Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman brushed aside the allegations made by the Opposition and said, "There is no scam, you can search for as long as you want". She also assured that there would be no Doklam 2.0

Nirmala Sitharaman, defence minister nirmala sitharaman, up defence corridor, defence sector, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, yogi adityanath, uttar pradesh, uttar pradesh cm yoi adityanath Nirmala Sitharaman recently initiated the Tamil Nadu Defence Corridor and interacted with local defence and allied industrialists in Tiruchirappalli, which is one of the nodal cities of TN Defence Corridor.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is looking to give a massive boost to the Make in India initiative in the defence sector. Sithraman recently emphasised on the need to have more defence production so as meet the requirements of India’s own armed forces and also make use of the technological and entrepreneurial capacity that India has to contribute in making India a defence production hub. Sitharaman recently initiated the Tamil Nadu Defence Corridor and interacted with local defence and allied industrialists in Tiruchirappalli, which is one of the nodal cities of TN Defence Corridor. Speaking at the News18 Rising India Summit, the Defence Minister addressed the issues of modernisation of weapons, war preparedness, perceived inadequate defence budget and also allegations against the Rafale deal with France.

Minister Nirmala Sitharaman brushed aside the allegations made by the Opposition and said, “There is no scam, you can search for as long as you want”. She vehemently opposed the allegations made by the Congress party accusing the NDA of corruption in Rafale deal with France. She also pointed out at the earlier UPA government and Defence Ministry under Pranab Mukherjee and AK Antony had also declined to give out details about pointing to the national interest.

When asked about the possibility of another crisis escalation at Doklam, the Defence Minister said, “I don’t think so. Of course, the ministry of external affairs has sent elaborate answers on the what is happening in Doklam. I don’t want to add more words to what they already said, but I can certainly say there won’t be Doklam 2.0. But, at various levels, engagements are going on. You have established processes like there is a permanent representative who has had about 20 different sets of meetings. Then you have border personnel meeting, flag officers meeting and recently, the army chief said we have resumed talks.” The Defence Minister confirmed that there would be no repetition of the Doklam standoff and that engagement was currently ongoing.

Responding to question on the issue of cross-border firing with Pakistan, the Defence Minister admitted that the firing had gone up. “But we are also holding on and very clearly pushing them back”, she added further. She also said that there exists no difference between the state and non-state actors in Pakistan. She also confirmed that the armed forces and government was doing everything in its capacity to fight them, but within the rule of law.

The Defence Minister also said that the lack of modern equipment was a cause for concern and that the government was doing everything that it can to improvise and strengthen its arsenal. She stressed at the government’s emphasis was to reduce import of equipment and boost manufacturing as much as possible so as even be at a stage where we could export it to other countries.