First Joint Commanders’ Conference in Lucknow on Sept 4-5

For the first time, the Joint Commanders’ Conference (JCC) will be held over two days from September 4 in Lucknow, with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh scheduled to reach out to the top brass of the tri-services over ‘how to make the country more strong and secure’ at a time when global conflicts are threatening to spread across other regions as well.

This is a follow up to Combined Commanders’ Conference presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Bhopal in March 2023, which will take place once in two years.

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The Joint Commanders’ Conference would take place annually, defence sources said.

The conference, carrying the theme “Sashakt aur Surakshit (Strong and Secure) Bharat: Transforming the Armed Forces”, is in line with the government’s move to enable the joint working of the tri-services, which will help the armed forces operate through identified theatre commands.

The first day of the JCC would be addressed by Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan, who is expected to talk about how the wars of the future will be fought and the Indian armed forces’ response to the security challenges through the period of transformation into theatre commands, defence sources stated.

Defence Minister to address conference

On the last day, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will speak to the commanders from the Army, the Air Force and the Navy on the security challenges confronted by the country and share ‘his vision with the forces on ways to tackle them’.

Presentations will also be made by the different directorates of the defence forces, including operations, during the conference. Besides, it will also have a session on the different Make-in-India initiatives in the forces and the progress made by the services.

In the last ten years, the MoD has been pushing towards self-reliance in the defence sector and allocated more than 70 per cent of its budget to services for buying made-in-India weapon systems.

Multiple indigenous products have been successfully tested and inducted by encouraging the industry to grab the opportunity arising out of government’s move to reduce imports of defence equipments.

India’s realisation for indigenisation of weapons and ammunitions was cemented during the Galwan face off with Chinese PLA in Eastern Ladakh in May 2020.

The ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Russia-Ukraine too enforced the need to add speed to aatmanirbharta in procurement of defence systems since now forces will have to fight long drawn wars without waiting for foreign supplies.