Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for India to become a global leader and supplier in hypersonic and advanced defence technologies, highlighting the country’s recent record growth in defence production and exports.
India should lead in hypersonic and other next-generation defence technologies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday, casting military strength as a central pillar of his wider economic and strategic vision. Addressing the nation from the Red Fort on Independence Day, Modi said India could no longer remain just a customer in global arms markets and must instead become a supplier of advanced systems. He tied that ambition to his “Shakti Ki Saptadhara” framework, which presents seven areas as the drivers of national growth.
Modi said defence was the fifth of those seven strengths and argued that self-reliance in the sector was essential if India was to expand its global influence. “We have to become global suppliers. We have to take leadership in hypersonic defence technologies,” he said, according to ANI. The remarks build on a broader push by the government to reduce dependence on foreign military imports and to position India as a credible exporter of sophisticated hardware.
The comments came against a backdrop of rapid growth in domestic production. Reuters reported in July 2024 that defence minister Rajnath Singh said India’s annual defence production had reached a record 1.3 lakh crore rupees in 2023-24, up 16.7% from the previous year, while the private sector accounted for about 21% of the total. The Prime Minister’s Office later said Modi hailed that as the country’s highest-ever level of defence production, underscoring the scale of the manufacturing drive under the Make in India programme.
More recent figures cited by the Ministry of Defence suggest the trend has continued. According to ANI and reporting in The Economic Times, defence production rose further to a record 1.78 lakh crore rupees in 2025-26, while exports also hit an all-time high of 38,424 crore rupees, with shipments going to more than 80 countries. Singh said the government was targeting exports of 50,000 crore rupees by 2029. India has also been advancing hypersonic-related work through the Defence Research and Development Organisation, including testing of scramjet technology, as it seeks long-range strike capabilities and more advanced propulsion systems.
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