The Indian Air Force (IAF) is set up to have France’s Air and Space Force (Armée de l’Air et de I’Espace) at its station in Jodhpur where the two forces are will participate in Ex-Desert Knight 21 bilateral exercise.
To begin on 20 January, the two-sided exercise would go on till 24 January and target giving both the powers chance to acquire operational openness and share best practices towards enhancement of combat capability.
Both the powers will acquire their fighter, transport, and tanker aircraft to participate in the exercise. The French forces are presently deployed in Asia as a part of their ‘Skyros Deployment’.
It ought to be noticed that the Ex-Desert Knight 21 two-sided practice comes notwithstanding the ‘Garuda’ series of exercises which the two flying corps additionally participate in to upgrade and further the common co-activity by utilizing the accessible opportunities for fruitful interaction.
This increases essentialness as India and France have been seeing a deepening of thaw over the years, with the European nation continuing to emerge as a key strategic partner for India across areas like defence, technology, space, diplomacy, smart cities and waste management. The two nations have also been collaborating at the United Nations on issues like terrorism.