Jammu: Union Defense Minister, Minister of Technology, Lieutenant Governor of Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh and senior armed forces officers will participate in the upcoming North tech Symposium scheduled from September 11 to 13 at Indian Institute Technology (IIT) Jammu.
Addressing curtain raiser press on North Tech Symposium, Chief of Staff, Northern Command, Lieutenant General Anindya Sengupta confirmed that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh along with Minister of Technology, Lieutenant Governors of the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Chief of Defence Staff and the Chief of Army Staff and host of senior army officers amongst the attendees during three days North Tech 2023.
The upcoming North tech Symposium will become a harbinger for intertwining and synergising the requirements of the Indian Army with the potential and capabilities of the Academia and the Industry. Conducted in Northern Command since its inception in 2005, the Chief of Staff said that earlier the event was organised as a combination of equipment and idea, innovations display, however over the years it has been restructured to promote state-of-the-art Defence Technology and encourage Athmanirbharta. The operational and logistics challenges confronting Northern Command necessitate customised, dedicated solutions.
While Northern Command has taken big strides in the past years to bridge the gap between what we have and what we need, this year’s North Tech Symposium is a giant leap reinforcing this endeavor,” he added.
Emphasising upon the theme of this year’s event “Synergy in Research, Development and Innovation for Modernisation of the Military”, Lt Gen Sengupta added that “we seek to address our “needs” through an inclusive approach, bringing the Indian Army, Defence Industry and Academia onto a collaborative platform. North Tech Symposium 2023 is Unique in the sense that major activities are being held at the IIT Jammu campus.”
The current annual budget towards these efforts is of the order of Rs 1,000 crore and increasing. Northern Command has also commenced reaching out to academic institutes and has started evolving problem statements towards meaningful requirement-oriented research with the academia, he added.
Major General SBK Singh, MGGS (Staff Duties & Capability Development), HQ Northern Command stated that in the recent past, imaginative and offensive exploitation of technology has challenged the status quo in the battle field. To keep these developments, in the ensuing years, the existing and emerging technologies will fundamentally change future military operations.
There is therefore a need to focus on developing robust indigenous solutions for all needs of the Indian Army particularly in the fields of fire power, mobility, force preservation, situation awareness, Intelligence Surveillance & Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare. While there is a need to imbibe and adopt modern technology, it is imperative that existing in-service equipment gets sustained through essential interventions, upgrades and refurbishments to infuse fresh life in critical weapon platforms and equipment such as Armoured Fighting Vehicles, equipment of Engineer Origin, Electronic Warfare, Surveillance and force preservation.
He said that North Tech Symposium 2023 will thus be an exercise co-opting the potential of the minds of the academia, the innovative thinking of our young entrepreneurs- Start Ups, the financial and manufacturing might of our defence industrial base to meet the operational requirements of Indian Army in general and Northern Command in particular. (KNO)
