Australian Bushmaster Armoured Protection Vehicle Gets India's Attention

India is keen to buy Australian Bushmaster armoured protection vehicle to use them for policing the country'sborders.

Australia will be providing technical details to India next week on the indigenous Bushmaster armoured protection vehicle or protected mobility vehicle.The vehicle has an flawless record of no casualties in the ­Afghan battle theatre in a decade.

A defence procurement contract for the Australian-made armoured vehicle would be a significant export for Australia as it builds its trade and defence relationship with India.

The interest in the Bushmaster had been raised in discussions with Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and in separate meetings with National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Home Minister Rajnath Singh, said Australian Defense Minister Kevin Andrews, at the end of a three-day visit to India.

“Mr Doval likes someone to have a look at it next week. What he was interested in was the fact that in 10 years we have not had a casualty, whereas I understand there have been lots of casualties here,” Mr Andrews told The Australian Thursday.

After providing details about the vehicle, if they’re interested in coming to Australia, or (want us) to send the relevant experts to India to look at whether it would be suitable for conditions here, which would be the next step.” Mr Andrews said.

India was also keen to increase regional maritime aircraft surveillance co-operation, a tie-up that could eventually see the two nations working jointly as end-to-end policemen of the Indian Ocean.

The Asian country had also agreed to join the Australian air force Pitch Black multilateral exercise next year as an observer with a view to future participation“We already run gateway flights from Butterworth ­(Malaysian air base) both over the South China Sea and on the other side in the Malacca Straits (the region’s two most important maritime shipping routes) and they are quite keen to see where we can co-operate in terms of surveillance exercises,” Mr ­Andrews said.

Next week Australia and India will conduct their first bilateral naval exercise, AusIndex, which will focus on anti-submarine warfare off India’s east coast.