No Pak Hand in Pahalgam? Chidambaram Remarks Trigger Political Face-off Between Centre, Opposition

The Indian Army's Air Defence Brigade under Southern Command has conducted a high-intensity live firing exercise at the Pokhran Field Firing Range in Jaisalmer, targeting the precise combination of aerial threats that has proved most dangerous and costly in the ongoing US-Iran war small autonomous drones and coordinated swarm formations. The exercise put advanced air defence systems through demanding combat scenarios designed to replicate the evolving battlefield conditions visible in the Middle East, where Iran's drone swarm strategy has drained American and allied interceptor stockpiles and repeatedly breached layered defences by exploiting an asymmetric cost equation between cheap drones and expensive interceptors. The Pokhran drill went beyond routine live firing. Troops executed simultaneous engagements against multiple target types, with a central focus on integration ensuring that surveillance, detection and engagement systems operated as a seamless whole rather than as isolated components. Response times between different air defence elements were tested, and command-and-control coordination. The Iran war is providing a live, real-time lesson in what those weapons can do against even the world's most sophisticated air defence networks. The Indian Army's formal designation of this domain as the "emerging aerial battlespace" signals that the institution has drawn those lessons and intends to act on them.