Mhow: The Sudarshan Chakra, which was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Independence Day speech this month, will be like the country’s very own “Iron Dome”, on the lines of Israel, or the Golden Dome planned by the US, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan said Tuesday.
In his address at the two-day Ran Samvad in Mhow—India’s first tri-service military affairs seminar proposed to be in line with the Shangri-La Dialogue—the CDS said that Sudarshan Chakra will be “both a sword and a shield”. The system will enhance India’s strategic defence, and the prime minister expects it to be rolled out by 2035, he added.
ThePrint was the first to report what the Sudarshan Chakra is meant to be. General Chauhan gave a similar explanation Tuesday.
“I think the aim is to develop a system to protect India’s strategic, civilian and nationally important sites, and it will act both as a shield as well as a sword. It will entail the development of robust infrastructure and processes for the detection, acquisition, and neutralisation of the enemy’s air vectors, including the use of soft skills and hard skills, both kinetic and direct energy weapons…” he said.
He added that the defence forces will have to look at multi-domain Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), and integration of ground, air, maritime, undersea, space and sensors.
“A colossal amount of integration will be required, as multiple fields will need to be networked to provide a very fused picture to us. Colossal amounts of data will be needed to be analysed for information in real-time response. Use of artificial intelligence, advanced computation, data analytics, big data, LLM, and quantum technologies will be essential,” he explained.
The CDS further said that for a vast country like India, a project of this magnitude will require a whole-of-nation approach. “But like always, I am very sure Indians will do it at a minimal and very affordable cost to us.”
In the first step towards Project Sudarshan Chakra, India successfully conducted the maiden flight-tests of its Integrated Air Defence Weapon System (IADWS) off the coast of Odisha on 24 August.
Conducted Saturday, the trials demonstrated the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) developed multi-layered system that brought together the Quick Reaction Surface-to-Air Missiles (QRSAM), Advanced Very Short Range Air Defence System (VSHORADS), and a Directed Energy Weapon (DEW) to defend against contemporary aerial threats.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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