India govt is looking to purchase Spike, an Israeli fourth generation anti-tank guided missile, developed and designed by Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defence Systems. Talks for the nearly Rs 6600 crore deal are expected to culminate this week, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s three-day visit to Israel.
India is Israel’s biggest arms market, buying 41 per cent of its export between 2012 and 2016, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an independent global arms research institute.
If the Spike missile deal is finalised, 2017 is set to be a record year in terms of Israeli weapons sales to India. This April, marking the largest ever arms deal in the history of Israel’s defence sector, Israel’s state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) inked contracts with India amounting to $2 billion. A few weeks later, IAI closed yet another major deal worth $630 million with India, in a project to be jointly executed with Bharat Electronics Ltd.
At the recently concluded Paris air show, Rafael Advanced Defence Systems unveiled its fifth-generation Spike missile with a significant increase in range and lethality. According to a statement released by the company, “the Spike LR II is an advanced multi-purpose missile, and can be launched from any Spike launcher”.
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