New Delhi: The US has taken off four DRDO
laboratories, including its armament lab, from its Entity
List, revoking the ban on technology transfer to them
following President Barack Obama's promise during his visit to
the country last month.
The DRDO labs, including the Armament Research and
Development Establishment (ARDE), were blacklisted by the US
in the aftermath of the 1998 nuclear tests by India.
"Yes, the sanctions have been lifted. The four DRDO
labs have been taken off one of the categories under which
technology transfer was banned," DRDO Chief Controller for
Research and Development (Armament and Combat Engineering) S
Sundaresh told reporters here today.
"The four labs are now placed in another section on
par with some European nations to whom latest, critical
technologies can be transferred. We will now get more, latest
technology," he added.
Before this, the Entity List had DRDO labs Armament
Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) in Pune, the
Defense Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) in
Hyderabad, the Missile Research and Development Complex (MRDC)
in Hyderabad and the Solid State Physics Laboratory in New
Delhi.
Obama had said that the US would remove these DRDO
labs, along with four ISRO establishments, and the missile
producer Bharat Dynamic Limited from the Entity List.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, December 01, 2010, 23:43