NEW DELHI, Sep. 2, 2022 (TBINN)
India commissioned its first home-built aircraft carrier today as it seeks to counter regional rival China’s much larger growing fleet and expand its own indigenous ship-building capabilities.
The I.N.S. Vikrant, whose name is a Sanskrit word for powerful or courageous, is India’s second operational aircraft carrier, joining the Soviet-era’s I.N.S. Vikramaditya that it purchased from Russia in 2004 to defend the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal.
New 262-meter or 860-foot carrier, designed by Indian Navy and built at the Cochin Shipyard in southern India, was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of the country’s commemoration of 75 years of Independence from British rule.
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