Overview
- Senior defence leaders spoke at the Delhi Defence Dialogue on Tuesday and made Aatmanirbharta, or self‑reliance, the central policy priority for the armed forces.
- Navy chief Admiral Krishna Swaminathan said the navy must be able to fight, sustain and adapt without external constraints and urged work to fill critical capability gaps.
- Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said self‑reliance means technological sovereignty and stressed that India should not let key defence needs be held hostage to foreign suppliers.
- Speakers linked the push to recent disruptions in Ukraine and to the wider spread of advanced tech, and they called for bigger R&D investment and faster moves from innovation to operational use.
- Officials insisted Aatmanirbharta does not mean isolation and flagged selective foreign collaboration, focused maritime priorities such as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Strait of Malacca, and a longer 2047 horizon for goals.