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PM Modi to attend Pokhran wargame showcasing indigenous capabilities

It is understood that for ‘Bharat Shakti’, the war game will test the efficacy of Indian-made platforms and network-centric systems.

Updated on: Mar 3, 2024, 08:15:03 IST
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New Delhi: On the eve of the notification of the 2024 General Elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the war game ‘Bharat Shakti’ in Pokhran in Rajasthan on March 12 with the exercise only involving indigenously developed weapons platforms and systems. The war game will be attended by the top brass of the tri-services including Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan.

PM Modi on Arjun tank in Pokhran (file photo)
PM Modi on Arjun tank in Pokhran (file photo)

As a showcase for his ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ concept, Prime Minister Modi is expected to exhort the military leadership to develop tactics-led revolution in military affairs that is India-centric and specific to the Indian geography and security threats to Bharat.

It is understood that for ‘Bharat Shakti’, the war game will test the efficacy of Indian-made platforms and network-centric systems. While the Indian Army is 100 per cent indigenized, work is on to achieve indigenization in the technology-centric Indian Air Force and Indian Navy in the areas of submarine construction and aircraft engine manufacturing.

The exercise will also test the resilience and integrity of indigenous communication systems and networks to ensure that the enemy cannot hack into them during hostile conditions. This apart, the entire focus of the ‘Bharat Shakti’ exercise will be synergy among the three services which often tend to operate within their own silos. On display will be Tejas fighter aircraft, K-9 artillery guns, indigenous drones, Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launchers and short-range missiles.

 
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.

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