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The Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) invited Dr Ajay Kumar, Defence Secretary, Govt. of India for a public discourse on 'India's Defence Reforms'. The talk was organised under the aegis of Vimarsha, a platform offered by the VIF to enable eminent persons, academicians, media personnel et al to engage directly with policy thinkers over a wide range of contemporary and historical issues.

The Director in his introductory remarks highlighted the booklet released by the Raksha Mantri (RM) recently in which certain achievements of the government in the defence sector were listed. The RM while releasing that document had said that they wanted India to be a “global power house in the defence sector”. Dr Ajay Kumar in his presentation highlighted the rapid pace of defence reforms undertaken in the last two years vis-à-vis the last two decades, however he cautioned that even though reforms in the defence sector have been fast and broad, there is a long way to go. The Defence Secretary focused on eight major areas amongst the many in which reforms have been undertaken. The areas which Dr Ajay Kumar covered and emphasized during the talk were:

• Modernisation of Armed Forces.
• Promoting Atma Nirbhar Bharat in Defence.
• Streamlining Procurement.
• Budget Management.
• Digital Transformation.
• Reforming Defence R&D.
• Strengthening Border Infrastructure.
• Galvanising Strategic Thinking.

The presentation was comprehensive and insightful of the steps undertaken towards the vision enunciated by the RM. During the question and answer session a wide variety of question were fielded by the Defence Secretary. The talk by Dr Ajay Kumar was very well received by the virtual audience.