On September 21st, AMCHAM’s Defense Committee members convened for a meeting at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. The leadership, Mr. William L. Blair, Chairman – Defense Committee, AMCHAM and Vice President and Chief Executive, Lockheed Martin India, Mr. Ravi Nirgudkar, Co-Chairman – Defense Committee, AMCHAM and Managing Director India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, BAE Systems India Services (Pvt.) Limited, Mr. Surendra Ahuja, Co-Chairman – Defense Committee, AMCHAM and Managing Director, Boeing Defense India, along with the secretariat lead, Ms. Udaya Arun, Director – Aerospace & Defense, AMCHAM welcomed the Defense Attaché at the U.S. Embassy, RDML Michael Baker. Around 14 members joined the meeting. The committee was updated about the government roundtable that was planned earlier in the month with Defense Secretary, Dr. Ajay Kumar, as a follow on to the session with Additional Secretary, Sanjay Jaju last month.

CAPT Michael Farmer, Chief, Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC), U.S. Embassy and Mr. Nilesh Christian, Deputy Chief, Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC), U.S. Embassy also joined the deliberations. Ms. Arun opened up the discussions with a welcome to RDML Baker and took participants through the agenda for the meeting which included the re-scheduled DefExpo 2022 in the context of foreign participation. Members also shared their participation numbers of the rescheduled event and confirmed that they would be present even if not in large numbers. Ms. Arun shared about the AMCHAM led events planned for U.S. industry and what could be delivered. The embassy team shared details of the visiting delegation from the U.S. government.