An Indian defence start-up, founded by two engineering students, delivers drones to the Indian Army: Read how India’s defence sector is moving towards self-reliance
In a remarkable feat, an Indian defence start-up, founded by two young engineers, recently supplied unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the Indian Army units in Jammu, Chandimandir, Panagarh and Arunachal Pradesh. The defence start-up called Apollyon Dynamics, founded by two students, Jayant Khatri and Sourya Choudhury of BITS Pilani, Hyderabad, delivered the UAV units merely within two months of being launched.
Jayanti Khatri is a mechanical engineering student from Ajmer, and Sourya Choudhary, from Kolkata, studies electrical engineering. Under their start-up, they are working on a mission to reduce India’s dependence on imported drones. The duo built their kamikaze drones using off-the-shelf parts and customised them for Indian terrain, all inside their hostel rooms in the BITS Pilani Hyderabad campus.
After making the drones, they started looking for people in the defence forces to demonstrate their UAVs. “I just started shooting cold emails to whoever I could find…Luckily, a colonel responded and called us to Chandigarh for a demo,” Khatri was quoted as saying on Monday. Soon, the duo found themselves demonstrating their drones to military regiments, and eventually they landed a deal to supply the drones to the Indian Army.
“Our shared love of robotics brought us together. We started with a defence-tech club on campus. Then came the orders- that’s when we knew we had to go big,” said Khatri, narrating how the start-up came into existence. Explaining the features of their drones, Khatri said that they cannot be detected on radar. They are entirely built in-house and are customised according to India’s defence and surveillance needs with special focus on reliability and adaptability.
One of their most popular products, which has been widely adopted by the Indian Army units for its easy-to-use design, is a trainer UAV. The start-up also offers hands-on training to soldiers for operating their drones. Even soldiers with no prior experience are trained by the start-up to operate the drones within a short period of time.
The start-up has a range of UAVs, including multi-role aerial vehicles for long-range surveillance, capable of tactical payload delivery and high-precision kamikaze operations. Their drones can fly at speeds surpassing 300 km per hour and deliver payloads up to 1 kg with high accuracy.
India’s push for indigenous defence technology
As the global battlefields are shifting from conventional weapons to future defence technology, India is not only fast adapting to this shift but is also among the few nations leading this transition. India has not only been venturing into future defence technology but also developeing indigenous weapons to eliminate its dependence on foreign-made weapons and become self-reliant.
During its Operation Sindoor, India surprised the entire world by destroying terror launchpads in Pakistan and PoJK through precision strikes carried out using advanced defence technologies like air defence systems and loitering munitions. India used UAVs like the SkyStriker, the SCALP cruise missile, the HAMMER precision bomb, along with India-made FPV drones, JM-1 and Heron UAVs. India targeted the terror sites through a combination of high-resolution surveillance and intelligence inputs. Indian decoy drones played a key role in the country’s offensive by creating heat signatures matching Indian fighter jets to confuse the Pakistani air defence system.
In addition to that, India thwarted Pakistan’s drone and missile attacks through India-made air defence system, Akashteer, along with the Russian S-400. Referred to as India’s ‘Iron Dome’, Akashteer meticulously guarded the western front of Indian against Pakistan’s aerial strikes. It is an advanced Air Defence Control and Reporting System (ADCRS) developed by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). It collects data from radars and sensors, like AWACS and AEW&C platforms, and uses it to compile real-time data to intercept aerial strikes with precision.
India’s Make in India initiative has been particularly fruitful in the country’s defence sector. In the financial year 2023-24, India’s defence production reached ₹1.27 lakh crore, amounting to a 174% rise since 2014-15. Additionally, India’s defence exports to over 100 countries hit a record high, reaching ₹21,083 crore during FYI 2023-24. This was a 30 times increase in a decade.
The government is determined to achieve total self-reliance in the defence sector by encouraging private participation, technological innovation, and the development of advanced military platforms. In FYI 2024-25, the government significantly increased the defence budget to ₹6.81 lakh crore from ₹2.53 lakh crore in 2013-14. India’s defence growth is not only paving the way for the country to become self-reliant but also contributing to its emergence as a global defence exporter.
In April this year, India exported the second batch of Brahmos missile systems to the Philippines. In the same month last year, India sent its first batch of BrahMos missile systems to the country, after it signed a $375 million deal with India in January 2022. Indonesia and Vietnam are also in talks with India for finalising deals for acquiring the Brahmos missile systems. Apart from these, several other countries, including Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela have also expressed interest in acquiring the BrahMos missile system.
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