The Second International Seminar on Army Air Defence organised by the Corps of Army Air Defence in conjunction with the CII aimed at synergising and stimulating air defence criticalities.

The Second International Seminar on Army Air Defence (AAD) in the 21st century was conducted on February 20, 2013, at the Kothari Auditorium, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Bhavan, New Delhi. The focus of the seminar was on, ‘analysing and identifying the emerging concepts in air and missile defence against a backdrop of emerging technologies within the purview of futuristic aerospace threat, so as to enable the formulation of a pragmatic roadmap for the modernisation of the AAD’. The seminar was organised by the Corps of Army Air Defence in conjunction with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CI) so as to interactively synergise and stimulate relevant awareness of air defence criticalities which would promote collaborative indigenisation.

During the inaugural session, Atul Punj, CMD Punj Lloyd, and member of the Defence Council of CI, welcomed the chief guest Defence Minister A.K. Antony; the guest of honour Chief of Army Staff General Bikram Singh, the assemblage of military and civilian dignitaries and the media. Atul Punj described the seminar as a very important forum for the armed forces to engage with the industry and the academia on AAD issues. He remarked that with the change and advent of various enabling technologies, modern warfare has become highly technology driven. Therefore, it is pertinent to develop and absorb modern technologies to keep an edge over our adversaries. Lt General Kuldip Singh, Director General, AAD, in his theme address, lucidly, espoused the scope, theme and the sequence of the proceedings to follow during the course of the day. He highlighted the importance of developing emerging concepts and to evolve new doctrines and at the same time embracing new technologies to modernise weapon systems to comprehensively counter the emerging air threat. The Chief of Army Staff thereafter welcomed the Defence Minister and reiterated the criticalities of futuristic battlefield scenarios, necessitating a proactively efficient air defence infrastructure which would function in a time critical network-centric warfare environment of the 21st century. The Defence Minister then addressed the assemblage and stressed on the need for interaction between the industry and the armed forces. He also emphasised on matters of probity in defence procurement and on the need for quality indigenisation to be progressively facilitated within the country. He assured the Defence Ministry’s total support and commitment to the efforts of the industry towards indigenisation. The Defence Minister then proceeded to formally release the compendium of the seminar. After a vote of thanks by Gurpal Singh, the head and Principal Advisor of Defence, Aerospace and Security of CI, the seminar was formally inaugurated.

The morning session of the seminar on “Emerging Aerospace Threat and Concepts in Air and Missile Defence” was chaired by Lt General V.K. Saxena, Commandant of the AAD College. The session opened with a discourse from Major General H. Gopalan, the Additional Director General at the Directorate General of AAD. He spoke on the changing contours of air threat and the envisaged countermeasures during the 21st century. Thereafter, Lt General Philip Campose, Director General of Perspective Planning of the Integrated Headquarters of the MoD (Army), brought out the nuances of asymmetric warfare. This was followed by a presentation by Laurent Duport of Thales (France) who brought out the cost-effective capabilities in the employment of high performance and precision gun systems. Air Vice Marshal B. Suresh then introduced the challenges inherent in modern digitised air space management. The session was capped by a presentation by Eili Behar of Israel Aerospace Industries (Israel) who explained the concepts of Air and Missile Defence of Israel. Lt General V.K. Saxena, then summarised the morning session proceedings.

The post-lunch session was chaired by Major General (Retd) A.K. Mehra on topics pertaining to “Futuristic Trends and Emerging Technologies in Air Defence”. Major General B.N. Vijay Kumar presented an elaborate summation of emerging and current trends in air defence gun systems, ammunition and fire control systems. Mats Johansson of Saab industries (Sweden) then presented the working solutions manufactured and utilised in his country. N. Prabhakar, Scientist, Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), Hyderabad, then dwelt on the emerging threat from theUAVs.