Defence minister Rajnath Singh will leave for a
five-day trip to the US beginning August 21 after the Indian Defence
Acquisition Council (DAC) cleared the MQ-9B Predator drone deal with amendments
and the Indian Navy’s tie-up with HawkEye 360 as part of the much awaited QUAD
Indo-Pacific Partnership of Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA), people familiar
with the details said on Sunday. The DAC meeting took place on July 31.
While the defence minister will further
cement defence cooperation with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon
on August 23, the India-US armed UAV deal stands crystallised after the DAC cleared amendments
pertaining to the percentage of indigenisation as well as putting a
DRDO-developed and manufactured anti-shipping missile on the Predator.
It is
understood that the indigenisation percentage now stands at 30% and the idea of
putting a DRDO missile on the MQ-9B Predator was dropped as the manufacturer
General Atomics was charging a huge sum of money for its integration into the weaponised
platform.