IAF Synergising The ISR Process

In an exclusive interaction, BW’s Manish Kumar Jha speaks with Chief of Air Staff B.S. Dhanoa over the critical acquisition of 114 multi-role fighter jets, next generation upgrade in ISR and leveraging IT into the defence, among other things.

- Manish Kumar Jha

Would you like to share your vision for the modernisation of the Indian Air Force?

The IAF would in the coming years develop and create aerospace capabilities to move to a position of active deterrence. The endeavour would be to provide a robust air defence, effectively manage sovereign airspace and enhance our core competence. The IAF needs to enhance its capacity and capabilities to reflect the current necessities of shaping the battlefield environment to enable operations by surface forces. As a key responder, the IAF would continue to contribute to enhance India’s capabilities as a net provider in the Indian Ocean Region.

The role of IT-based technologies in aerospace is ever increasing, and India is well-paced to leverage it fully. How do you look at it?

Indian industry today is on the threshold of entering a new era where it will assume greater responsibility in making the nation self-reliant in defence production with IT as an enabling ingredient. The resurgence of India’s manufacturing will be a huge success given the demographic advantage that India has in the IT landscape. We understand that we are internationally competitive with IT as services but leveraging it to scale it for defence is a very different ball game.

We have had an unprecedented growth of technology in the IAF with a network-centric warfare capability. We were the first to have technologies such as Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) with effective traffic engineering solutions to support real-time operations pan-India, making the IAF a true net-centric combat force. We have a large Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) layer with stringent quality of service enforcement to facilitate robust, high quality voice, data, and video conferencing solutions.