New Delhi: At NDTV’s annual defence summit on Friday, senior leaders from India’s defence manufacturing sector underscored the urgent need for deeper collaboration between the armed forces, private industry, and public sector units to strengthen the nation’s military backbone. The discussion, themed “Building India’s Defence Backbone”, highlighted how rapidly evolving warfare demands faster innovation, stronger R&D, and seamless government-industry coordination to ensure India stays ahead in the defence technology race.
Drawing from lessons of Operation Sindoor India’s military response to Pahalgam speakers pointed out that the conflict changed the way the armed forces and manufacturers interact. “Three things came out of Operation Sindoor,” said Ashish Rajvanshi, CEO of Adani Defence and Aerospace. “The first was a lot more collaboration and open dialogue between customer and industry. Distrust that was there earlier vanished. It was almost like coming together for a single mission.”
He also emphasized that the nature of war is changing daily. “The last war is not a reflection of the next. The domain of warfare will evolve constantly. Assuming that technology inducted today will remain relevant for 20 years is impossible,” he noted, underlining how drones during Operation Sindoor demonstrated both the speed of change and the transformative potential of unmanned systems.
Drone warfare, the panel agreed, represents a paradigm shift not just by reducing risks to soldiers but by vastly expanding surveillance and precision-strike capabilities. This, in turn, demands heavy investments in cyber defence, encryption, AI-driven systems, and hardened infrastructure that can withstand both digital and physical attacks.
Arun T. Ramchandani, Senior Vice President at L&T Precision Engineering & Systems, built on the point, stressing that no single entity can sustain the pace of change alone. “The landscape of warfare is changing so fast... if we really want to advance our armed forces and leapfrog others we need to put an entire ecosystem together, with elements of R&D, innovation, manufacturing, operations, and maintenance. This is impossible for any single entity,” he said, adding that start-ups must also be part of this ecosystem.
But technology cycles present another challenge. Neelesh Tungar, President of Defence Bharaforge and CEO of Kalyani Strategic Systems, pointed out that the mismatch between rapid technological change and government acquisition timelines often leaves the armed forces behind. “If you look today, technology is changing every three years. But if your acquisition cycle is seven years, then you will have three-year-old tech in the field,” Tungar warned. He urged the government to step up investment in R&D, so that innovation is spread across both public and private players while keeping procurement cycles aligned with the speed of change.
The panel also drew attention to the human dimension of technological warfare. Rajvanshi remarked that the third key learning from Operation Sindoor was the importance of training frontline soldiers to understand and operate increasingly tech-driven systems. Without a prepared and adaptive force, he said, even the most advanced weapon systems would struggle to deliver results.
The discussion made one point clear: India’s defence preparedness in the coming decade will hinge not only on sophisticated technologies but also on how quickly and effectively all stakeholders government, military, manufacturers, and innovators can work together. In an era where drones, cyber warfare, and AI are rewriting the rules of battle, speed and synergy may well define the nation’s security.