Hours after Mr. Orsi's arrest, Indian Defense Secretary Shashikant Sharma said his government had ordered its federal investigation agency to examine the helicopter deal.

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Indian defense officials said the small arms firing had been going on for about six hours in the Akhnoor sector, but stressed that it was an exchange that was not uncommon along the tense control line.

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But the first two years of the new administration proved to be the budgetary equivalent of an Indian summer for the defense sector, with military outlays actually exceeding the highest levels of the Bush years.

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Separately, Vivek Lall, who heads the Indian operations at Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems unit, said the company will bid to sell six medium-range maritime patrol aircraft to India.

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Fernandes also sat in on April's talks between French Chief of Defense Staff General Pierre Kelche and his Indian counterpart Gen.

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The United States is home to about 700, 000 Sikhs, nearly all of Indian origin, according to the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

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Two Indian citizens were killed, and the wounded Indian and Chadian passengers were taken for medical care, the defense ministry said in the statement Monday.

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"This really gives them strategic reach in the Indian Ocean, " says Vivek Lall, vice president in charge of Boeing's defense, space and security operations in India.

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