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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.)

When ‘No’ is Not an Answer

Writer: Vineeta Dwivedi
Vineeta Dwivedi
Aug 11
4 min read

The Pune murder case, in which a young man was allegedly killed by his fiancée and her partner, has become an Indian cause célèbre. While the crime is cruel and unforgivable, it begs the question why? If she did not want to marry the man, she could have just said no. The accused – Siya Goyal – is only 20 years old, according to reports, and had said she did not want to marry her fiancé. Socially, it opens up a much larger question that in many Indian families, even today, why is it so hard for a young woman to say no?


In theory, modern India celebrates women’s choice. Women study, work, travel, earn, lead teams, run companies and talk about empowerment. But inside the intimate spaces of family and marriage, choice can still be heavily negotiated, and sometimes quietly denied. 


A UN Women Discussion Paper (2023) provides a definitive, systemic breakdown of why modern progress fails to automatically grant women true personal agency. It highlights that individual choices regarding marriage, work, and bodily autonomy are actively bottlenecked by deep-seated social norms rather than a lack of legal rights, and globally, progress on gender equality is slow, has stalled or is backsliding.


Multidimensional Process

Women’s agency is the multidimensional process through which women formulate self-defined goals, hold self-efficacy to pursue them, and make strategic life choices. It is not merely an individual cognitive trait, but a relational capacity heavily mediated by formal institutions and informal social norms. True agency requires not just the freedom to make choices, but also the structural power to challenge and transform unequal gender hierarchies.


Main Vaapas Aaunga, set against the wounds of Partition, had a deeply disturbing family moment: the women of a displaced family are left behind in newly created Pakistan. The matriarch says no and resists as she sees the horror of what is being decided. But the patriarch decides. The men ensure that he is taken to India, even if on a makeshift stretcher. His body, his survival, his journey matter. The women’s fear, refusal, and fate are absorbed into the larger authority of the male decision. The scene stays with us because it reveals that while the women were present, they suffered the consequences of decisions they did not make.


Women’s agency is still most fragile at the points where society is most invested: marriage, sexuality, divorce, inheritance, motherhood, respectability, and family honour. The modern woman may be told she is free, but her freedom often comes with invisible clauses. Choose, but do not shame us. Work, but do not neglect the home. Speak, but do not sound angry. Leave, but only if the abuse is unbearable enough for others to certify. Say no, but be ready to explain it.


This is why cases of women killing husbands or fiancés receive such intense attention. They are shocking and they should be. Violence by women cannot be explained away as ‘rebellion’ or ‘helplessness.’ Men, too, are victims of intimate violence.


But we must be careful not to build a false equivalence. The data on gendered violence in India still tells a much larger and more persistent story of women being harmed inside homes, marriages and families. Crimes against women remain staggeringly high. A crime against a woman was registered every 71 seconds in India in 2024. Cruelty by husbands and relatives continues to be one of the largest categories of recorded crime against women. Globally, too, women are far more likely to be killed by intimate partners or family members than men are.


So, when a woman is accused of killing a man, we must condemn the crime without using it to erase the scale of violence against women. At the same time, we should not avoid the uncomfortable question it raises: what social routes do women have when they want to refuse a marriage, end an engagement or reject the life chosen for them?


No Agency

Agency is therefore not only an individual quality but also a social permission structure. It is created by families, institutions, laws, and economic independence. A woman has agency not only when she speaks but also when her speech changes the outcome.


This is why even powerful women are not free from gendered punishment. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recently pushed back sharply against US President Donald Trump after he claimed she had sought a photograph with him. She exercised public agency: she rejected the humiliation and refused the script of female deference. And yet, Meloni herself has faced the circulation of fake, sexualised AI-generated images. Even when a woman occupies the highest office, the digital crowd knows how to drag her back to shame and humiliation.


Women may enter public life, but their image is still treated as available for violation.  From Partition homes to political offices, from arranged marriages to AI deepfakes, the pattern is not identical, but the question is connected: who gets to decide what happens to a woman’s life, body, reputation, and future? The answer should be obvious: she does.


We need families where a daughter’s ‘no’ is not treated as betrayal and where engagements are ended without shame. We need divorce to be seen not only as a failure, but sometimes as a survival. We need economic systems that allow women to leave without destitution. We need legal processes that are accessible before violence escalates. We need men to understand that rejection is not humiliation. And we need women to know that agency is not selfishness. A woman should not have to destroy herself, or anyone else, to escape a life she did not choose.


(The writer is an Associate Professor of Organisation and Leadership Studies at S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai. Views personal.)

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