The Swadeshi Technocrat
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
It was the summer of 1997 when Munjal Shah decided to join his father, Sharad Virji Shah, in their small-scale engineering company, which specialised in providing import substitution of critical engineering components. Cut to 2025: The modest enterprise has evolved into one of the country's leading players in Defence & Space Engineering, with a market capitalisation of over INR 6,400 crore. The father-son duo has proven their track record over the past 40+ years, developing technologies for rockets and missiles, space and space research, naval systems, land and armoured vehicles, electronic warfare and surveillance, and electromagnetic shielding with Paras Defence & Space Technologies (formerly Paras Flow Form Engineering Limited).
For Munjal, the country's defence sector commands a long-term commitment to indigenous development, requiring significant research and development. "In areas where technology development from scratch might take longer than the need of the situation, we partner with the OEMs of such advanced technologies and serve the customer with world-class technologies, made in India with very high indigenous content," shares Munjal Sharad Shah, Managing Director, Paras Defence & Space Technologies.
Research and innovation are deeply embedded across the company, leading Paras to offer 50+ products such as submarine periscopes, hyper-spectral imaging systems for space, ground-to-space and space-to-space telescopes, border defence systems, critical electro-optics systems for various platforms, laser-based air defence systems, drone detection and jamming systems, anti-drone technologies, electromagnetic protection solutions, hydrogen-powered drones, and drone cameras. When asked about his biggest entrepreneurial learning to date, Shah strongly emphasises the value offered to customers.
"You have to always increase the value that you offer to your customers, and as an Indian manufacturer, this can be achieved by investing in technology development (innovation and R&D) and import substitution," he notes. In 2025 so far, the company has bagged an INR 142.31 crore contract from DRDO arm CHESS to develop a high powered anti-drone laser system; signed an MoU with Israel-based HevenDrones to establish a joint venture for manufacturing logistics and cargo drones in the country.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Amid Air India probe, US FAA, Boeing notify fuel switch locks are safe, document, sources say
(Refiles to drop repeated words in paragraph 1) By David Shepardson, Abhijith Ganapavaram and Allison Lampert WASHINGTON/NEW DELHI/MONTREAL (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing have privately issued notifications that the fuel switch locks on Boeing planes are safe, a document seen by Reuters showed and four sources with knowledge of the matter said. The FAA's Continued Airworthiness Notification on July 11 came after a preliminary report on Friday into last month's Boeing 787-8 crash, which killed 260 people, raised questions over engine fuel cutoff switches. The FAA's notification to Civil Aviation Authorities, seen by Reuters, said: "although the fuel control switch design, including the locking feature, is similar on various Boeing airplane models, the FAA does not consider this issue to be an unsafe condition that would warrant an Airworthiness Directive on any Boeing airplane models, including the Model 787." When asked for comment, the FAA said it did not have anything to add beyond the notification. Boeing also referred to FAA's notification in a Multi-Operator-Message sent to the airlines in the past few days, which said the planemaker is not recommending any action, two of the sources with direct knowledge said. When asked for comment, Boeing referred Reuters' questions to the FAA. The preliminary investigation report into the crash by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), referred to a 2018 FAA advisory, which recommended, but did not mandate, operators of several Boeing models, including the 787, to inspect the locking feature of the fuel cutoff switches to ensure it could not be moved accidentally. The report said Air India had said it had not carried out the FAA's suggested inspections as the FAA 2018 advisory was not a mandate. The report noted "all applicable airworthiness directives and alert service bulletins were complied on the aircraft as well as engines." ALPA India, which represents Indian pilots at the Montreal-based International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations, in a statement on Saturday rejected the presumption of pilot error and called for on a "fair, fact-based inquiry." "The pilots body must now be made part of the probe, at least as observers," ALPA India President Sam Thomas told Reuters on Sunday. ALPA India, in a letter posted on X, said the preliminary investigation report referred to the 2018 FAA advisory "concerning the fuel control switch gates, which indicates a potential equipment malfunction." In the flight's final moments, one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. "The other pilot responded that he did not do so," the report said. It said fuel switches had almost simultaneously flipped from run to cutoff just after takeoff. The report did not say how the switches could have flipped during the flight. Two U.S. safety experts said on Saturday they backed ALPA India's request to be observers in the probe, but said the investigation report did not suggest a bias toward pilot error. John Cox, a pilot and former ALPA representative, said AAIB's report seemed objective and fair. (Reporting By David Shepardson in Washington, Abhijith Ganapavaram in New Delhi and Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Aditya Kalra and Jane Merriman)
Wall Street Journal
2 hours ago
- Wall Street Journal
A Soap Opera of Trade Deals
'Asian Allies Seek Wiggle Room on Tariffs' (U.S. News, July 9) shows how tangled trade policy has become. For American companies working in Asia, the soap opera of President Trump's trade deals isn't merely a diplomatic sideshow; it's changing the way companies operate on the ground. U.S. multinationals face a growing backlash in Asia, sometimes explicitly in reciprocal tariff arrangements, but also more subtly implied through future regulatory or market-access decisions. At the same time, for every overture U.S. executives make to their Asian stakeholders, they're required to reassert their commitment to the White House and American jobs. Every decision—from where to invest to how to price products—risks upsetting someone.
Bloomberg
2 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Nvidia's Huang Says China's Military Unlikely to Use US AI Chips
Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said the US government doesn't need to be concerned that the Chinese military will use his company's products to improve their capabilities. Addressing the largest concern Washington has cited in placing increasing restrictions on US technology exports to the Asian nation, Huang said the Chinese military will avoid using US technology because of the risks associated with doing so.
