The 3rd two plus two ministerial meeting next week will see both India and the United States consolidating the military-to-military relationship between the two democracies to move towards institutionalised intelligence-sharing agreement and go beyond tri-services exercises into unmanned, space and underwater platform domains, people familiar with the matter said.
On October 26-27, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary Mark Esper in national capital Delhi for the third round of the top strategic dialogue agreed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump back in 2017. The two sides are expected to sign off on a geo-spatial military foundational agreement called BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement) that is a precursor to India acquiring armed drones such as the MQ-9B from the US that use spatial data for pinpointed strikes.Read more…
