India signed a dollars 2.8bn deal with Russia last weekend to lease four long-range nuclear bombers and two nuclear-capable submarines in a move that
campaigners say will amount to a dramatic escalation of the subcontinent's arms race.
On a visit to Moscow, India's defence minister, George Fernandes, said the agreement - in which Russia will throw in an ageing aircraft carrier, the Admiral Gorshkov, free of charge - will be completed by the end of March.
"We have agreed that all efforts will be made to complete the three contracts," Mr Fernandes said. India and Russia will also pump more money into a joint programme to develop a long-range nuclear-capable cruise missile, the BrahMos, he also revealed. The massive deal will dramatically improve New Delhi's ability to deliver its nuclear warheads. It follows months of simmering tension between India and its arch-rival Pakistan, the world's most recently declared nuclear powers.
The two countries almost went to war last June, and for 10 months deployed a
million troops along their shared border. India is believed to have more nuclear bombs -between 60 and 150, compared with Pakistan's 20-60. It also has a much larger conventional army.
However, defence experts believe that Pakistan, which acquired much of its missile technology from China and North Korea secretly in the 1990s, has better means of getting them to their targets, and this is an edge New Delhi
wants to eliminate.
Anti-nuclear campaigners in India said that they were dismayed by the nuclear deal with the Russians. "I think it is terrible," said Praful Bidwai, of the
Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace. "We are just going into a vortex that steps up the nuclear and missile arms race. They are actually moving towards a high level of readiness to use nuclear weapons. You are not talking about deterrence."
Under the defence package, India will lease four Tu22 M3 long-range aircraft
- capable of dropping nuclear bombs on China - as well as two Akula-class submarines, which are nuclear-propelled and can deliver nuclear warheads.
India's existing submarine fleet is not nuclear-capable. Indian officials say that, in the event of a nuclear attack by Pakistan, the Russian submarines, which can hide underwater for months, would be able to launch a devastating response.
India has also agreed to pay about Dollars 555m to refit the Admiral Gorshkov, a decrepit aircraft carrier that was gutted by fire in the early 1990s.
The deal has caused much raising of eyebrows in the Indian press, and follows an expose two years ago of massive official corruption in the Indian defence
industry. Mr Fernandes was forced to resign in the wake of that scandal, although he later got his job back.
The defence minister put the finishing touches to his procurement spree after spending six days in Russia, where he met his counterpart, Sergei Ivanov.
The comparative speed with which India and Russia have wrapped up their defence agreement is in stark contrast to Britain's attempts to sell 66 Hawk
jet trainer aircraft to the Indian air force.
Tony Blair and other ministers have so far failed to persuade the Indians to
sign the billion-dollar deal, despite more than 15 years of negotiations.