Microsoft over the future of internet search heats up.

What are the persistent limitations?

• ChatGPT is occasionally found to generate incorrect answers to queries. 
• This can potentially produce harmful instructions or biased content. 
• The chatbot’s knowledge is limited to events before 2021. 
• It is also unable to provide answers to country-specific questions. 
• It is only capable of providing generalized answers, unlike Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa which are more focused on giving specific answers to user queries

China will soon begin construction on an ambitious new railway line connecting Xinjiang and Tibet that will run close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and through the disputed Aksai Chin region.

What is in the ‘proposed’ plan?

• The medium to long-term railway plan for Tibet envisages expanding the TAR rail network to reach 4,000 km by 2025 up from the current 1,400 km, including new routes that will run up to China’s borders with India and Nepal.

• The most ambitious of the new plans is the Xinjiang-Tibet railway, which will broadly follow the course of the G219 national highway.
• The construction of the Xinjiang-Tibet highway through Aksai Chin triggered tensions between India and China in the lead-up to the 1962 war.

The Route

• The proposed railway will begin in Shigatse in Tibet, and run northwest along the Nepal border, before cutting north through Aksai Chin and ending in Hotan in Xinjiang.
• The planned route will pass through Rutog and around Pangong Lake on the Chinese side of the LAC.
• The first section, from Shigatse to Pakhuktso, will be completed by 2025, with the rest of the line, up to Hotan, expected to be finished by 2035.
  

India and the US have moved ahead to jointly develop air-launched unmanned aerial vehicles that will be used for surveillance missions

What is Air-Launched Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (ALUAV)? 

• In 2021, the Indian Ministry of Defence and the U.S. Department of Defense signed a Project Agreement for ALUAV, under the Joint Working Group Air Systems in the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI).
• Execution: Bengaluru-based Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) and the Aerospace Systems Directorate at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, along with the Indian and U.S. Air Forces, are the principal organisations for the execution of the project agreement.
• The ALUAV is being developed to be launched from an aircraft (C130J aircraft).

What about IP Rights?

• The Air-Launched Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (ALUAV) program is taking place under the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) and a critical factor is that the intellectual property (IP) rights for the new system will be jointly shared by the two sides.