Ng Eng Hen , the Defence Minister of Singapore , hailed India’s indigenously-built multi-role light combat aircraft Tejas as “excellent and very impressive” on Tuesday. He said that the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas is a superb aircraft and he is privileged to fly it.
Indian defence sources said Singapore has evinced interest in Tejas. The defence sources said that during the Bahrain air show where Tejas aircraft was showcased, some countries in the Middle East had also shown interest.
Two Tejas aircraft were flown from Bangalore for displaying them to the Singapore Defence Minister. Air Vice Marshal Singh who flew Ng is the project director of the National Flight Test Centre-Aeronautical Development Agency and Dr. Ng praised Air Vice Marshal A P Singh saying he felt as if he was riding a car and not flying in a fighter aircraft.
Tejas aircraft was designed by the Aeronautical Development Agency and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for the Indian Air Force and the Navy.
The Singaporean Air Force is in India with six F-16 jets for annual joint exercises with India. For a month now, about 100 Singapore air force personnel have been stationed at Kalaikunda with six F16s. Singapore has very little airspace available in its own island nation and has been leasing out the Kalaikunda base for its drills since 2004.
“Singapore is a small country but with a big heart,” said Air Marshal Anil Khosla, a senior officer of the Eastern Air Command. “When we do exercises for a whole month together, we learn best practices from each other.”
Air Marshal said that the Indian Air Force pilots don’t really get a chance to fly F16s. Dr Ng piped up and said, “We don’t fly the Sukhois either.” Letting out a chuckle, the Defence Minister signed off saying, “It is like chef using different equipment. You learn to cook better.”
Behind the light-hearted banter, the India-Singapore defence cooperation agreement is serious business. It was signed first in 2003 and then upgraded in November 2015 when Prime Minister Modi visited Singapore to celebrate 50 years of of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
Dr Ng said that the defence cooperation relationship is very strong and is growing stronger and he would discuss the possibility of multilateral naval exercises with his Indian counterpart, Nirmala Sitharaman today in New Delhi.
India’s strategic partnership with Singapore is part of India’s Look-East policy, its historic ties with the island country and with an eye on China’s attempts to strengthen its influence in the South East Asian region.
China already has considerable say with Bangladesh, Myanmar, Philippines and other nations in the region, but Singapore has been a consistent friend to India.
India’s defence ministry say that Singapore have expressed ground-level interest in buying Tejas but an actual placement of an order is very distant and the top priority will be to meet the needs of the Indian Air Force.