India’s armed forces face a critical vulnerability as existing electronic warfare (EW) capabilities leave domestic unmanned aerial vehicles vulnerable to hostile spectrum interference, despite robust assets like DRDO’s Samyukta and the airborne suite for the Tejas Mk1A. To address this structural gap, the Ministry of Defence launched Project Pragyashakti in 2025 to create an AI-driven, tri-service EW framework unifying multi-origin equipment via middleware.
Simultaneously, the Indian Army established dedicated EW Brigades along the Pakistan and China borders, backed by a Rs.5,150 crore Dharashakti upgrade capable of neutralising threats up to 150 km away. Following an October 2025 trial failure, New Delhi sanctioned a Rs.500 crore National Military Drone Technology Hub at IIT Kanpur to engineer encrypted, frequency-hopping links and resilient targeting logic. Operational viability hinges on converting these technical breakthroughs into non-negotiable procurement mandates before cognitive spectrum capabilities fielded by adversaries render legacy architectures obsolete.
Unifying tri-service spectrum assets under Project Pragyashakti reveals the command-and-control friction of harmonising disparate tactical communications across distinct service branches. Integrating heterogeneous hardware—spanning Russian, French, and indigenous systems—introduces operational latency during automated threat identification and waveform management. Without unified command protocols, joint electronic counter-countermeasures remain constrained by incompatible service-specific network architectures.
This C2 integration friction manifests directly during high-altitude joint exercises along the Line of Actual Control. Consequently, the newly raised Electronic Warfare Brigades risk generating self-inflicted spectrum denial whenever Dharashakti ground units operate without automated C2 synchronisation alongside airborne Swayam Raksha Kavach suites.
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