NEW DELHI: India will buy more than 160,000 guns worth $553 million for troops on its disputed, high-altitude borders, the defence ministry said on Tuesday.

The country’s defence acquisition council cleared the purchase of 72,400 assault rifles and 93,895 carbines for $553 million in a meeting presided over by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

The weapons will be bought to “enable the defence forces to meet their im-mediate requirement for the troops deployed on the borders,” the ministry said in a statement.

New Delhi has signed several big-ticket defence deals since Prime Minister Narendra Modi stormed to power in 2014.

India — the world’s largest defence importer — has been investing tens of billions in updating its Soviet-era military hardware to counter long-standing territorial disputes with its nuclear-armed neighbours, China and Pakistan.

India and China fought a brief war in 1962 over their border and last year they were involved in a months-long showdown over a disputed Himalayan plateau.

India is also mired in conflict in the Himalayan region of Kashmir where roughly 500,000 soldiers are deployed.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2018