Why in News?

• India delivered the first batch of BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to the Philippines as part of a $375 million deal signed by the two countries in 2022.

History of Brahmos

• In the early 1980s, the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme, conceived and led by Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, started developing a range of indigenous missiles including Prithvi, Agni, Trishul, Akash and Nag, with a wide spectrum of capabilities and ranges.
• In the early 1990s, India’s strategic leadership felt the need for cruise missiles — guided missiles that traverse the majority of their flight path at almost constant speed and deliver large warheads over long distances with high precision. 
• An Inter-Governmental Agreement was signed with Russia in Moscow in 1998 by Dr Kalam, who headed the DRDO, and N V Mikhailov, Russia’s then Deputy Defence Minister.
• This led to the formation of BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between DRDO and Russian Space company NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM), the Indian side holding 50.5% and the Russians 49.5%. It was named after two rivers in India and Russia respectively – the Brahmaputra and the Moskva.

About Brahmos

• BrahMos is a two-stage missile with a solid propellant booster engine. Its first stage brings the missile to supersonic speed and then gets separated. 
• The liquid ramjet or the second stage then takes the missile closer to three times the speed of sound in cruise phase.
• The missile has a very low radar signature, making it stealthy, and can achieve a variety of trajectories.

Defence Exports

• According to the Ministry of Defence, India’s defence exports crossed ₹21,000 crore, approximately $2.63 billion. The recent figures indicated that the defence exports have grown by 31 times in the past 10 years as compared to FY 2013-14, the Ministry said.
• India continued to be the world’s largest arms importer for the period 2019-23 with imports going up by 4.7% compared to the 2014-18 period, according to recent data by the Swedish think tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
• There was a rise in the number of export authorisations issued to the defence exporters during FY 2023-24, this increased from 1,414 in FY 2022-23 to 1,507 in FY 2023-24.
• A comparative data of two decades i.e. the period from 2004-05 to 2013-14 and 2014-15 to 2023-24 reveals that there has been a growth of 21 times in the defence exports.