DRDO-made Light Weight Bullet Proof Jacket weighing 9 kg

New Delhi: The Defence Materials and Stores Research and Development Establishment (DMSRDE), Kanpur, a DRDO laboratory has developed a Light Weight Bullet Proof Jacket (BPJ) weighing 9 kg to meet the qualitative requirements of the Indian Army.

The Front Hard Armour Panel (FHAP) jacket was tested at Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory, Chandigarh and fulfilled the relevant BIS standards. This technology reduces the weight of the medium-sized BPJ from 10.4 kg to 9 kg, the DRDO said.

This comes after the DRDO had designed special jackets filled with liquid that can be worn inside PPE kits to keep the body cool and cope up with the heat. These were introduced by the Jodhpur Health Department for lab technicians in July last year.

Earlier this year in January, a major-rank Indian Army officer, Anoop Mishra indigenously developed the world’s first universal bulletproof jacket 'Shakti' which can be used by both male and female combatants. The jacket is also the world’s first flexible body armour.

In March, the DRDO completed its final Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) test just a day before the Indian Navy inducted its INS Karanj attack submarine. Following this, the Indian Navy can proceed with retrofitting all its Kalvari class non-nuclear attacks submarines with AIP during their next upgrade scheduled for 2023.

In developing the AIP technology, India joined an elite list of countries including the United States, France, China, the United Kingdom and Russia. A fuel-cell based AIP, like the ones, reportedly, to be fitted on the Indian Navy's Kalvari-class submarines, create energy by combining hydrogen and oxygen, with only water created as a by-product.

Fuel-cell based AIPs enable submarines to stay underwater for vastly longer periods of time than conventional diesel-electric submarines increasing their range and turning them into a far more potent and lethal adversary.