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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 Economics of Exhaustion

Writer: Parashram Patil
Parashram Patil
Jun 10
3 min read

For decades, India’s economic planners have built elaborate models to estimate the returns on irrigation projects and farm mechanisation. Yet one critical asset remains largely invisible in the national balance sheet, which is the biological health of the farmer.


This omission is becoming increasingly costly as India pursues its ambition of becoming a $5-trillion economy. A growing body of evidence suggests that the country's agricultural sector is sustained not merely by land and capital but by the relentless physical sacrifice of millions of farmers. The result is a structural economic distortion that may best be described as “human mining” or the extraction of agricultural output through the gradual depletion of the human beings who produce it.


Challenging Assumptions

The concept challenges a long-standing assumption embedded within agricultural economics: that labour is a static input. In reality, labour has a biological dimension. The farmer’s health deteriorates and productivity declines. When this depreciation is ignored, both the economy and the state eventually bear the cost.


Recent evidence from Maharashtra's sugarcane belt illustrates the scale of the problem. A field study of owner-cultivators paints a picture of a workforce operating under conditions that would be unacceptable in almost any other industry. The average farmer surveyed worked nearly eleven hours a day while sleeping barely five hours a night. Chronic back and joint pain was widespread. Almost all lacked access to clean drinking water while working in the fields, exposing them to dehydration and heat stress.


Nutrition was equally alarming. Most reported consuming little or no daily protein. Many skipped meals altogether during periods of financial stress. Such conditions are not merely a public-health concern but also an economic problem.


Indeed, the study uncovered what might be called a “revenue-pain paradox.” Farmers earning higher revenues often reported higher levels of physical pain. In effect, greater earnings were being purchased through accelerated bodily deterioration. The current agricultural value chain rewards output while quietly transferring the long-term biological costs onto the producer.


Measured through the proposed Farmer Health Capital (FHC) framework, the average farmer was found to be operating at less than half of his or her optimal biological capacity. In economic terms, India is running a critical productive asset far below its potential while simultaneously accelerating its depreciation.


When farmer health deteriorates, productivity falls and indebtedness deepens. Rural families divert income towards treatment instead of investment. Illness reduces labour efficiency and lowers yields. Minor untreated ailments evolve into chronic conditions that eventually require expensive hospital interventions.


Vicious Cycle

In many farming communities, healthcare expenses account for a significant share of seasonal earnings. Financial shocks often force households to borrow from informal lenders at punitive rates. Productive assets may be sold to cover medical costs. Land itself can become collateral for survival. Yet India’s healthcare architecture remains poorly aligned with this reality.


Flagship programmes such as Ayushman Bharat have undoubtedly expanded access to hospitalisation. But they remain heavily oriented towards tertiary care. The everyday costs that matter most to farmers like outpatient consultations, diagnostic tests, transport to clinics and treatment for minor injuries often remain uncovered.


As a result, farmers postpone treatment until conditions become severe. What could have been addressed through inexpensive preventive care ultimately arrives at public hospitals as a costly emergency. The burden on both households and government finances increases.


Perhaps the most striking finding emerging from the Farmer Health Capital framework concerns farmer behaviour itself. Conventional wisdom suggests that confidence in the next cropping season depends on revenue expectations, crop insurance or access to credit. Yet statistical modelling points elsewhere. The strongest predictor of a farmer's willingness to invest in the next season is physical health.


This is intuitive. A farmer whose body is failing is unlikely to take risks, adopt new technologies or expand production. Financial incentives matter little if physical capacity has already collapsed.


The policy implications are clear. Governments should ensure timely payments from processing mills and buyers, reducing the financial stress that drives nutritional deprivation. Agricultural cooperatives should evolve into local human-capital hubs, providing drinking water, basic preventive care and ergonomic equipment.


India’s farmers constitute the foundation of the country’s food-security architecture. Allowing their physical capital to depreciate unchecked is economically irrational. Protecting it is neither charity nor populism but sound economics.


A nation that invests billions in roads, railways and industrial corridors cannot afford to neglect the human infrastructure that feeds it.


(The writer is a member of Maharashtra Agriculture Price Commission. Views personal.)

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