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Proposed Indian Defense Budget Contains Increases for Ballistic Missile Funding
India’s proposed defense budget for fiscal 2005 would increase defense spending by almost 30 percent over current levels, with some of the extra money designated for developing Agni ballistic missile units, according to reports (see GSN, July 6). India last week announced plans to spend $16.8 billion on defense in fiscal 2005, an increase of 27 percent over present defense spending, the Associated Press reported. Overall, India’s planned defense budget represents 16 percent of its total $105 billion budget for fiscal 2005 (Matthew Pennington, Associated Press, July 12). The increased defense spending, intended to help modernize India’s armed forces, includes more than $7 billion to purchase weapons systems and to implement Agni ballistic missile units, according to the New Delhi Pioneer (Rahul Atta, The Pioneer, July 9 in FBIS-NES, July 12). Pakistan warned yesterday that India’s increased defense spending is a “cause for concern.” “This would wittingly or unwittingly accelerate the arms race between the two countries which we could have avoided because both India and Pakistan need massive resources for poverty alleviation, education, health and for the social sector and creating new jobs,” Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan said. Khan also said that Pakistan has increased its own defense spending, though at a smaller rate than India, and would seek to maintain the “competitive edge of our strategic and conventional capabilities” (Pennington, Associated Press). This year, Pakistan increased its defense spending by 21.7 percent, from $2.8 billion to $3.4 billion (Asia Pulse, July 12). Meanwhile, former Pakistani intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Hameed Gul said that Pakistan should end its self-imposed nuclear test moratorium and conduct a test of a hydrogen bomb, the Pakistani newspaper Nawa-i-Waqt reported Friday (Nawa-i-Waqt, July 9 in FBIS-NES, July 12).
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