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By:

Kedar Kulkarni

28 May 2026 at 5:09:28 am

72 Hours in May: India’s Defence Ecosystem Comes of Age

Last month saw three major indigenous defence breakthroughs in three days, underscoring India’s growing ability to build strategic technologies at home. AI generated image For most of its post-independence history, India’s strategic establishment has had a peculiar relationship with military power. Major acquisitions were announced in press conferences. Sophisticated platforms were purchased abroad. The long years of design work, testing and technological development often occurred out of...

72 Hours in May: India’s Defence Ecosystem Comes of Age

Last month saw three major indigenous defence breakthroughs in three days, underscoring India’s growing ability to build strategic technologies at home. AI generated image For most of its post-independence history, India’s strategic establishment has had a peculiar relationship with military power. Major acquisitions were announced in press conferences. Sophisticated platforms were purchased abroad. The long years of design work, testing and technological development often occurred out of public view, frequently in partnership with a Soviet and later Russian supplier, and were judged only by results that emerged decades later. India’s defence story, for much of that history, was one of patient procurement. In recent years, it has begun to look rather different. Significant Milestones Between May 7 and May 9, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) conducted three separate tests of three distinct technologies. While any one of them would ordinarily have commanded headlines of its own, the tests were three significant milestones in a span of seventy-two hours. On May 7, off the Odisha coast, an Indian Air Force Jaguar dropped a 500-kilogram bomb fitted with what the Ministry of Defence calls India’s first indigenous glide weapon system, the Tactical Advanced Range Augmentation kit, or TARA. The technology is deceptively modest. It converts conventional unguided bombs already held in large numbers by the Air Force into stand-off, precision-guided munitions, reducing dependence on imported systems such as the Israeli SPICE-2000 and moving India closer to the capability long provided by America’s JDAM family of kits. A day later, from the Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Island, India conducted a successful flight trial of an Advanced Agni missile equipped with a Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) system. The Ministry stated that multiple payloads were delivered to distinct targets distributed across a wide area of the Indian Ocean. While the missile variant has not been formally identified, defence reporting has suggested it may be the long-anticipated Agni-VI. Whatever its nomenclature, the test marked a significant progression beyond Mission Divyastra of March 2024, which first demonstrated India’s MIRV capability. Then, on May 9 in Hyderabad, DRDO’s Defence Research and Development Laboratory successfully ran a full-scale scramjet combustor continuously for more than 1,200 seconds. Twenty minutes of sustained supersonic combustion may sound esoteric, but it represents one of the essential building blocks of a future hypersonic cruise missile. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh described the achievement as laying “a solid foundation” for India’s Hypersonic Cruise Missile Development Programme. Viewed individually, none of these tests fundamentally alters the strategic balance. India had already demonstrated MIRV technology. It had previously conducted a full-scale scramjet burn. Stand-off precision munitions have been under development for years. What is new is the clustering. The timing falls within a particularly significant calendar in India’s recent strategic history. Roughly a year earlier, during the first week of May 2025, India launched Operation Sindoor against terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan. For the first time, indigenous systems including BrahMos missiles, domestic air-defence networks and a growing inventory of Indian precision weapons were employed at scale under combat conditions. Since then, the Indian government has repeatedly framed Sindoor not merely as a military operation but as a symbol of India’s political, social and strategic will. The coincidence of these three tests with the operation’s anniversary is hardly accidental. The tests also occurred amid a more complicated geopolitical backdrop. Over the past year, New Delhi has grappled with renewed tensions with Washington over tariffs, Russian oil imports and the continuing shadow of potential CAATSA-related sanctions. For decades, Russia supplied many of India's most important military platforms, from Sukhoi fighters and T-90 tanks to S-400 systems and the jointly developed BrahMos missile. Recent geopolitical turbulence has served as a reminder that excessive dependence on any single supplier carries strategic risks. Against that backdrop, the scramjet milestone deserves particularly close attention. Nearly every major Indian hypersonic headline of the past two decades has been BrahMos-derived, which is to say it has rested on technology co-developed with Moscow's NPO Mashinostroyeniya. The combustor that ran for twenty minutes in Hyderabad, by contrast, is a Defence Research and Development Laboratory design, fuelled by indigenous hydrocarbon chemistry and supported by industry partners drawn from India's domestic supply chain. It is the first major brick in India’s hypersonic wall laid without a Russian hand on the trowel. The BrahMos-II programme, originally conceived as a Russian-assisted hypersonic successor, has reportedly progressed more slowly than anticipated owing to cost and developmental challenges. Increasingly, the architecture being pursued by DRDO appears to be the one now undergoing testing in Hyderabad. The strategic significance is difficult to overstate. For the first time, India is developing a critical-path hypersonic capability whose progress cannot be halted, delayed or conditioned by a foreign partner. Industrial Backbone India’s defence production crossed Rs. 1.51 lakh crore in 2024-25, an all-time high and an increase of 18 percent over the previous year. Defence exports reached Rs. 23,622 crore, more than thirty times their level a decade earlier, while nearly 16,000 micro, small and medium enterprises now participate in the country's defence manufacturing ecosystem. Behind those figures lies a series of policy interventions whose effects are only now becoming visible. Programmes such as Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX), the ADITI initiative and the Defence Industrial Corridors in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have sought to connect laboratories, start-ups, private manufacturers and the armed forces into a single innovation ecosystem. The BrahMos Integration and Testing Facility in Lucknow, inaugurated in 2025, has become a particularly visible symbol of this transformation. The objective is to build increasingly sophisticated technologies within the country itself. The TARA glide kit offers a useful example. Developed by Research Centre Imarat in Hyderabad through the Development-cum-Production Partner model, it brings together DRDO laboratories and private-sector manufacturing. The Advanced Agni programme similarly rests upon a network of indigenous suppliers specialising in metallurgy, guidance systems, electronics and rocketry. The scramjet combustor, meanwhile, was designed by DRDL and realised through domestic industrial partnerships. Progress Without Illusion None of this is to exaggerate India’s current position. The TARA kit arrives years after comparable Western systems entered service. The Advanced Agni's warhead count and effective range remain undisclosed. The scramjet achievement, impressive as it is, still remains a ground test. China and Russia already field operational hypersonic weapons, while the United States has begun deploying its own. So, while the gap remains real, the significance of the seventy-two hours between May 7 and May 9 lies in what the cluster reveals about the state of India’s defence-industrial base. Three indigenous systems, spanning precision-strike capability, strategic deterrence and future hypersonic warfare, reached important milestones within days of one another. They emerged from different laboratories and drew upon different industrial networks. Yet all reflected that India’s strategic technology ecosystem has reached a level of maturity at which meaningful advances increasingly emerge on its own timetable. The message is directed not only at Beijing and Islamabad, but also at Washington and Moscow. India’s strategic capabilities will continue to benefit from international partnerships. But the country’s most consequential military technologies are increasingly being designed, tested and produced at home. When Rajnath Singh flagged off the first batch of Indian-built BrahMos missiles in Lucknow in October last year, he observed that India had moved into the role of “a giver, not just a taker.” The phrase was intended to describe defence exports. So, while the era of patient procurement is not exactly over, it certainly is no longer the whole story. (The writer is Assistant Professor at the Ajeenkya D.Y. Patil University and a doctoral scholar in geopolitics. Views personal.)

Imran Khan’s Fall from Grace

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Imran Khan’s Fall from Grace

Imran Khan, once hailed as Pakistan’s most charismatic and resilient leader now finds himself in a position unprecedented for a man of his stature.

The former Prime Minister of Pakistan, once known for his unyielding spirit and fierce determination, now shows signs of strain. Imprisoned and facing numerous charges, Khan appears to be a shadow of the leader who once inspired millions.

Khan’s recent meeting with journalists revealed a man who is a shell of his former self. Once confident and commanding, his body now shows a sense of unease and agitation. Those who met him describe a waning spirit, a stark change for a leader once known for his steadfastness in adversity.

The journalists described Khan as a man who is aware that his political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), is losing its once-iron grip on the nation’s imagination―a realisation that visibly shook him.

The PTI, once a magnet for massive crowds and inspired loyalty among its supporters, is now struggling. The much-hyped rally scheduled for August 22 in Islamabad, was embarrassingly cancelled due to a lack of public interest. Khan, in a bid to save face, claimed that the rally was called off to avoid potential violence. In a sign of growing desperation, Khan rescheduled the rally for September 8 and directed his party leaders to overcome any obstacles. This defiant stance is typical of Khan’s confrontational style, and his public directives highlight his insecurity about his party’s ability to mobilise support.

While Khan outwardly appears calm and composed, the multiple cases against him and his time in jail have left him isolated and struggling with loneliness. Even in this difficult situation, he remains in the headlines, thanks to his uncanny ability to stay in the public’s eye. Khan recently made headlines by applying for the University of Oxford Chancellorship, a move initially dismissed as a rumor but confirmed by his spokesman, Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari. As an Oxford alumnus, Khan would be the first Asian to take the role. Many see this bid as a strategic play to leverage his international profile against Pakistan’s establishment, a move that has kept him prominently in the media spotlight.

The political landscape in Pakistan is deeply divided. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, in his second term, has failed to address critical issues including unemployment, soaring inflation, and deteriorating law and order. His administration’s inability to deliver on its promises has only deepened the public’s disillusionment, leading to growing nostalgia for Khan’s past leadership.

Shahbaz Sharif’s government is a source of frustration for the Pakistani people and a cause for concern for the country’s military. Historically, the military has shaped Pakistan’s political trajectory, stepping in when civilian governments falter. The military reportedly is growing uneasy about the government’s performance especially Sharif’s inability to stabilize the country and mend relationships with key neighbors, particularly India. Additionally, its deteriorating ties with Afghanistan and Iran have left Pakistan increasingly isolated. Even China, Pakistan’s longstanding ally, has expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s policies, a worrying sign given the importance of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to the country’s economic future.

It is within this context of political turmoil and international isolation that Imran Khan remains a potent force. Despite his legal troubles and the challenges facing his party, Khan’s popularity endures. For millions of Pakistanis, his tenure as Prime Minister is seen as a time of relative stability and hope, a stark contrast to the current administration’s ineptitude. This perception has kept Khan’s political base intact, even as his party faces an uphill battle in the coming months.

However, Khan’s ability to navigate the current political landscape is far from guaranteed. The PTI’s diminishing support, coupled with the increasing pressure from the establishment, raises questions about Khan’s long-term strategy. His recent moves, including the application for the Oxford Chancellorship, suggest a leader willing to explore unconventional avenues to maintain his relevance. But whether these tactics will translate into a successful political comeback remains to be seen.

Pakistan’s political future is more uncertain than ever. Imran Khan’s journey from cricketing legend to political maverick has been extraordinary. Still, as he faces the toughest challenge of his career, the question remains: Can he once again defy the odds and reclaim his place at the helm of Pakistani politics, or is this the beginning of the end for a once unstoppable leader?

Khan’s story is a testament to the complexities of power and the unpredictable nature of political life in Pakistan. His rise, driven by charisma, populism, and a genuine desire for change, now faces the realities of personal and political challenges, raising the possibility that his time may be running out.

Imran Khan is a beacon of hope for his supporters, and a polarizing figure for detractors, whose ambitions have often clouded his judgment. As the nation watches, the world is left to wonder: What will Imran Khan’s next move be? And more importantly, what does it mean for the future of Pakistan? The coming months will be critical not only for Imran Khan but for Pakistan as a whole. The decisions made during this period will shape the country’s trajectory for years. Whether Khan emerges victorious or is consigned to the annals of history as a fallen leader, one thing is certain: The story of Imran Khan is far from over.

(The writer is a senior jounalist based in Islamabad. Views personal)

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