US become top arm supplier to India by overtaking Russia.

United States has overtaken Russia as the largest arms supplier to India in the last three years.

On 12^th August 2014, in a written reply to Rajya Sabha, defence minister Arun Jaitley said India spent Rs 83,458 crore on importing weapons over the last three years.

Last 3 year defence import statistics:

•           India still remains world’s largest arm importer.
•           India’s arm import is almost 3 times high compared to China and China.
•       Main reason for India’s high defence imports is poor domestic defence base.

Country wise import statistics

Sr no	Country	Imports in Core Rs.
1	United States	32,615
2	Russia	25,364
3	France	12,047
4	Israel	3,389
5	Others	10,043

Arm imports from Russia:

• In terms of overall numbers, Russia still remains the biggest weapons exporter to India.
• Russia’s military sales is worth over $40 billion to India, since the first MiG-21 jets and T-55 tanks in the 1960s to the present-day Sukhoi-30MKI fighters and T-90S main-battle tanks.
• The main reason in the decline Russia import is because India incidentally has turned to Israel to upgrade some its Russian-origin equipment.
•  With IAF having inducted over 200 of the 272 Sukhoi-30MKI fighters ordered for over $12 billion, Russia is now eager to quickly seal the final R&D contract with India to jointly develop the stealth fifth-generation fighter aircraft.
• India has consciously tried to diversify its arms imports since the 1999 Kargil conflict due to Russia's propensity to not adhere to delivery schedules, jack up costs midway through execution of contracts, create hurdles in transfer of technology and unreliable spares supply.
• The long-delayed delivery of aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya (Admiral Gorshkov) as well as the huge jump in its refit cost to $2.33 billion was just the most prominent example of it.

Arm imports from United States:

• The US has bagged Indian defence deals worth almost $10 billion since 2007-2008.
• The deals include: 

1.       12 C-130J 'Super Hercules' aircraft ($2 billion).
2.       8 P-8I long-range maritime patrol aircraft ($2.1 billion). 
3.       10 C-17 Globemaster-III giant strategic airlift aircraft ($4.1 billion).

•      India is also now close to inking another two deals with the US, worth over $2.5 billion, for 22 Apache attack helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy-lift choppers. Both these helicopters outgunned their Russian rivals, Mi-28 Havocs and Mi-26s, in the sweepstakes. The Apache deal will get bigger in the coming years since the Army also wants 39 such attack helicopters after IAF inducts the first 22.