Doctors as Humans
Afew years ago, I was on a return flight from New Delhi to Paris and New York, when the chief flight attendant suddenly broke up the humming silence and asked passengers to ring the call bell if anyone was a doctor.
As part of its efforts to promote indigenisation, the Defence Ministry has issued four shipbuilding tenders worth Rs 1,500 crore for six Next Generation Missile Vessels (NGMVs) for the Navy and Coast Guard.
The Request for Proposal (RFP) has been issued to selected seven Indian shipyards, the Defence Ministry said in a press release.
These Navy vessels will be hull form warships that will travel at over 35 knots with an endurance of 10 days at sea. While no specifications have been mentioned, these warships are reported to be fitted with Point Defence Missile System (PDMS) and have ‘stealth features’ with a range of over 15 km.
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In order to make the process of qualifying the shipyards for the issue of RFPs and to encourage participation by a larger number of Indian shipyards, an exercise was undertaken by the Defence Ministry along with the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard.
This led to the rationalisation of guidelines for the capacity assessment of shipyards that have been promulgated recently. Rationalisation and promulgation of financial selection criteria have paved the way for issue of RFPs for a large number of shipbuilding projects that have been pending.
Further, in a significant move to encourage smaller shipyards, participation in the projects with the anticipated annual outflow of less than Rs 75 crore has been restricted to smaller shipyards having an average annual turnover of less than Rs 500 crore.
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