While all the essays in 'In Hard Times: Security in a Time of Insecurity' are instructive and intellectually stimulating, collectively they do not conflate into a ‘whole-of-defence-and-security’, or even ‘whole-of-military’ perspective.

The ball is now in the armed forces’ court, to determine how effectively – or not – they utilise the resources made available to them. 

No finance minister in over a decade has ever met the armed forces' expectations for budget allocations – but that has not prevented them from making financially unviable demands on the exchequer.

One positive take-away from the Airbus-Tata deal is the way the Indian Air Force and the defence ministry worked together towards the twin objectives of meeting the former’s requirement and promoting indigenous production.

These practices, now presided over by the DAP 2020, have become difficult for ordinary mortals – much less the foreign vendors – to either comprehend, manage or execute.

In the name of atmanirbharta, there is unmindful indigenisation of the equipment in a bid to seemingly inflate the MoD's list and render it more striking and achievement-oriented.

Such contracts provide ‘psychological comfort’ to MoD’s civil and military bureaucracy.

The ambiguity is that these financial powers, when granted earlier, were not delegated for any specific period and hence, could not have elapsed, warranting their renewal by the DAC earlier this week.

The committee chairman’s refusal to allow discussion on Agnipath was as inconsequential as the protest walk-out by the three opposition members.

The ministry claimed that India’s defence exports had rocketed to Rs 13,000 crore in FY 2021-22, constituting a 55% increase over the preceding year. But a closer look raises several questions.

Blaming the bureaucracy for foisting the imperfect Agnipath scheme on the services is a feeble attempt at ‘rationalising’ the mistake of promulgating a policy that had not been properly thought through.

In light of the many concerns and misgivings – many of them unfounded – surrounding SPARSH, there is a need to tackle the most concerns and clarify how it functions and what it means for defence pensioners.

Irrespective of the government's motivations behind the Agnipath scheme, the linkage between the rising pension expenditure and somewhat moderate outlays for operations and force modernisation is undeniable.

‘System for Pension Administration Raksha’, or SPARSH, has reduced the average time taken for sanctioning pensions to current retirees from four months to just 17 days.

In its quest to reach an ambitious export target by 2025, the defence ministry is ignoring domestic technological inadequacies, questionable quality control and fierce overseas competition.

The harsh reality is that no one in the government, least of all the SCoD, has a clue about how adequate revenues can be generated to meet the competing demands of the country’s defence and other sectors

The list of 2,500 items indigenised by the defence public sector undertakings leaves one wondering about the standards the defence ministry has set for itself to adjudge the success of its 'atmanirbharta'.

Indian Army chief General M.M. Naravane recently claimed the procurement process is stuck in the Industrial Age. But is he using his position to try and change that?

In the absence of an executable roadmap, the plan to restructure OFB by the year end into seven corporations appears not only ambitious but, in a system rife with interminable delays, unlikely.

In hindsight, it appears that the proposal was not only untimely but one that smacked of false bravado.