Show Notes
With the possible loss of a third HAL Tejas in Gujarat, the delayed response from authorities, and the controversy that has followed, renewed scrutiny is now on India’s indigenous fighter programme.
Questions are mounting: Has the IAF really lost another Tejas? Why the delay in official communication? And what does this mean for the Mark 1A rollout?
In this episode of In Our Defence, host Dev Goswami and national security expert Sandeep Unnithan discuss the controversy, the difference between Mark 1 and Mark 1A and the future of India’s indigenous fighter program.
The two discuss:
* Why the IAF hasn’t fully accepted the Mark 1A yet
* The GE 404 and 414 engine bottleneck
* Indigenous content — how Indian is Tejas really?
* The HAL–IAF dynamic and the larger structural silos
* Why fighter squadron anxiety is shaping procurement decisions
Tune in!
Produced by Taniya Dutta
More from In Our Defence
India appears to be in the middle of a naval shipbuilding boom. Destroyers, frigates, submarines, anti-submarine vessels and support ships are entering service with striking regularity.
Six years after the Galwan Valley clash, we revisit the night that fundamentally changed India's relationship with China.
India's Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft, or AMCA, is usually discussed as a fifth-generation stealth fighter: low observable design, internal weapons bays, sensor fusion, advanced engines, and all the cool stuff that makes defence nerds sit up straighter.
Pakistan did not just become America's ally after 1947 – it slowly became a state whose military and strategic establishment learned that survival depended on staying useful to Washington.
India has had a very busy missile season. In this episode of In Our Defence, host Dev Goswami and defence expert Sandeep Unnithan unpack a cluster of recent developments: the reported long-range hypersonic anti-ship missile test, DRDO and IAF’s TARA glide weapon trial, the Advanced Agni MIRV test, the long-duration scramjet combustor test, and the chatter around possible K-series submarine-launched missile activity.