Dubai: Indian Ambassador to UAE Sunjay Sudhir visited the BrahMos Aerospace stall at the IDEX defence exhibition there. The Indian envoy was briefed on the different projects undertaken by the Indo-Russian joint venture company and its efforts towards promoting exports by BrahMos chief AD Rane.

Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Mansour bin Zayed also toured the exhibition on the first day of its opening on Monday.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on February 15 said that the Defence Ministry has approved a simplified and fast-track procedure for procurement from iDEX start-ups and MSMEs.

"iDEX has opened avenues for achieving self-reliance in defence," Singh said adding that it has been decided to increase the grants given so far to encourage new entrepreneurs in the development of larger projects.

The Defence India Start-up Challenge was first launched in 2018 by the Defence Innovation Organisation with support from the Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defence and Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog for the Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) scheme of the Defence Ministry.

The MoD initiated the iDEX framework to encourage indigenous innovation in defence and aerospace. The agency, in line with the Union Government's Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan (self-reliant India campaign), provides financial grants, supports startups, MSMEs, R&D institutions, academia, and individual innovators and facilitates the procurement of their products.

He said that iDEX has been awarded the PM Award under the Innovation category. If the business of iDEX Winners expands, lakhs of people will get employment in the country.

"Start-up Manthan is a grand celebration of the journey of growth of the Indian Defence start-up ecosystem. This is an indicator of the success of our initiative "Innovations for Defence Excellence" i.e. iDEX.

iDEX has so far helped many home-grown technologies to develop and move forward," said Singh.