India will buy 500 air-to-air missiles from European guided weapons manufacturer MBDA for its Mirage 2000 aircraft in a contract worth around $1.2 billion, UPI reported. The deal was cleared by the Indian government's Cabinet Committee on Security at a meeting led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a report in The Hindu newspaper said. MBDA will supply its MICA -- interception and aerial combat fire-and-forget -- missiles starting this year and ending in 2021. The company was set up in 2001 through a merger of the EADS company Aerospatiale-Matra Missiles with the missile operations of Finmeccanica and Matra BAe Dynamics. In 2005 EADS's missile business in Germany, LFK-Lenkflugkorpersysteme, joined the MBDA consortium. MBDA employs more than 10,000 people in development and manufacturing centers in France, Britain, Germany, Italy and the United States. Turnover in 2010 was nearly $1.4 billion through contracts with around 90 armed forces. The Indian missile deal comes during a midlife upgrade of 51 of the Indian air force's Mirage 2000 aircraft under a $1.87 billion agreement signed with Dassault Aviation last year. Work to modernize navigation systems, mission computers and electronic warfare and radar systems is being carried out in India at the facilities of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
