PM unveils 'Mission Sudarshan Chakra'; pushes for Made-in-India jet engines

In his 12th Independence Day address, PM Modi said that Operation Sindoor demonstrated that strategic autonomy and indigenous capabilities are essential for decisively tackling threats

Addressing the nation from the Red Fort on the 79th Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed Operation Sindoor as a demonstration of India’s self-reliance in defence, and vowed to enhance the country’s military capabilities by announcing the launch of “Mission Sudarshan Chakra”, aimed at neutralising enemy infiltrations and enhancing the country’s offensive capabilities. He also urged Indian innovators and youth to develop jet engines — a critical gap in the country’s defence manufacturing capabilities that has held up indigenous combat aircraft programmes.

 

In his 12th Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Operation Sindoor — India’s military response to the Pakistan-backed April 22 Pahalgam terrorist attack — demonstrated that strategic autonomy and indigenous capabilities, including Made-in-India weapons, are essential for decisively tackling threats, making self-reliance the foundation of national strength, dignity, and the journey towards a developed India by 2047. He also emphasised that national security cannot rely on foreign dependence. 

 

 

‘Mission Sudarshan Chakra’ announced

 

Noting that August 16 marked Janmashtami, the birth anniversary of Lord Krishna, PM Modi said that the Hindu deity and his divine weapon — the Sudarshan Chakra — brought to mind how modes of warfare are changing across the world. He emphasised that India is well-equipped to counter every new form of warfare, and that the country’s technological prowess was demonstrated during Operation Sindoor, when the armed forces repelled countless attacks by Pakistan, which launched missiles and drones against India’s military installations, airbases, sensitive locations, centres of faith, and civilians. “Due to the efforts made over the past 10 years to secure the nation, the result of that strength was that every one of their attacks was shattered. They could not inflict even the slightest damage,” said PM Modi.

 

Highlighting that India must further expand and continuously upgrade the mastery it has achieved to ensure the defence of the nation and the safety of its citizens, the Prime Minister said that, drawing inspiration from Lord Krishna’s divine weapon, he was announcing the launch of the “Sudarshan Chakra Mission”. He explained that the mission would deliver a powerful weapon system capable not only of neutralising enemy attacks, but also of striking back with multi-fold force.

 

Under the mission, the Prime Minister vowed that by 2035, the country’s national security shield would be expanded, strengthened, and modernised, ensuring that all important sites — both strategic and civilian, including hospitals, railways, and centres of faith — would be fully protected through new technological platforms. “This protective shield must keep expanding so that every citizen of the country feels secure. Whatever technology may be used to attack us, our technology must prove superior,” said the Prime Minister.

 

He also emphasised the mission’s core principles: the entire modern system — its research, development, and manufacturing — must be carried out within the country, harnessing the talent of the youth; a mechanism will be established to assess future warfare scenarios and devise a “plus-one” strategic response; and the system will be designed for targeted, precise action, reflecting the divine Sudarshan Chakra’s precision. The mission’s ultimate aim is to ensure that as war evolves, so too will the nation’s ability to safeguard itself and its citizens.

 

The country’s integrated national air defence capability was deployed during the nearly four-day-long Operation Sindoor, successfully neutralising Pakistani attacks in the aftermath of India’s May 7 strikes on terrorist camps. The threat was multi-domain in nature, ranging from slow-speed, low radar cross-section drones to high-speed projectiles launched from stand-off distances. Pakistan also simultaneously targeted the entire stretch of the western borders, from Kutch in Gujarat to Srinagar and Awantipur in Jammu and Kashmir. These threats were countered through the Indian Air Force’s (IAF’s) Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS), integrated with the Army’s air defence grid (Akashteer) and the Navy’s Integrated Maritime Situational Awareness System (IMSAS). “While the precise details of the Sudarshan Chakra Mission have not been disclosed at present, it could involve upgrading the ‘National Air Space Management’ capability that the military leadership possesses today thanks to tri-services integration,” said a defence source. “However, there appears to be an offensive aspect to the mission as well. The move to formulate a ‘plus-one’ response to threats also appears to indicate a doctrinal element.” 

 

“One element of the mission could involve upgrading the country’s existing programme to intercept an adversary’s nuclear-tipped and conventional ballistic missiles, and establishing a ‘shield’ that provides greater coverage of the nation. In an ideal situation, this would be a layered system, with ballistic missile defence (BMD) operating alongside the S-400 and the Kusha air defence system being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO),” said A Vinod Kumar, former fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and editor of the online news publication The Polity. India’s BMD is divided into two phases, with the first designed to intercept missiles with ranges of up to 2,000 kilometres (km) and the second for missiles in the 5,000 km-class. Phase I development has been completed, while Phase II is at an advanced stage of development.

 

Apart from the interceptors, a fully operational BMD system requires an overlapping network of early-warning and tracking sensors. 

#DRDOUpdates | DRDO conducts successful maiden flight-test of Phase-II Ballistic Missile Defence interceptor off Odisha coast@PMOIndia @DefenceMinIndia @SpokespersonMoD https://t.co/R8ZYoCyMZ8 pic.twitter.com/hHYOvYNinz

— DRDO (@DRDO_India) November 2, 2022

 

The plan may also include integrating the slew of indigenous air defence systems under development — including the DRDO’s Extended Range Air Defence System Kusha — into the existing network. The DRDO is developing three interceptor missiles under Project Kusha — 150-km, 250-km, and 350-km variants. It is intended to rival the Russian S-400 Triumf air defence system, which Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal A P Singh recently credited with downing most of the six Pakistani military aircraft India shot down during Operation Sindoor. The development of Project Kusha received Cabinet Committee on Security approval in May 2022 and was granted an Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) in 2023. Five squadrons are to be procured for the IAF at a cost of Rs 21,700 crore, with induction of the extended-range variant targeted for completion by 2030.

 

Given the extended reach of air defence systems like the S-400, they can also be employed offensively. Earlier this month, Air Chief Marshal Singh disclosed that, of the six Pakistani aircraft downed, one large aircraft — possibly an electronics intelligence or airborne early warning and control platform — was destroyed from a distance of about 300 km, making it the longest recorded surface-to-air kill to date.

 

Plugging the Engine Gap

 

The Prime Minister also called on Indian innovators and youth to develop jet engines within the country, underlining the importance of home-grown future defence technologies. “Just like how we made vaccines during COVID, and the Unified Payments Interface for digital payments, we should build our own jet engines too. Our scientists and youth must take it up as a direct challenge,” he said.

 

The Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas programme, aimed at developing a home-grown combat jet, faced setbacks due to the indigenous Kaveri engine’s inability to meet performance parameters. India’s under-development fifth-generation stealth aircraft, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), will likewise require a high-thrust indigenous engine, for which a foreign development partner is yet to be finalised. 

 

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) also missed its original February 2024 deadline for commencing deliveries of the Tejas Mk1A, primarily because of delays in the arrival of power plants from American engine-maker GE Aerospace. 

 

Aero engines are now regarded as the top priority in indigenous defence research and development, with an estimated investment of nearly Rs 40,000–50,000 crore likely to be needed for the design and development of next-generation power plants in the country.