Out of touch

The defence ministry's strategic partner policy is suboptimal

The Cabinet’s nod to the defence ministry’s strategic partner (SP) policy sets the stage for selecting six Indian firms to partner foreign original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in building single-engine aircraft, helicopters, submarines and armoured vehicles in India. While the details of the SP policy are still to be made public and incorporated into the Defence Procurement Policy of 2016, the defence ministry had indicated its contours to private industry executives earlier this month. Broadly, the ministry intends to follow most of the recommendations of the Dhirendra Singh committee (2015) and the V K Aatre task force (2016) in choosing Indian