The Safran-GTRE joint venture for a ~120 kN AMCA Mk2 fighter engine with full Indian IP is reported before the Cabinet Committee on Security, with clearance expected by 15 August — a timeline that still awaits official confirmation.
More top stories
From the dashboard
Defence budget FY26-27
₹7.85 L cr
+15.19% YoY
All-time-high Ministry of Defence allocation in Union Budget 2026-27, up 15.19% over FY 2025-26 Budgetary Estimates.
as of 2026-02-01 · source ↗
Indian Navy fleet strength
137 ships & subs
58 more under construction
Navy currently operates 137 ships and submarines plus 264 aircraft; 58 naval ships under construction as of 2025 (PRS analysis of Defence Demands for Grants 2026-27).
as of 2026-02-17 · source ↗
IAF fighter squadrons
29 sqns
vs 42 sanctioned
Fighter squadron strength dipped to 29 — against the sanctioned 42 — after the MiG-21's retirement on 26 Sep 2025.
as of 2025-09-26 · source ↗
Defence exports FY25-26
₹38,424 cr
+62.66% YoY
Record defence exports of ₹38,424 crore in FY 2025-26, up ₹14,802 crore (62.66%) over FY 2024-25's ₹23,622 crore.
as of 2026-04-02 · source ↗
Six faces · six directions · updated in place
Updated 1 Jul 2026
Updated 11 Aug 2026
Updated 5 Jul 2026
Updated 29 Jul 2026
Updated 23 Jul 2026
Updated 6 Jul 2026
In motion — event trackers
Budget tracker
High activityIndia's FY2026-27 defence budget hit a record ₹7.85 lakh crore, with ₹1.85 lakh crore earmarked for capital acquisition and 75% of that ring-fenced for domestic industry under Aatmanirbhar Bharat. The acquisition cycle is running hot: the DAC cleared roughly ₹52,000 crore of fresh Acceptances of Necessity on 3 July after a record ₹6.73 lakh crore of AoNs in FY26, the ₹70,000-crore Project-75I submarine deal is awaiting Cabinet Committee on Security clearance, and the ₹30,000-crore 87-UAV tender has moved into bid evaluation.
Updated 12 Aug 2026
Program tracker
DevelopmentIndia's fifth-generation AMCA stealth fighter is in full-scale engineering development, with DRDO targeting first prototype rollout by end-2028 and a maiden flight in 2029. Three private-sector groups — Tata Advanced Systems, an L&T–BEL consortium and a Bharat Forge–BEML consortium — are bidding to build five flying prototypes after HAL was disqualified, with bids due 27 July 2026. Engines are the programme's biggest open front: GE's near-tripled F414 quote has snarled the prototype-phase deal, while Safran and Rolls-Royce have submitted rival full-technology-transfer offers to co-develop the 120kN-class Mk2 engine.
Updated 8 Aug 2026
Conflict monitor
High activityThe war has entered its fifth summer with Russia's ground offensive stalling — a net gain of roughly 97 sq km in the first half of 2026 at a cost of nearly 40,000 casualties in June alone — even as both sides escalate deep strikes: Russia's July 1-2 barrage on Kyiv was its largest air attack of the war, while Ukraine's drone campaign has knocked out an estimated 30-43% of Russian refining capacity, forcing Moscow to import gasoline from India. Peace diplomacy is frozen after Putin rejected Zelensky's June ceasefire-and-summit offer, and the war continues to reshape India's defence calculus, from delayed S-400 deliveries to a procurement tilt toward drones and counter-drone systems.
Updated 5 Aug 2026
Exercise watch
High activityThe 2026 Indo-Pacific exercise season is at peak tempo: RIMPAC 2026, the world's largest naval exercise, is underway around Hawaii with 30 nations and roughly 30,000 personnel — India among them with a P-8I — days after the US and partners wrapped Valiant Shield 2026 in the Marianas with a live-fire sinking of USS Juneau. Taiwan is running an April-to-August whole-of-society resilience programme, including a rare Nantou drill pairing a Chinese blockade with an earthquake, ahead of its Han Kuang No. 42 war games from 5 August, while the IAF sends Rafales to Australia's 19-nation Pitch Black from 20 July.
Updated 1 Aug 2026
The live layer
The Makkah pact couples nuclear-armed Pakistan's military with Saudi finance and Turkey's NATO-grade defence industry. India is examining the implications. What the agreement does — and does not — commit its signatories to.
India's Strategic Forces Command test-fired the 4,000-km-range, nuclear-capable Agni-4 from Chandipur on 6 August, with the Ministry of Defence saying the launch validated all operational and technical parameters.
Russia's August 5 barrage killed 17 in Kyiv with zero missiles intercepted; Zelenskyy says interceptor supplies are at a third of 2025 levels — days after he and Trump discussed a US licence for Ukrainian Patriot interceptor production.
H-6K bombers with supersonic YJ-12 anti-ship missiles drilled 120 nautical miles off Luzon in the first Chinese combat package the Philippine military has verified at Scarborough Shoal, days after allied exercises in the same waters.
China's Type 076 Sichuan, the only amphibious assault ship fitted with an electromagnetic catapult, has entered its final test phase after a dead-load launch — a stealth-drone carrier class the Indian Navy currently has no equivalent to.
DRDO's Kusha long-range interceptor made its maiden flight from Abdul Kalam Island on 23 July, destroying an electronic target simulating a high-speed, high-altitude threat — first hardware proof of India's indigenous S-400-class shield.
Contracts signed on 22 July task AIESL with converting six Airbus A321s to green configuration and name Adani Defence as development-cum-production partner for the Netra Mk2's mission systems, with induction planned for 2032-33.
HAL chief D.K. Sunil says the first 20 Tejas Mk1A jets have finished manufacturing and first-phase flight tests, with about 30 airframes built overall — leaving GE F404 engine supply as the sole barrier to an August-September handover.
Skyroot's Vikram-1 reached a 450 km orbit on its first attempt — making India the third country with private orbital launch capability, and giving New Delhi something it has never had: a second, sovereign road to space.
Four Rafales, two C-17s and 120-plus air warriors have landed in Darwin for Exercise Pitch Black 2026 — with an Il-78 topping up the fighters over Indonesia on the way, a small detail that says as much about India's reach as the exercise itself.
The US has delivered another MH-60R Seahawk to the Indian Navy at Kochi, with two more arriving within days — quiet, steady fleet-building for the ocean India watches most closely.
At the BIMSTEC security chiefs' meeting in Delhi, India's NSA told Myanmar's counterpart plainly that its soil must not host anti-India insurgency, arms smuggling or infiltration — pressure on a neighbour whose ungoverned spaces have become the Northeast's biggest external security problem.
