India's defence cost: High on personnel and low on modernisation

The most recent Indian budgetary figures put India's defence expenditure for FY20 at $59.7 bn which is less than SIPRI's estimates and actually puts India at 5th, behind both Russia and Saudi Arabia.

A well-respected Swedish think tank, which announced on Monday that India was now the world’s third-biggest military spender, appears to have overestimated India’s defence spend.
 

In making this determination, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has put India’s defence spend for 2019 at $71.1 billion, behind top spender US ($732 billion) and China ($261 billion), but ahead of Russia ($65.1 billion) and Saudi Arabia ($61.9 billion).
 

However, the most recent Indian budgetary figures (revised estimates) put India’s defence expenditure for 2019-20 at Rs 4.5 trillion, or about $59.7 billion. This actually puts India at fifth, behind both Russia and