Indian Army to monitor low-altitude airspace along China, Pakistan borders

The Indian Army is working to acquire the capacity to operate 10,000 drones along the western theatre and more than 20,000 drones along the 3,488 km LAC.

Updated on: Jan 27, 2026, 08:17:00 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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New Delhi : The Indian Army has taken charge of the task of monitoring flying objects within 35 km from the country’s borders and up to a height ceiling of three kilometers to counter enemy drone intrusions into India — a move that comes amid the proliferation of surveillance and armed drones on the western and northern borders.

Indian Army personnel continue to remain vigilant and guard the borders of the country across the LoC in Poonch. (ANI)

This is one of the many steps that Indian Army has undertaken after Operation Sindoor apart from tweaks in deployment strategy and introduction of rocket regiments .

HT learns that with the army conducting 97% of drone and anti-drone activity within the 35 km land and three km air envelope, air command and control centers are being established along the borders with China and Pakistan to not only monitor drone activity across borders but also launch drones as well as neutralize enemy drones.

The Indian Army is working to acquire the capacity to operate 10,000 drones along the western theatre and more than 20,000 drones along the 3,488 km Line of Actual Control (LAC). The area Corps Commander will work closely with the area Air Force commander to co-ordinate IAF, Intelligence or any other agency, HT learns.

The monitoring of 35x3 km envelope by the Indian Army along borders has been done after Pakistan used armed drones to target Indian Army and Air Force formations along the borders during Operation Sindoor using Turkish and Chinese drones.

PLA also deploys drones all along the eastern theatre to monitor Indian Army activity on the LAC.

In addition, the Indian Army has already deployed two units of rocket force, two combined armed brigades (Rudra brigades) and 21 Bhairav battalions with the range of Indian artillery brigades being increased from 150 to 1,000 km across borders.

The raising of rocket forces has been done after China deployed rocket regiments across the LAC in East Ladakh post its May 2020 transgressions and Pakistan used Fatah 1 and 2 rockets during Operation Sindoor.

India launched Operation Sindoor in the early hours of May 7 and struck terror and military installations in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) before the May 10 ceasefire. The clash involved fighter jets, missiles, armed drones, and a fierce artillery duel.

A deadly clash in the Galwan Valley in 2020 to a sharp deterioration in bilateral relations between India and China.

The face-off effectively ended following the completion of the disengagement process from Demchok and Depsang’s last two friction points under an agreement finalised on October 21, 2024.

The introduction of Bhairav battalions by the Indian Army is aimed at ensuring that Special Forces are used for strategic purposes deep within the enemy territory with armed and surveillance drones, and loitering ammunition, with the Bhairavs being used for tactical roles along the border.

The changes in deployment strategy and the focus on more weaponry comes at a time when Pakistan has acquired armed drones, radars, missiles and rockets post Operation Sindoor.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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