India's top air force leaders urge faster defence indigenisation to achieve strategic autonomy and reduce imports.

Air Marshal Awadhesh Kumar Bharti urged faster progress in India’s defence indigenisation, calling the current pace of turning concepts into operational systems "painfully slow." Speaking at Aero Tech India 2025, he stressed the need for strategic autonomy in key technologies like secure chips, hypersonics, and space assets, warning that global partners may not share sensitive tech. He called for a "leapfrogging" innovation push and stronger R&D, infrastructure, and industry collaboration to meet future warfare demands, including AI-driven systems and drone swarms. Air Vice Marshal Anil Golani (Retd) highlighted the Tejas fighter program’s potential to create 12,000 jobs annually and grow the defence sector’s MSME base to nearly 16,000 by 2030, while emphasizing the need to reduce import dependence and develop next-generation weapons.