America approves four billion dollar drone agreement with India
 
Friday, February 2, 2024

The US State Department has approved a four billion dollar agreement to provide 31 state-of-the-art armed drones to India.

The agreement for the MQ-9B Predator drone was announced during the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US in June 2023.

The agreement was put on hold by the Senate Committee in December 2023 due to the investigation into the alleged conspiracy to murder an Indian in America.

Now this agreement has been approved by the US Congress.

The Pentagon said the deal includes the sale of 31 armed MQ-9B SkyGuardian drones, 170 AGAM-114R Hellfire missiles and 310 small diameter bombs, communications and surveillance equipment and precision glide bombs.

The prime contractor of this agreement will be General Atomics Aeronautics Systems.

According to news agency Reuters, Senator Ben Cardin said that the agreement was finalized only after the US government agreed to fully investigate the conspiracy behind the Gurpatwant Singh Pannu murder.

Senator Ben Cardin said, "The Biden administration has demanded that there should be investigation and accountability for the conspiracy on American soil and accountability should be fixed for such activities in India too."

In the year 2023, the US had accused the Indian government of conspiring to assassinate an American citizen who supported Khalistan.

On Thursday, February 1, 2024, the Pentagon said that "to strengthen the US-India strategic relationship, this proposed drone agreement with India will support US foreign policy and national security objectives."

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