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By:

Commodore S.L. Deshmukh

31 October 2024 at 8:30:19 am

The Beam That Blinds the Drone

As cheap drones reshape the battlefield, India’s T-SHUL BEAM points to a future in which electronic warfare may matter as much as firepower The drone has definitively become the weapon of choice for the modern battlefield. Cheap, expendable and increasingly autonomous, unmanned aerial vehicles can now threaten troops, armour, airfields and critical infrastructure without requiring the attacker to risk a pilot. Their proliferation has created a corresponding demand for counter-drone systems...

The Beam That Blinds the Drone

As cheap drones reshape the battlefield, India’s T-SHUL BEAM points to a future in which electronic warfare may matter as much as firepower The drone has definitively become the weapon of choice for the modern battlefield. Cheap, expendable and increasingly autonomous, unmanned aerial vehicles can now threaten troops, armour, airfields and critical infrastructure without requiring the attacker to risk a pilot. Their proliferation has created a corresponding demand for counter-drone systems that can respond quickly and at a cost proportionate to the threat. This is where beam-based anti-drone technology enters the picture. Broadly, such systems fall into two categories. Hard-kill systems use concentrated laser energy to physically damage or destroy a drone. Soft-kill systems, by contrast, use radio-frequency or electromagnetic energy to disrupt the electronic links that allow a drone to communicate, navigate and transmit information. Sophisticated Weaponry Hard-kill laser systems focus an intense beam of light on a vulnerable part of an incoming UAV - its carbon-fibre structure, control surfaces, battery or other critical components. The concentrated energy rapidly heats the target, potentially burning through its structure or disabling optical sensors and bringing the aircraft down. India’s DRDO has demonstrated a 30kW laser system, while Israel’s Rafael has developed the Lite Beam system. Soft-kill systems take a different route. Rather than physically destroying the aircraft, they interfere with the electronic architecture that keeps it airborne. Directional radio-frequency energy can disrupt command-and-control links, video feeds, telemetry and satellite-navigation signals such as GPS or other GNSS services. Depending on the drone and the nature of the disruption, the aircraft may be forced to land, return to its launch point or lose control. It is in this category that the T-SHUL BEAM system developed by Indian defence company IG Defence deserves attention. T-SHUL BEAM is a man-portable, directional counter-drone system designed for tactical deployment. Its multi-band radio-frequency architecture is intended to target several of the links on which unmanned aerial systems depend, including command-and-control, telemetry, video transmission and GNSS navigation. Its directional configuration allows an operator to concentrate electronic countermeasures on a particular aerial target rather than indiscriminately radiating energy across a large area. That matters on a battlefield where the warning time against a small UAV or first-person-view drone may be measured in seconds. The appeal of such a system is therefore not simply that it can counter a drone. It is that it can potentially bring counter-drone capability closer to the soldier and to the tactical edge. Large counter-UAS installations have their place, particularly around fixed and high-value assets. But forward units require systems that can move with them, be deployed rapidly and operate against small, low-cost unmanned platforms without imposing the logistical burden associated with conventional weapons. The T-SHUL BEAM’s significance also lies in its proposed integration with an artificial-intelligence-enabled battle-management architecture. IG Drones, the original equipment manufacturer, has stated that T-SHUL BEAM has been integrated with GRID, its indigenous AI-powered platform. The GRID architecture is intended to bring sensors, intelligence systems, unmanned platforms and command elements into a common operational framework. The attraction of such integration is obvious. Countering drones is increasingly less about a single weapon and more about the speed of the kill chain: detecting a threat, identifying it, deciding what response is appropriate and directing that response before the target disappears. An AI-enabled command architecture can potentially improve situational awareness, facilitate real-time threat detection and coordinate different systems operating simultaneously. This is particularly relevant as drone warfare evolves from isolated attacks towards increasingly complex and potentially swarming operations. A battlefield crowded with drones cannot be managed effectively if every sensor and weapon operates as a separate island. The advantage will increasingly belong to forces capable of turning disparate streams of information into a coherent picture and responding at machine speed. The T-SHUL BEAM’s reported demonstration at Pokhran represents another step in India’s attempt to build a domestic ecosystem spanning drones, counter-drones, artificial intelligence and electronic warfare. Counter-drone warfare is likely to be a recurring requirement rather than a niche capability. Importing every component of such an ecosystem would leave India vulnerable to supply-chain disruptions, technology restrictions and foreign-exchange pressures. Indigenous development, even when undertaken by relatively small private-sector companies, can broaden the country’s technological base and give the armed forces greater freedom to adapt systems to their operational requirements. Economics of the Contest Yet the real measure of any counter-drone system will ultimately be operational rather than promotional. Electronic warfare is inherently a contest between countermeasure and counter-countermeasure. Drone designers can alter frequencies, communications protocols, navigation methods and levels of autonomy. A system that is effective against one generation of drones may require modification against the next. The battlefield, in other words, will remain a technological arms race. The economics of the contest nevertheless favour directed-energy and electronic-warfare solutions. A conventional interceptor expends a missile or projectile against each target. A beam-based system can, subject to its power supply, engagement envelope and other operational constraints, engage targets without expending conventional ammunition. The marginal cost of an interception can consequently be dramatically lower. The beam also travels at effectively the speed of light, removing the flight time associated with kinetic interceptors. In densely populated areas or around sensitive infrastructure, bringing down a drone with a projectile can create its own hazards. Electronic disruption, when properly controlled, offers the possibility of neutralising the threat without sending an interceptor crashing back to earth. These advantages should not obscure the limitations. Soft-kill systems depend on the vulnerabilities of the target’s electronic architecture and may be less effective against increasingly autonomous drones that require fewer external communications. Weather, range, power availability, frequency management and the sophistication of an adversary's electronic countermeasures can all affect performance. No single technology is likely to provide a complete answer. The future of counter-drone warfare will therefore belong not to the beam alone but to layered defence combining. The emergence of systems such as T-SHUL BEAM suggests that India is beginning to build the technological pieces of that architecture at home. (The writer is a retired naval aviation officer and a defence and geopolitical analyst. Views personal.)

The Battle for Balasaheb's Legacy

Writer: Abhijit Joshi
Abhijit Joshi
Jun 26
4 min read

Eknath Shinde’s greatest political challenge is not within the ruling Mahayuti but in ensuring that Uddhav Thackeray ceases to matter.

Maharashtra has seldom witnessed political upheaval on the scale of the past decade. Since 2014, the state’s alliances have been broken and remade with astonishing frequency and parties that once defined themselves by ideological certainties have embraced improbable partners. Yet three years - 2019, 2022 and 2024 - stand apart. Each reshaped not merely the composition of government but the balance of power within the state’s political establishment. More importantly, each brought Maharashtra closer to answering a question that remains unresolved: who truly inherited the political legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray?


Irreversible Schisms

The first rupture came after the Assembly election of 2019. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the undivided Shiv Sena, partners for nearly three decades, parted ways over the chief ministership. Uddhav Thackeray joined hands with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi, an alliance whose ideological contradictions were outweighed by the immediate arithmetic of power. The unprecedented experiment rewrote Maharashtra’s politics and inaugurated a period of realignment from which the state has yet to emerge.


If 2019 unsettled the old order, 2022 demolished it. Eknath Shinde led one of the most consequential rebellions in the Shiv Sena’s history, taking with him a substantial section of the party’s legislators. The revolt toppled the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government and split the Sena into rival claimants.


The political consequences were even more profound. Shinde became Chief Minister with BJP support, while Devendra Fadnavis - widely expected to reclaim the post - accepted the office of Deputy Chief Minister. The arrangement surprised observers and immediately raised questions about the future balance of power inside the ruling alliance.


Both leaders have consistently projected unity in public. Yet politics seldom eliminates ambition merely because coalition arithmetic demands cooperation. Shinde had ceased to be merely another regional ally of the BJP. By carrying away much of the Shiv Sena's legislative strength and organisational machinery, he emerged as a power centre in his own right. Fadnavis, meanwhile, has remained the BJP’s pre-eminent leader in Maharashtra and the party’s natural claimant to long-term leadership of the state.


Complex Equation

The BJP complicated this equation further in 2023 by inducting the late Ajit Pawar and his faction of the NCP into the ruling coalition. The move widened the alliance’s social and electoral reach, but it also ensured that no single regional partner - not even Shinde - could become indispensable.


The Assembly election of 2024 seemed to vindicate this strategy. The Mahayuti secured a commanding victory. Although the BJP emerged as the largest party, many analysts credited the popularity of the Ladki Bahin Yojana, widely identified with Shinde’s government, with expanding the alliance's support among women voters.


Yet electoral credit and political reward proved to be different things. With the BJP winning the largest number of seats, Fadnavis returned as Chief Minister. For Shinde, who had governed the state for more than two years and campaigned vigorously across Maharashtra, the outcome represented an unmistakable diminution of authority.


Since then, speculation about an undeclared rivalry has persisted. The two leaders continue to present a united front, but political observers have noted episodes suggesting that Shinde remains determined to preserve an independent political identity. His separate meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have repeatedly fuelled such perceptions. Whatever the official explanation, they have reinforced the impression that the BJP’s central leadership continues to regard Shinde as an influential pillar of the National Democratic Alliance, irrespective of who occupies the Chief Minister’s office in Mumbai.


Yet, the more serious challenge to Shinde lies elsewhere. Rumours have surfaced of a possible reconciliation between the BJP and the Thackeray family. None has materialised. Even so, the speculation has served as a reminder of an uncomfortable political reality. As long as Uddhav Thackeray retains organisational strength, electoral relevance and emotional ownership of Balasaheb Thackeray’s legacy, alternative political alignments remain conceivable. For Shinde, that uncertainty itself constitutes a strategic vulnerability.


It explains the significance of what has been described as ‘Operation Tiger’ under which prominent leaders from Shiv Sena (UBT) have reportedly crossed over to Shinde’s camp. Every Member of Parliament, legislator, district functionary or corporator who defects serves a dual purpose. Numerically, Shinde’s organisation grows stronger. Symbolically, his claim to be the authentic inheritor of the Shiv Sena becomes more persuasive.


That argument received a notable endorsement when Amit Shah declared at a public function in Kolhapur that there was only one Shiv Sena, led by Eknath Shinde.


Shinde is fighting two distinct battles simultaneously. One is internal to the Mahayuti, where he must preserve sufficient political weight to negotiate with the BJP on equal terms. The other, and ultimately the more consequential, is against Uddhav Thackeray.


The contest today concerns political inheritance and the right to claim the legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray. Should Shinde succeed in bringing most of the Shiv Sena’s organisational structure under his command before he 2029 Assembly election, he would approach the next round of negotiations from a position of considerably greater strength.


Some political observers have even speculated that, if the BJP were eventually to entrust Fadnavis with a larger national role after 2029, Shinde would naturally emerge as the strongest contender for the chief ministership within the alliance.


Politics rarely unfolds according to long-term blueprints. But the logic underpinning Shinde’s present strategy is unmistakable. For him, Uddhav Thackeray cannot simply be ignored or contained. He must be politically diminished. As long as Uddhav commands loyal legislators, local leaders and committed workers, the Shiv Sena’s inheritance remains disputed. For Shinde, success will ultimately be measured on whether voters have accepted that the Shiv Sena’s future belong to him rather than to Uddhav Thackeray.


(The writer is a political observer. Views personal.)

 

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