Articles By Amit Cowshish
Who is Responsible for Defence of India?
By: Amit Cowshish | Date: 09 Aug , 2021
The creation of the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) as the fifth department of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) last year, with Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Bipin Rawat concurrently being...
Indigenisation – In Need of Policy Framework
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 14 Jul , 2021
India has been striving for indigenisation of defence production for close to three decades. To give impetus to the efforts, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had constituted a committee in the early...
Decoding Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 24 Nov , 2020
It is a challenge to encapsulate the Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020 (DAP 2020), released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on September 30, 2020.1 It is spread over 12 chapters and runs into...
Increase in FDI Cap Alone Not Enough for Defence Sector
By: Amit Cowshish | Date: 16 Sep , 2020
As a part of the policy reforms to repair the pandemic-affected economy, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced on May 16 that the prevailing limit of 49 per cent on foreign direct...
Impact of Embargo on Defence Imports
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 21 Aug , 2020
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced an embargo on the import of 101 items through a press release issued on August 9, 2020.1 The annexure to this press release lists a wide range of embargoed...
Expediting Negotiation in Defence Contracts
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 26 Jun , 2020
Commercial negotiations are virtually the last stage in the long-drawn capital procurement process. Negotiations are conducted with the lowest bidder or L1 by a Contract Negotiation Committee...
No Further Increase in Defence Outlay: Need to Move On
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 12 Jul , 2019
It is pointless bemoaning that there was no reference to defence in the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s speech and that she did not further enhance the allocation in the union budget...
Design and Development of Equipment by DRDO, DPSUs and Ordnance Factories
By: Amit Cowshish | Date: 18 Jun , 2019
Paragraph 72 in Chapter II of the Defence Procurement Procedure 2016 (DPP 2016) sets out the procedure for awarding design and development (D&D) projects to the Defence Research and Development...
Servicing Committed Liabilities: Kicking the Can down The Road Will Not Help
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 16 Mar , 2019
It was known even before the financial year (FY) 2018-19 started that the budget allocated for capital acquisitions was inadequate even to service the committed liabilities related to the ongoing...
Issues in Defence Costing
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 03 Oct , 2018
Costing is one of the foremost weakest links in the defence procurement process. The Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP), which applies to all capital acquisitions for the armed forces, requires...
Keeping India-US Defence Ties on Even Keel despite CAATSA
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 20 Jun , 2018
The Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), passed by the US Congress in August 2017 has placed India in a bind. The Act, which came into effect in January 2018,...
Defence Investor Cell Needs Fleshing Out
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 27 Apr , 2018
The Department of Defence Production (DDP) has set up a Defence Investor Cell under the chairmanship of a Joint Secretary. The office order issued by DDP in February 2018 has assigned...
Defence Budget: Beyond the Numbers
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 18 Apr , 2018
As reported by the Times of India on April 04, this year’s discussion on the general budget in parliament will go down in history as the shortest since 2000 with both houses collectively...
DefExpo 2018: Making India a Defence Manufacturing Hub and an Exporter of Arms
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 11 Apr , 2018
As DefExpo 2018 gets underway at Thiruvidanthai near Chennai from April 11, all attention will be turned towards the defence minister’s press briefing on the first day and the prime minister’s...
Promises Galore in the Draft Defence Production Policy 2018
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 04 Apr , 2018
Following up on the announcement made by the finance minister in his budget speech on February 1, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has recently released the draft of a new defence production...
Cabinet Decides to Redefine MSMEs – Defence Sector to Benefit
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 16 Mar , 2018
A seminal decision taken by the Union Cabinet in early February 2018 to change the basis of classification of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) bodes well for this important segment...
Problems of Costing in Defence Procurements
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 22 Nov , 2017
The disputation over the price India will pay for the 36 medium multi-role combat aircraft, the contract for which was signed in 2016, brings into focus the vulnerability of the process of...
Acquisition of single-engine fighter aircraft – A few suggestions
By: Amit Cowshish | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 28 Sep , 2017
It may sound incredible but, according to official statistics, the number of fighter aircraft squadrons with the Indian Air Force (IAF) has gone up from 25 in 20141 to 33 in 2017.2 This has...
Making the Right to Information (RTI) work in Defence
By: Amit Cowshish | Date: 27 Aug , 2017
Disposing of an appeal late last month, the Central Information Commission (CIC) advised the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to ensure probity and accountability in defence procurements. Though the...
13th Five-Year Defence Plan (2017-22) – A re-run of the past
By: Amit Cowshish | Date: 31 Jul , 2017
The 13th five-year defence plan (2017-22) envisages an allocation of Rs 26,83,924 crore for the armed forces.1 This includes Rs 13,95,271 crore under the revenue segment and the remainder for...