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In 2015 Manohar Parrikar, Indian Defense Minister announced the first Project 75 submarine. The country contracted with French builders DCNS to produce a state-of-the-art sub. In the 1980s a plan was made to create one, however, due to alleged corruption, the deal never went through. The Indian Navy since has not had the opportunity to work with a sub of high caliber.

It’s a costly investment for the country. Mazagaon Docks is making a second attempt to build the submarine now, despite its problems in the 80s. There is a problem now with leaked documents. “The Australian” newspaper first announced the story but later retracted it. It alleged that sensitive data that included the advice to legal experts and military leaders, was included in the leaks. There were 20,000 pages within the document in question. Whether all pages were revealed or only a portion of them has yet to be confirmed.

The critical and sensitive data includes information that is closely-guarded by shipbuilders. It takes a long time for them to carry out the studies and research data they collect prior to the build. The customer can hold the researching company accountable for information supplied. Because of this, the Indian submarine is a particularly good find. The navy has decades of experience with eastern-origin and western-origin subs.

Though the plans may not be scrapped completely, what this does is give valuable information to other builders. This leak is equitable to a hacking situation. Although much of the information likely is shared among all ship builders, there is some valuable and proprietary information also. Namely, there were closed-door discussions on weaponry of submarines and those talks are included in the document leaked to the public.