Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan called India the third largest ecosystem for startups globally and hoped for India to become the fourth-largest economy overtaking Germany by 2024 while speaking at an event in New Delhi on Saturday.

“India is emerging as the third largest ecosystem for startups globally and over 84,000 startups recognized by the government exist today. By 2024, we hope to overtake Germany to become the fourth-largest economy in the world,” said the CDS. Talking about the major change undergoing in the global order Chauhan said, “The global security environment currently is in a state of flux and the new order is yet to crystallize. Post world War 2, the Trans-Atlantic Anglo-Saxon lands, could not unite around Europe, the way actually the Russian invasion of Ukraine has done. On the other hand, Russia and China are getting closer to Iran actually joining this particular bandwagon.”

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“India has close relationship with both the West and as well as the Russians that place us very uniquely in this geopolitical construct. A quick regional scan of Europe and Asia would indicate that nations are bracing for the looming prospects of uncertainty instability and a major change in the global order. This is getting reflected in the policies of most nations as they increased their defence budget, CDS explained further.”

Regarding the government policies under Make in India initiative, CDS said the government has simplified the industrial licensing system, increased the FDI limit, marked funds for research and development and MSMEs and provided a level playing field for the private companies in defence manufacturing, said CDS.

Today our defence industries are already manufacturing a wide variety of military hardware to meet the requirements of the defence forces, as well as for exports. This has led to an increase in the share of domestic requirements, which has been on the uptrend in 2018. I believe that defence manufacturing is the new sunrise sector that will witness major growth in the future, said CDS further.

General Anil Chauhan was appointed as the second Chief of Defence Staff after nine months after the unfortunate death of General Bipin Rawat.