The Modi government’s decision to import ban on 101 defence items is a much-needed step to ensure indigenisation of the defence sector. However, ‘Make in India’ is not seen as a great success in the defence sector as there have been several examples when 'make in India' products failed to achieve the requirements of the Indian Armed Forces which forces us to re-think our strategy

New Delhi: In what could be a big push to make India ‘self-reliant’ in the all crucial defence sector, the central government on Sunday announced an embargo on the import of 101 defence items, including armoured vehicles, assault rifles, missiles, etc. Calling the move ‘a big step towards self-reliance in defence’, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced the decision and said that it will offer a great opportunity to the Indian defence industry to manufacture the items in the negative list by using their design and development capabilities or adopting the technologies designed and developed by DRDO.

The Modi government’s decision to import ban on 101 defence items is a much-needed step to ensure indigenisation of the defence sector. However, ‘Make in India’ is not seen as a great success in the defence sector as there have been several examples when 'make in India' products failed to achieve the requirements of the Indian Armed Forces which forces us to re-think our strategy. 

So as the Modi government plans to make India ‘self-reliant’ in the defence sector, here are some types of equipment, weapons and missiles prepared indigenously in the country. Following weapons have been prepared indigenously and we can take a hint from them and make a sincere effort to achieve our goal to make India ‘self-reliant’ in the all crucial defence sector.

Dhanush Howitzers:

Dhanush Howitzers is a 155 mm light field gun that is used by the Indian Army and is developed by the Ordnance Factories Board (OFD). The gun was induced in 2018 and is based on Bofors guns. Equipped with thermal sightings, Dhanush Howitzers have a capability of firing three rounds in 15 seconds.

Akash Missile:

Developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Akash is a medium-range mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) which is used by the Indian Armed Forces. With an ability to hit targets up to 30 km away and at altitudes up to 18,000 metres, Akash missiles can fly at a speed of more than 2.5 Mach and can track 64 targets in range.

Agni Missiles:

The Agni missiles have been jointly developed by Bharat Dynamics Limited and the DRDO and are intercontinental-range ballistic missiles. So far, India has developed six variants of Agni Missiles -- Agni-I (operational range: 700–1,200 km), Agni-II (operational range: 2,000–3,500 km), Agni-III (operational range: 3,000–5,000 km), Agni-IV (operational range: 3,500–4,000 km), Agni-V (operational range: 5,000–8,000 km) and Agni-VI (operational range: 11,000–12,000 km). 

HAL Tejas:

A single-engine fourth-generation multi-role fighter aircraft, Tejas has been developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the DRDO and the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA). Though its trials began in the 1980s, the Tejas was finally inducted in the Indian Air Force on 2016 when its first unit, No. 45 Squadron IAF Flying Daggers was formed. Currently, the IAF has 33 Tejas fighter aircraft and it plans to induct 123 jets in its armoury. 

NETRA:

Network Traffic Analysis (NETRA) is a software network developed by India's Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR) and the DRDO for Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). NETRA can intercept messages with code words like “attack, bomb, blast and kill” and can analyse voice traffic passing through software such as Skype and Google Talk.