India's second aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, designed to boost India's maritime capabilities, will be inducted into Indian Navy by Defence Minister A K Antony at a shipyard in Russia today. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and Defence Minister Shoigu will attend the commissioning of the Kiev Class carrier, formerly called Admiral Gorshkov. Mr Antony has arrived in Russia accompanied by a high-level delegation, including Defence Secretary R K Mathur, on a four-day visit. A Navy release said that with a capacity of over 8,000 tonnes of load, INS Vikramaditya is capable of operations up to a range of over 7,000 nautical miles or 13,000 kilometres.

Apart from commissioning the aircraft carrier, Mr. Antony will co-chair the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoigu.