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Peace at time of conflict: Op Sindoor sees Oppn shed discord for solidarity
Aditi Phadnis Mumbai
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Guns might be blazing on India's western border. But it is all quiet on the Parliament front. The Opposition demand for a joint session of Parliament to hold the government accountable for intelligence and security failures that led to the Pahalgam killings appears to be on the back burner. Lal Bihari Yadav, leader of the Opposition from the Samajwadi Party in the UP Legislative Council, is no longer saying the Pahalgam terrorist attack may have been 'carried out politically'.
Instead, the Opposition is rallying behind the government to a man and pledging full support to Operation Sindoor. The Congress is
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
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In the air and on the ground, he said, the operation underscored the accelerating drone-counter-drone cycle. Indian units employed modified commercial drones, some adapted in partnership with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), for both reconnaissance and strike missions. Counter-drone systems, including soft-kill jammers and hard-kill interceptors, were integrated into the defensive plan. 'Drone and counter-drone is a ratcheting effect,' Dwivedi said. 'Both have to keep overcoming each other's strength.' Precision-guided munitions, converted from 'dumb' bombs, were a major factor in the operation's cost-effectiveness. Extended-range artillery and rocket systems were employed with circular error probabilities as low as two meters, according to the Army Chief. The doctrine, he argued, is shifting from attrition to precision: 'When the precision has increased, the cost does not make a difference — the impact does.' Talking about the civilian dimension of the border conflict, he said that India's population density near the Line of Control is lower than on the Pakistani side — a fact he suggested acts as a deterrent against large-scale attacks on civilian areas. Still, he said, the Army invests in civil defence exercises, construction of community bunkers, and coordination with the National Cadet Corps and local authorities to ensure awareness and readiness. The general's broader message was that future wars will require the 'whole-of-nation' approach — not just military forces, but academia, industry, government research agencies, and even citizen volunteers. He cited the Army's creation of a Technology Committee with 16 clusters, partnerships with IITs and the Indian Institute of Science, and an internship programme to draw engineers into military projects. Dwivedi urged faculty and students of IIT-Madras to contribute to priority areas including advanced composites, microelectronics, secure communications, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, and synthetic biology.
