India self-sufficient in electronic warfare: DRDO chief

SOURCE :TOI

These days wars are not about brute force but about disabling your enemy before moving in for the kill. And today, electronic warfare has emerged as the preferred weapon of choice.
According to V K Saraswat, Director of R&D at Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), India is now self sufficient in electronic warfare. “Electronic warfare is very important in current context and our country has done extremely well,” said Saraswat.
Strategic electronics powers many of the defence domains and operating at very high frequencies which are not accessible to all. “Our strength lies in the design and the vast knowledge pool we have. But we are weak in the manufacture of quality components, have limited R&D participation from industry and there is poor translation from prototype of the idea to production,” said Y S Mayya, CMD of Electronic Corporation of India Ltd.
I V Sharma, Director of R&D at Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), said Rs 7,000 crore was spend on strategic electronics R&D in 2009.
“AKASH missile project was termed as a great example of government-public-private partnership. Institutions such as ECIL, IITs and IISc were part of the AKASH project,” said Sharma.
“The critical issues in strategic electronics are the denial of technology and transfer of only manufacturing know-how in deals, not technology know-how. Also R&D is mainly being done by DRDO and few PSUs and efforts of private sector are very limited,” added Sharma.