General Bipin Rawat, the most decorated Indian military officer, who had served as the Chief of the Army Staff from December 2016 to December 2019, became India's first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) effectively from January 2020 until his untimely death in a helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu on December 8, 2021.
On 13 January 2021, Indian Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the highest decision making body on military and security affairs headed by the Prime Minister, approved procurement of 73 Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas Mk-1A fighter aircraft and 10 LCA Tejas Mk-1 Trainer aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF) at the cost of INR 45,696 Crore along with design and development of infrastructure
In India, attempts at reforming complicated sectors like national defence invariably start with the constitution of committees/task forces. Afterwards, the leadership battles conflicting positions on recommendations, leading to either shelving such reports or, at best, partial implementation that is more ad hoc than preferred solutions. A survey of committees constituted between 2002 and 2015 justifies this assessment."Accommodating corporate aspirations would be the biggest task before V K Atre Task Force on Strategic Partners"
The new Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) was officially released by the defence minister on January 13, 2011. This bulky document—281 pages long and revised eight times in the last nine years—comes into effect on January 1, 2011.
Yet again, India’s defence budget has escaped larger national attention this year. The defence component of the national budget accounts for 14% of central government expenditure but gets less than 5% of media space, the bulk of which goes towards data released by the government with sporadic analyses by experts. Virtually no discussion on the issue takes place in Parliament either. A call for increased resources for national defence usually only goes out when defence spending by Pakistan and China makes headlines.