Hunt for Army assault rifle may be called off

NEW DELHI: The humble foot-soldier's torturous wait for a new-generation assault rifle may now get longer. India is likely to scrap its four-year-old hunt for new-generation assault rifles with interchangeable barrels for conventional warfare and counter-insurgency operations. Ordinary infantry jawans are often forgotten in the race for acquiring big-ticket weapons like fighters, helicopters, submarines, tanks, howitzers and the like. Leave alone advanced weaponry, they are even now still to be adequately-equipped with modular bu…