NDTV Defence Summit 2026, on September 27, will bring together India’s defence leadership, senior military commanders, strategic thinkers, defence manufacturers, global aerospace companies and some of the country’s most ambitious technology entrepreneurs.
At the centre of the dialogue will be Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who will deliver the keynote address, setting the context for a larger conversation on India’s defence priorities at a time when the very grammar of warfare is changing.
The Summit will also feature General NS Raja Subramani, Chief of Defence Staff, in a conversation titled ‘Commanding Tomorrow’s Battlefield – The India Vision’. The session will focus on the future of military command, integration, and preparedness as conventional warfare increasingly intersects with technology, autonomy, data, and new domains of conflict.
General Dhiraj Seth, Chief of Army Staff, Indian Army, will deliver a keynote address at the Summit, bringing the Army’s perspective to the larger conversation on India’s defence preparedness. His address will examine how land warfare, military doctrine and force readiness are evolving in an increasingly technology-driven security environment.
Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, PVSM, AVSM, VSM, Chief of the Naval Staff, will bring the perspective of India’s senior military leadership to the Summit, placing operational preparedness and military transformation within the larger debate on how armed forces must evolve for a battlefield that is becoming faster, more networked and more technologically contested.
Rajesh Kumar Singh, Defence Secretary, Secretary DDR&D and Chairman DRDO (Additional Charge), will participate in ‘Strategy to Capability: Building India’s Defence Edge’ – a conversation that goes to the heart of one of the central questions confronting Indian defence: how strategic intent is translated into technology, production capacity and deployable military capability.
These conversations will frame a larger inquiry at the heart of the NDTV Defence Summit 2026: What constitutes credible military power in an age in which technology can change the balance of advantage faster than traditional defence cycles can respond?
The answer can no longer be located in any single weapons platform or military doctrine. It increasingly lies at the intersection of strategy, industry, innovation, diplomacy and preparedness.
That intersection will define the conversations through the day. One of the key sessions, ‘The Threat Matrix: Rewriting India’s Rules of Deterrence’, will bring together important voices from India’s defence-industrial ecosystem, including Dr Samir V Kamat, Chairman, Former DRDO & Secretary, Department of Defence R&D; Ashish Kansal, Director & CEO, SMPP Limited; and Sanjay Hazari, Chairman & MD, Munitions India.
The conversation will look at deterrence not simply as a function of military strength, but through the prism of technological depth, industrial readiness and the ability to build and replenish critical capability at scale.
The changing nature of air power and international defence cooperation will come into focus in ‘The Evolution of Air Power and the Indo-French Partnership’, with the agenda envisaging participation by the Lieutenant General Dominique Tardif, Vice Chief of the French Air and Space Force.
The conversation reflects another important reality of contemporary defence: even as nations seek greater strategic autonomy, military capability is increasingly shaped through sophisticated technological and strategic partnerships.
A major focus of the Summit will be the emerging generation of companies attempting to expand the boundaries of India’s defence capability.
‘Building Bharat’s Arsenal of Innovation: AI, Drones & Beyond’ will feature Bodhisattwa Sanghapriya, Founder & CEO, IG Drones; Mr. Ashok Atluri, Chairman & MD, Zen Technologies; and Veddika Dalmia, Director, Hyper Stealth Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
From drones and propulsion to space and stealth technologies, the session will examine how emerging companies are changing the architecture of defence innovation – and how the ability to innovate quickly could become as strategically significant as the ability to manufacture at scale.
The geopolitical dimension will be explored in ‘Fault Lines & Firepower: India’s Strategic Calculus’, featuring Pankaj Saran, former Deputy National Security Adviser and current NSAB member. The conversation will examine the choices before India in a world marked by shifting alignments, competing centres of power and an increasingly complex security environment.
The technological foundations of military capability will be taken forward in ‘Cockpit to Capability: Avionics and the Future of Indian Defence’, featuring Puneet Kaura, MD & CEO, Samtel Avionics.
The session will look beyond the platform to the technologies that make modern platforms effective – and at why avionics, electronics and mission-critical systems are becoming central to the pursuit of defence capability.
Another major conversation will centre on one of the most consequential distinctions in contemporary defence: the difference between manufacturing technology and owning it.
‘Beyond Assembly to Autonomy: Securing India’s Core Defence Technologies’ will bring the global defence and aerospace ecosystem into the conversation. The agenda includes participation from Lockheed Martin, Rolls-Royce, Airbus, Saab Defence and Dassault, alongside Sankalp Srivastav, India CEO, Embraer India.
The session will examine how India can deepen international partnerships while simultaneously strengthening its own technological capability. As defence systems become more sophisticated and interconnected, access to technology matters – but the ability to understand, adapt, develop and control critical technologies can determine the degree of strategic choice a nation ultimately possesses.
Space, increasingly central to communications, surveillance, intelligence and future warfare, will form another important part of the conversation.
‘Ignition: India’s Race to Own Space’ will feature a presentation by Pankaj Chandana, co-founder of Skyroot Aerospace, placing India’s rapidly evolving private space ecosystem within the larger debate on national capability and strategic technology.
Artificial intelligence will take that argument into the next generation of warfare.
At stake is a fundamental transformation in military decision-making. As warfare becomes increasingly software-led, advantage may depend not only on the strength of weapons, but also on the ability to see faster, interpret faster, decide faster and respond faster.
Technology, in that sense, is no longer simply another layer of modern warfare. Increasingly, it determines the speed at which warfare itself is conducted.
From those shaping defence policy and military strategy to companies building platforms and critical systems, and entrepreneurs attempting to redefine what is technologically possible, the NDTV Defence Summit 2026 will bring the different dimensions of India’s defence future into one conversation.
