Indian-built Aircraft Carrier to Launch Monday

India's first indigenously-built aircraft carrier INS Vikrant (aka. Project 71 Air Defense Ship) will be hitting the water on Monday from the Cochin shipyard:

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/ins-vikrant-india-s-first-indigenous-aircraft-carrier-to-be-launched-on-monday-404396

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ins-vikrant-touches-water-today/article5012946.ece

It's certainly better to build such large leviathan ships on our own, rather than to give billions to a foreign supplier. The next aircraft carrier, IAC-2 will be 50% larger still and use steam catapults instead of a ski-jump. Now that Arihant has India's first navalized reactor, it remains to be seen which carrier will be the first to be fitted with a nuclear power source.