Air Defence Project to Protect India's Critical Installations

With crucial Indian defence and nuclear establishments and vital infrastructure facilities open to an enemy air strike, many in India’s military consider the shortage of anti-aircraft guns,missiles and radars as our single greatest security vulnerability.

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With the threat of unconventional aerial strikes by non-state actors adding to the heightened concerns over security to critical military, economic and strategic assets, India's armed forces are busy either buying or upgrading of its air defence weapon systems. The 9/11 twin aerial attacks on the World Trade Centre towers in New York was the dastardliest non-state terror strikes using an aerial platform in contemporary history.

Since that attack in 2001, India has been wary of unidentified flying objects and there have been a series of intelligence alerts over aerial threats to major Indian cities, oil and gas plants and rigs, nuclear installations and what not. Some of those threat alerts included gliders and drones and even hijacked aircraft. Fortunately, India has been free of an aerial attack, either by the state actors or nonstate. But that would also mean India has got no time left to prepare. Yet, the efforts to modernise should go on.

An industry report had recently mentioned that the air threat envelope has increased exponentially both in range and altitude, which necessitates the development of a multi-layered and multi-tiered mix of weapon systems to provide a full proof umbrella cover, especially against missiles as they pose greater threat than hostile aircraft in the present scenario.

With crucial Indian defence and nuclear establishments and vital infrastructure facilities open to an enemy air strike, many in India’s military consider the shortage of anti-aircraft guns, missiles and radars as our single greatest security vulnerability.