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India Unveils Locally Built Aircraft Carrier

Tugboats guide the INS Vikrant as it leaves the Cochin Shipyard after a launch ceremony in Kochi, India, on Monday. When it comes into full service in 2018, India will become the fifth nation to have designed and built its own aircraft carrier.
Manjunath Kiran
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AFP/Getty Images
Tugboats guide the INS Vikrant as it leaves the Cochin Shipyard after a launch ceremony in Kochi, India, on Monday. When it comes into full service in 2018, India will become the fifth nation to have designed and built its own aircraft carrier.

India unveiled its first locally built aicraft carrier, the INS Vikrant, on Monday.

Here's what the ship looks like:

With the $5 billion INS Vikrant, India joins a select group of nations that have built their own aircraft carriers. Others include:

Britain's sole aircraft carrier is the HMS Illustrious. It is scheduled to be decommissioned next year and be replaced by the HMS Queen Elizabeth, which is expected to be completed in 2017. Here's the HMS Illustrious:

A Sea King helicopter rests on the flight deck of the HMS Illustrious in London.
Dan Kitwood / Getty Images
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Getty Images
A Sea King helicopter rests on the flight deck of the HMS Illustrious in London.

France also has one. Here's the Charles de Gaulle, which is nuclear-powered:

French nuclear aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle floats near Naples, Italy, last year.
Mario Laporta / AFP/Getty Images
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AFP/Getty Images
French nuclear aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle floats near Naples, Italy, last year.

Russia has one, too — the Admiral Kuzhetsov:

The Admiral Kuzhetsov during a military exercise in 2005.
Alexey Panov / AFP/Getty Images
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AFP/Getty Images
The Admiral Kuzhetsov during a military exercise in 2005.

The U.S., of course, dwarfs them all combined. It has 10 — along with the largest Navy in the world. Here's the USS George H.W. Bush, which was commissioned in 2009:

An aerial view of the USS George H.W. Bush in Norfolk, Va., in 2009.
Haraz N. Ghanbari / AP
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AP
An aerial view of the USS George H.W. Bush in Norfolk, Va., in 2009.

India's unveiling of the INS Vikrant comes a day after the South Asian nation activated the reactor aboard the INS Arihant, believed to be, as Scott wrote on our Two-Way blog, the first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine designed and built outside the Cold War "nuclear club."

The developments give India a much-needed ego boost in its rivalry with neighbor China, whose military capabilities dwarf India's. China defeated India in a brief but bitter border war in 1962.

China has one aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, which it unveiled last year. It bought the vessel from Ukraine in 1998. Here's what it looks like:

The Liaoning cruises back to port Oct. 30, 2012, after its first sea trial in Dalian, China.
/ AP
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AP
The Liaoning cruises back to port Oct. 30, 2012, after its first sea trial in Dalian, China.

But China is believed to be working on its own locally built aircraft carrier. It's unclear when that carrier will join the Liaoning.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Krishnadev Calamur is NPR's deputy Washington editor. In this role, he helps oversee planning of the Washington desk's news coverage. He also edits NPR's Supreme Court coverage. Previously, Calamur was an editor and staff writer at The Atlantic. This is his second stint at NPR, having previously worked on NPR's website from 2008-15. Calamur received an M.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri.