News on Indian Economy
Recent public reporting, citing former DRDO Chairman and Netra programme architect Dr S. Christopher, indicates that one of the Indian Air Force’s three existing Netra Mk1 aircraft has flown with a newer Gallium Nitride, or GaN, based AESA radar configuration, with similar modernisation envisaged for the remaining aircraft.
The two countries also signed a new Memorandum of Arrangement on Maritime Security Cooperation, providing a wider operational framework for cooperation between the Indian Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is examining a concurrent-production approach for the Tejas Mk2 that could allow a small number of pre-series fighters to enter manufacture before the aircraft completes its entire certification campaign. The strategy could help India compress the normally lengthy transition between flight testing and full-scale production, although reports of a six-to-eight-aircraft early batch have not yet been formally confirmed by the Indian Air Force or Ministry of Defence.
India was represented at the fourth India-Singapore Ministerial Roundtable, or ISMR, by Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, and Minister of State for Commerce and Industry and Electronics and Information Technology Jitin Prasada.
Under the agreement, BEL and Ananth Technologies will explore projects across several strategically important technology areas, including missile electronics, radar systems, satellite technologies and navigation equipment.
India’s Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft programme is showing increasingly visible signs of transition from design engineering towards prototype manufacturing. Recent procurement activity by the Aeronautical Development Agency includes ultra-high-strength AerMet 100 aerospace steel, specialised composite lay-up tooling and a major industrial tender for development of the AMCA itself. Together, these developments point to the manufacturing ecosystem for India’s fifth-generation fighter beginning to take physical shape.
The company says its objective is to build systems from scratch so that it retains greater control over performance, efficiency and manufacturing.
The Indian Navy is steadily expanding deployment of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile across its frontline surface fleet, with recent reports indicating that the service is working towards ensuring widespread BrahMos availability aboard its principal destroyers, frigates and missile combatants by around 2030. While the Navy has not publicly announced a formal fleet-wide 2030 deadline, official Ministry of Defence decisions confirm a major programme to expand the missile across both existing and future warships.
The latest reports also indicate that an Armenian technical team could visit India for familiarisation with the missile system and related training activities. Such a visit could include interaction with the system’s developers and manufacturers and potentially exposure to its operational procedures.
The latest step came on 19 August 2026, when Civil Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu launched the scaled-up phase of India’s air-cargo transshipment programme at the Transshipment Excellence Centre at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. The expansion follows a successful trial that dramatically reduced transit time while improving aircraft cargo utilisation.
