Indian Army successfully conducts trials of indigenous Akash Prime air defence system in Ladakh sector
The trials were conducted by the Army Air Defence and senior officials from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which developed the system.
The surface-to-air missiles made two direct hits during the trials against very fast-moving target aircraft in a very high-altitude area in a rarified atmosphere.
The Akash Prime system is set to become the third and fourth regiments of the Akash air defence units within the Indian Army. It also demonstrated excellent performance during Operation Sindoor, effectively countering aerial assaults by the Pakistan military, which used Chinese aircraft and Turkish drones, the report said.
On Wednesday, the Indian Army announced that it carried out an integrated firing exercise in Ladakh to improve coordination and test tactics and techniques, including the use of new-generation equipment and' battlefield equalisers".
The exercise was conducted by the Fire and Fury Corps based in Leh.
"In pursuance of the #IndianArmy's Decade of Transformation, Fire and Fury Corps conducted an Integrated Firing Exercise in Ladakh aimed at enhancing jointness and validation of Tactics, Techniques and Procedures incorporating New Generation Equipments & Battlefield Equalisers," the Corps said in a post on X.
The trials come amid South Western Army Commander Lieutenant General Manjinder Singh's call for the Indian Army to quickly adapt and innovate in response to the increasing challenges of modern and future warfare.
'It is crucial for us to develop advanced capabilities to effectively handle hybrid threats. Artificial intelligence (AI) has immense potential to support decision-making, optimise resource management and enhance the speed and accuracy of our operations,' PTI quoted Singh speaking at the technical seminar 'Next Generation Combat – Shaping Tomorrow's Military Today' at Jaipur Military Station.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
44 minutes ago
- Mint
NASA-ISRO mission: 'NISAR satellite launch by July 30,' Chairman V Narayanan confirms, drops update on Gaganyaan mission
ISRO Chairman Dr V Narayana on Monday announced that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to launch NISAR satellite through the GSLV-S16 rocket by July 30. 'We are going to launch the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite through the GSLV-S16 rocket by July 30th. We will conduct three uncrewed missions before the Gaganyaan Mission,' ANI quoted ISRO Chairman Dr V Narayanan as saying. He added, "In December, a humanoid mission will be conducted, during which a robot called Vyommitra will be sent into space. If it's successful, then two uncrewed missions will be launched next year. After all the tests in March 2027, as PM Modi said, Gaganyan Mission will be launched."
Economic Times
44 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Only 20-25% of India's 850 mn internet users shop online, shows untapped potential: McKinsey Report
Synopsis A McKinsey & Company report indicates significant growth for India's e-commerce sector. Currently, only 20-25% of Indian internet users shop online, but this is expected to rise substantially. E-commerce accounts for 7-9% of total retail sales, projected to more than double by 2030, driven by new business models, expansion into new categories, and rising demand from tier-two and tier-three cities. ANI Representative image. India's e-commerce sector is set for significant growth in the coming years, according to a report by McKinsey & report noted that only 20-25 per cent of India's 850 million internet users shop online. This is much lower as compared with mature markets like the United States and China, where over 85 per cent of internet users make purchases report said, "Out of the country's 850 million internet users, only about 20 to 25 per cent shop online".The report also highlighted that India has seen a strong rise in e-commerce activity over the past few country is not just catching up as a fast adopter of online shopping but is also emerging as an innovator in the field. This is especially visible in the rapid growth of quick commerce platforms that deliver goods in a very short time. However, e-commerce still accounts for only 7 to 9 per cent of India's total retail sales as of fiscal year 2023. This share is expected to more than double to between 15 and 17 per cent by 2030, showing the huge potential for business models are changing the shape of the e-commerce industry in India. Quick commerce and social commerce together make up more than 15 per cent of the e-commerce market today. Their share is expected to exceed 25 per cent by 2030.E-commerce companies are also finding new ways to serve consumers. They are expanding into new categories such as instant bookings for domestic services, professional help, and even medical next wave of growth in Indian e-commerce is likely to come from two main factors. One is the increasing entry into new segments like B2B (business-to-business) commerce and building materials. The other is the rising demand from tier-two and tier-three cities are seeing faster income growth than metro and tier-one cities. Monthly incomes in tier-two cities grew by 18 per cent between 2023 and 2024, which is higher than the growth seen in bigger report suggested that e-commerce in India will go beyond simply disrupting traditional retail. It is expected to reshape the entire retail system, including areas like last-mile delivery and logistics.
Mint
44 minutes ago
- Mint
AI agents are here. Here's what to know about what they can do – and how they can go wrong
Melbourne, Jul 28 (The Conversation) We are entering the third phase of generative AI. First came the chatbots, followed by the assistants. Now we are beginning to see agents: systems that aspire to greater autonomy and can work in 'teams' or use tools to accomplish complex tasks. The latest hot product is OpenAI's ChatGPT agent. This combines two pre-existing products (Operator and Deep Research) into a single more powerful system which, according to the developer, 'thinks and acts'. These new systems represent a step up from earlier AI tools. Knowing how they work and what they can do – as well as their drawbacks and risks – is rapidly becoming essential. ChatGPT launched the chatbot era in November 2022, but despite its huge popularity the conversational interface limited what could be done with the technology. Enter the AI assistant, or copilot. These are systems built on top of the same large language models that power generative AI chatbots, only now designed to carry out tasks with human instruction and supervision. Agents are another step up. They are intended to pursue goals (rather than just complete tasks) with varying degrees of autonomy, supported by more advanced capabilities such as reasoning and memory. Multiple AI agent systems may be able to work together, communicating with each other to plan, schedule, decide and coordinate to solve complex problems. Agents are also 'tool users' as they can also call on software tools for specialised tasks – things such as web browsers, spreadsheets, payment systems and more. A year of rapid development Agentic AI has felt imminent since late last year. A big moment came last October, when Anthropic gave its Claude chatbot the ability to interact with a computer in much the same way a human does. This system could search multiple data sources, find relevant information and submit online forms. Other AI developers were quick to follow. OpenAI released a web browsing agent named Operator, Microsoft announced Copilot agents, and we saw the launch of Google's Vertex AI and Meta's Llama agents. Earlier this year, the Chinese startup Monica demonstrated its Manus AI agent buying real estate and converting lecture recordings into summary notes. Another Chinese startup, Genspark, released a search engine agent that returns a single-page overview (similar to what Google does now) with embedded links to online tasks such as finding the best shopping deals. Another startup, Cluely, offers a somewhat unhinged 'cheat at anything' agent that has gained attention but is yet to deliver meaningful results. Not all agents are made for general-purpose activity. Some are specialised for particular areas. Coding and software engineering are at the vanguard here, with Microsoft's Copilot coding agent and OpenAI's Codex among the frontrunners. These agents can independently write, evaluate and commit code, while also assessing human-written code for errors and performance lags. Search, summarisation and more One core strength of generative AI models is search and summarisation. Agents can use this to carry out research tasks that might take a human expert days to complete. OpenAI's Deep Research tackles complex tasks using multi-step online research. Google's AI 'co-scientist' is a more sophisticated multi-agent system that aims to help scientists generate new ideas and research proposals. Agents can do more – and get more wrong Despite the hype, AI agents come loaded with caveats. Both Anthropic and OpenAI, for example, prescribe active human supervision to minimise errors and risks. OpenAI also says its ChatGPT agent is 'high risk' due to potential for assisting in the creation of biological and chemical weapons. However, the company has not published the data behind this claim so it is difficult to judge. But the kind of risks agents may pose in real-world situations are shown by Anthropic's Project Vend. Vend assigned an AI agent to run a staff vending machine as a small business – and the project disintegrated into hilarious yet shocking hallucinations and a fridge full of tungsten cubes instead of food. In another cautionary tale, a coding agent deleted a developer's entire database, later saying it had 'panicked'. Nevertheless, agents are already finding practical applications. In 2024, Telstra heavily deployed Microsoft copilot subscriptions. The company says AI-generated meeting summaries and content drafts save staff an average of 1–2 hours per week. Many large enterprises are pursuing similar strategies. Smaller companies too are experimenting with agents, such as Canberra-based construction firm Geocon's use of an interactive AI agent to manage defects in its apartment developments. At present, the main risk from agents is technological displacement. As agents improve, they may replace human workers across many sectors and types of work. At the same time, agent use may also accelerate the decline of entry-level white-collar jobs. People who use AI agents are also at risk. They may rely too much on the AI, offloading important cognitive tasks. And without proper supervision and guardrails, hallucinations, cyberattacks and compounding errors can very quickly derail an agent from its task and goals into causing harm, loss and injury. The true costs are also unclear. All generative AI systems use a lot of energy, which will in turn affect the price of using agents – especially for more complex tasks. Learn about agents – and build your own Despite these ongoing concerns, we can expect AI agents will become more capable and more present in our workplaces and daily lives. It's not a bad idea to start using (and perhaps building) agents yourself, and understanding their strengths, risks and limitations. For the average user, agents are most accessible through Microsoft copilot studio. This comes with inbuilt safeguards, governance and an agent store for common tasks. For the more ambitious, you can build your own AI agent with just five lines of code using the Langchain framework. (The Conversation) NSA NSA
