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| Brazilian Defence Minister Celso Amorim |
By Anantha Krishnan M
Express News Service
Bangalore: The Aviation Capital will play host to Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim on February 7, after he touches down at the Old Bangalore Airport for a one-day visit. The charismatic leader from Brazil will then get into a huddle with the men from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), who are polishing the power-points to showcase their might.
Part of his India five-day tour, Amorim's will get a glimpse of HAL's Hawk facility, Advanced Light Helicopter final assembly, Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) hangar and finally the must-see export hangar. HAL sources say that Brazil could be a prospective customer for its star product Dhruv, after Ecuador. “Very nascent stages of thought-process, though we are keen to push the product as an affordable chopper with great operational abilities. There were some talks for the supply of aircraft doors in the past and we should now see how Amorim's visit would materialize into business later,” sources said.
The DRDO will host Amorim at the Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS), which is currently engaged in the development of the Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&CS) on a modified platform of Embraer (EMB-145I) of Brazil.
“We will be showing him the structural assembly of the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar. At this point we have no idea, whether we will have another partnership with Brazil for our future programmes,” DRDO sources said.
The quality inspectors and certifying officials from Brazil are already at CABS as part of the AEW&CS project. “More people-to-people cooperation is being talked about between the two countries and Amorim's visit would cement the plans,” sources said.
Copyright@The New Indian Express
