Assocham organized the India Defence & Security Expo (IDSE) 2019: ‘Make in India 2.0’ during 27-28 September 2019 in the premise of IIT Delhi, in New Delhi to facilitate the participants, visitors and all the stakeholders with the awareness and availability of various latest defence and homeland security products, technology and solutions. The objective of IDSE is to showcase India’s capabilities, innovations and latest technologies in related sectors through the two day exhibition and conference.   tors through the two day exhibition and conference. Defence procurement is not just a simple act of buying equipment, it has many strategic and diplomatic considerations. In India, procurement of military equipment is overwhelmed with the numerous issues that neither benefit the armed forces nor the country. The major concerns that plague the defence procurement process in India are highly protracted procurement timelines and cancellation of tenders, underutilization of defence budget, non-existence of a level playing field, tenders awarded based on lowest cost, and so on. Shripad Yesso Naik, Raksha Rajya Mantri, Ministry of Defence, who inaugurated the event, said that the current government is looking at a big picture – and that of ‘strategic independence.’ This can effectively be established only if we can reduce our import dependence. Indian defence industry corridors have engaged the attention of the industry, both globally and locally, and are able to create holistic capabilities in various identified disciplines for taking our nation to the strategic independence. The Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has released a draft version of proposed updates to its military acquisition process. The draft Defence Procurement Manual (DPM) was published on 13th September with a view to replace the existing DPM, which was issued a decade ago. Defence systems acquisition, production, and formulation of doctrines of offensive and defensive warfare are all intertwined. These are also conducted within an overarching strategic defence and foreign policy environment. This is a continuous exercise, but there are certain defining moments whose impact is profound and it may be worthwhile to take note of some of them especially those which have a bearing on the country’s future. The Minister further said that we as a nation have been subjected to such a regimen that we could not think of getting out of this low level contract manufacturing to make others rich through labour arbitrage. Our government under the dynamic and effective leadership of Narendra Bhai Modi has attempted to change this narrative under the Make-in-India initiative. “I am more interested to see the development of our micro, small and medium industries, MSMEs. Please be informed – ‘if India lives in villages, industry lives in MSMEs.’ I want all departments in my Ministry to provide emphasis to this aspect of MSMEs. They are employment generators, innovators, focussed with niche expertise, flexible, adaptive and resilient. They have the power to shape the future of the national defence industry” – Shripad Yesso Naik Raksha Rajya Mantri Ministry of Defence, Government of India Mr. Naik continued, “Our government is pursuing military modernisation with a great amount of persuasion. At the macro level, I must assure the industry that our government will leave no stone unturned to fulfil the aspirations of the 130 crores Indian and our Indian defence industry. “I am more interested to see the development of our micro, small and medium industries, MSMEs. Please be informed that – ‘if India lives in villages, industry lives in MSMEs.’ I want all departments in my Ministry to provide emphasis to this aspect of MSMEs. They are employment generators, innovators, focussed with niche expertise, flexible, adaptive and resilient. They have the power to shape the future of the national defence industry. “Firstly, for Make-in-India to succeed, it must be coupled with ‘buy in India.’ I would urge my policy makers to look at various models to ensure business flows down to the deserving Indian companies, mitigating any hurdles that may be on the way. Should this require a policy interventions, we must raise up to the occasion. While buy in India may be relatively easy at the platform levels by taking recourse to the strategic partnership models, I am more keen that this also percolates to the system and sub-system levels.” While addressing the conference Deepak Sood, Secretary General ASSOCHAM said, “Defence manufacturing will be an integral part of the government’s vision for $5 trillion economy by 2022. ASSOCHAM is committed to making the Indian defence and security industry more robust by pursuing the Make-in-India roadmap. Prominent speakers at the conference included Anand E. Stanley, President and Managing Director, Airbus India; Salil Gupte, President, Boeing India; K. S. Rao, CEO, Sterlite Technologies; Maj. Gen. A. K. Channan, SM, Additional Director General (Perspective Plan) Army Design Bureau, Indian Army; Air Marshal V. R. Chaudhari, AVSM, VM, Deputy Chief of the Air Staff; Maj. Gen. Bishamber Dayal, Chairman, IDSE Organizing Committee, and so on.  

Prama Hikvision, India’s leading provider of innovative video surveillance products and solutions, organized the ‘Bravery Awards’ ceremony at the Hikvision Expo held in Chennai, Tamil Nadu on 11 September 2019. Commenting on the occasion, Ashish P. Dhakan, MD and CEO, Prama Hikvision India Pvt. Ltd. said, “We are happy to honour the policemen in Chennai for their exemplary services by presenting the Bravery Awards. We are committed to our vision of making citizen’s security a top priority. The awards are a step forward in inspiring the police professionals to go beyond their call of duty and enable a secure environment for the citizens across the country. The Bravery Awards truly reiterate our vision of pursuing excellence in security technology implementation in India and encourage us to further set higher standards in security and surveillance industry through breakthrough solutions.” Hikvision’s team of experts presented the best-in-class technologies and product innovations through technical sessions during the expo. They also unveiled the latest products, applications, and innovative solutions including artificial intelligence, AI cloud, big data and IoT. “We got overwhelming response to our latest range of IP cameras, PIR cameras, access control products, video door phones, Ezviz cameras, face recognition terminals and swing gates, Smart Pole, ECS (emergency call switch) etc., at the event,” added Mr. Ashish. The Bravery Awards were presented to the recipients by Shankar Narayan, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Chennai. In his keynote address Mr. Narayan elaborated the usefulness of video surveillance technology in controlling the crime incidents. He recounted a recent event, where a chain snatching case was solved by the Chennai Police with the help of CCTV monitoring. He complimented Prama Hikvision India for taking initiative in recognizing police personnel and awarding them with Bravery Awards. The Bravery Awards were given to 10 police personnel of Chennai police for their exemplary services, who have shown exceptional courage beyond the call of their duty. The awards were presented to – K. Palavesam, Inspector of Police; M. Malarvannan, SI; Kanagraj, SI; M. Jothiprakash, SSI; D. Pandidurai, SI; A. Jayaram, SI; M. Ashok Kumar, HC 26233; R.R. Venkatesan, SI; G. Ponnuvelu, HC, 32305 and P. Kannan, SI. As a part of their pan-India initiative, Hikvision Expo was organized with the core objective of promoting security technology awareness among the security professionals, citizens and channel partners, and therefore all the key stakeholders of security ecosystem partners were invited at the show. The Hikvision Expo provided the latest security and surveillance technology updates by experts in special interactive sessions and live demonstrations. It got an overwhelming response from the security professional community which made the event successful.  

The position of India as Patol’s strongest export market continues as the UK-based industrial fire detection specialist supplies its Firesense Linear Heat Detection Cable (LHDC) for yet another project. The Ultra Tech Balaji Cement Plant is part of the Aditya Birla Group, a major cement producer in India. Located in Jaggayyapeta in Andhra Pradesh, the plant is one of the several producing a wide variety of cements specifically designed to cater for customer’s specific requirements in different markets. Providing effective fire detection in such hostile and dusty environments can prove difficult. Chosen for this application, partly due to its successful implementation in a variety of industrial environments throughout India, was the LHDC manufactured by Patol. LHDC is a cost-effective option for providing early detection of fire and overheating in applications that would not ordinarily be viable, either through the inability to sustain the environment requirements or through prohibitive costs. Some 15 kilometres of LHDC and associated controllers were supplied through Fireknock, an Indian company specialising in the consultation, supply, installation and maintenance of fire fighting and electronic security. The LHDC is protecting the cable trays in an unmanned area in which the plant’s high voltage cables are located, carrying electricity to the cement factory and its associated power plant. Through the system’s integration with an automatic water spray system, any fire incident is quickly and effectively addressed without the need for any manual intervention. Commenting on the project, Kelvin Miller, Sales Director, Patol said, “India has always been one of our most important export markets which is why we have a dedicated sales operation in the country. We have been working in this market now for over 25 years, during which time we have supplied around 10 million metres of our LHDC to a wide range of projects throughout India.” Cement plants are one of the many industrial environments that suited to the fire protection performance of Patol’s LHDC, with another recent project seeing the company protecting the flagship site of UK cement producer Cemex. Patol has considerable expertise in the design, manufacturing and supply of specialist fire detection products and services. The particular requirements of national standards, client specifications or project needs are a standard aspect of Patol’s design & engineering service. Patol’s expertise ranges from discrete military vehicle monitoring modules through to multi-discipline systems covering all fire protection, process control and security aspects. At Patol, application engineering and system design are conducted with rigid adherence to the client specifications. In addition, Patol’s engineers always apply their knowledge of projects of similar rigours.  

Fortinet® has recently announced that IndiGo, one of India’s largest airlines, has deployed Fortinet Secure SDWAN solution across its branch offices to secure its WAN edge. IndiGo is the largest passenger airline in India with a market share of 46.9 percent as of March, 2019. The airline connects to 58 domestic and 19 international destinations and operates more than 1300 flights everyday. It is also the largest individual Asian low-cost carrier in terms of jet fleet size and passengers carried, and the seventh largest carrier in Asia. With a fleet size of 222 aircrafts, IndiGo has served over 300 million customers globally. IndiGo’s growing passenger traffic combined with poor MPLS network and Internet quality had resulted in delays for customers accessing their applications for flight booking, call centers, airport counters and flight status checking, adversely affecting their business. To avoid delays and provide the best possible user experience for business-critical applications, the airline decided to adopt a hybrid WAN model, supporting its 54 airport counters, that would be able to distribute traffic over a variety of links, including MPLS, Broadband and Internet Leased Line. IndiGo selected Fortinet Secure SD-WAN solution to provide best of breed SDWAN integrated with security capabilities with one single offering. As part of the Fortinet Security Fabric, Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution combines networking and security features such as routing, WAN optimization, application control and next-generation firewall, enabling IndiGo to manage and configure its WAN and security system from a single-pane-of-glass view. IndiGo has also deployed multiple FortiGate next-generation firewalls at 54 airport counters and in their datacenters, along with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer for management and analytics. As a result, IndiGo can now map WAN resources directly making the network more efficient and responsive by combining scalability, flexibility, simplicity and cost savings with industry-leading security protection through Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution. Rajesh Maurya, Regional Vice President, India & SAARC at Fortinet said, “Many customers are currently forced to use multiple point products and management consoles to achieve a secure SD-WAN connection. This separation of network and security operations is not only labor-intensive, but also makes performance and security a bottleneck to move towards direct internet access. Fortinet’s unique combination of next-generation firewall and SD-WAN in the same offering, managed through a single centralized controller has seen tremendous momentum in customer adoption and received two consecutive SDWAN ‘Recommended’ ratings from NSS Labs.”