India's Push for Self-Reliance in Defence: What It Means for Businesses and Partners
For decades, India found itself in an uncomfortable position — one of the world's largest military spenders, yet heavily reliant on foreign suppliers for the equipment its armed forces depended on. Fighter jets, submarines, artillery systems, helicopters: a significant portion of what India's defence forces used came from abroad. The strategic and economic consequences of this dependence were hard to ignore. Every major procurement deal meant billions of dollars flowing out of the country, limited technology absorption at home, and a nagging vulnerability that came with relying on external suppliers for critical national security assets. That picture has been changing, and quite deliberately so. Over the past several years, the Government of India has made indigenous defence manufacturing a cornerstone of national policy. The logic is straightforward: a country of India's size, ambition, and security requirements cannot remain a perpetual importer of defence technology. It ...