Indian Army
The Indian Army counted more than 2.5 million men in August 1945, which made it the largest volunteer army in history. Today it is the largest standing army in the world, with 1,248,000 active troops and 960,000 reserve troops. It supplies more than 80% of the country's active defence personnel. Yet it began as a patchwork of forces answering to a trading company, and for generations its officers were British. How did that force become the army of a republic? What has it fought for since 1947, and what did those wars cost? And how does a force of this size organise, train and recruit its soldiers? Some of the answers are still disputed, and some official records remain closed.
In 1776, the East India Company created a Military Department at its government in Calcutta. Its job was modest. It recorded the orders that other departments issued to the army in the territories the Company controlled. The Charter Act of 1833 reorganised the Company's secretariat into four departments, and the Military Department was one of them.
For decades the soldiers of Bengal, Bombay and Madras served as separate Presidency Armies. On the 1st of April 1895, those three were unified into a single force called the Indian Army. For administrative convenience it was divided into four commands. Punjab included the North West Frontier, and Bengal came next. Madras included Burma, and Bombay included Sind, Quetta and Aden.
Before independence, the phrase Indian Army had a narrow meaning. It described a force recruited locally and permanently based in India, together with its expatriate British officers. British Army units posted to India for a tour of duty were counted separately, as the British Army in India. The two together were known as the Army of India.
Some princely states kept armies of their own. These formed the Imperial Service Troops, which worked alongside the Indian Army as the land component of the Armed Forces of the Crown of India. Their responsibility was the defence of the Indian Empire. After independence, the Imperial Service Troops were merged into the Indian Army.
The army's duties reached well beyond India. It fought in the Third Anglo-Afghan war, in the Boxer Rebellion in China, and in Abyssinia. Its largest demands were still to come, in two world wars.
About 1.3 million Indian soldiers served with the Allies in World War I, between 1914 and 1918. Of these, 74,187 were killed or missing in action. They fought mainly on the Western Front and in the Middle Eastern theatre. In 1915, Indian soldiers in Singapore mutinied. Britain had promised self-governance to the Indian National Congress in return for its support. After the war it went back on those promises, and the Indian independence movement gained strength.
In 1939, British officials had no plan to expand or train Indian forces. These numbered about 130,000 men, with another 44,000 in British units based in India. Their mission was internal security and defence against a possible Soviet threat through Afghanistan. Once war came, the army's size and role grew dramatically, and units went to the fronts as soon as possible. The most serious problem was a shortage of equipment.
Indian troops served in East Africa, North Africa, the Middle East and South-East Asia. In Burma in 1944-45, five Indian divisions fought alongside one British and three African divisions. Even larger numbers operated in the Middle East. About 87,000 Indian soldiers died in the war.
Captivity split the army's loyalties. In the African and Middle Eastern campaigns, captured Indian soldiers were offered a choice. They could join the German Army, with the stated aim of eventually liberating India from Britain, or go to prisoner-of-war camps. Together with Indian students who were in Germany when the war began, those who agreed formed the Free India Legion. It was meant to act as pathfinders for German forces in Asia. Instead it was sent to help guard the Atlantic Wall. Few of its men saw combat, and at its height it had over 3,000 troops.
Japan offered a different path. When Singapore fell in 1942, about 40,000 Indian soldiers were captured. Over 30,000 of them joined the Indian National Army, which was allied with the Empire of Japan. A former Indian Army colonel, General Mohan Singh, raised it. Subhas Chandra Bose and Rash Bihari Bose later led it. Those who refused to join became prisoners of war, and most were shipped to New Guinea. The Indian National Army was defeated along with the Japanese, but it had a huge impact on the independence movement.
The officers commanding all these men were still overwhelmingly British, a problem that had been recognised long before.
In March 1912, a school opened at Dehradun with a grand name, the Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College. It educated the sons of aristocratic and well-to-do Indian families. It also prepared selected Indian boys for the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Graduates received a King's commission and were posted to one of eight units chosen for Indianisation.
Progress was slow. Just 69 officers were commissioned between 1918 and 1932. Political pressure led to the founding of the Indian Military Academy in 1932, and more officers of Indian origin followed. Even so, on the eve of World War II the officer corps held roughly 500 Indians with regular commissions, against approximately 3,000 British officers.
Independence in 1947 meant dividing the army itself. Four of the ten Gurkha regiments were transferred to the British Army. The rest was split between the new Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The Punjab Boundary Force, formed to help police Punjab during partition, was disbanded. Headquarters Delhi and the East Punjab Command were created to administer the area.
Almost all senior British officers left, and Indian officers moved into their posts at speed. Many held acting ranks several grades above their substantive ones. S. M. Shrinagesh, who later became the third Chief of the Army Staff, led Indian ground forces in the first Indo-Pak war of 1947-49. He did so as an acting major-general and then an acting lieutenant-general, while his substantive rank was major. He received a substantive promotion to lieutenant-colonel only in August 1949. K. P. Candeth, a future lieutenant general, was an acting brigadier at the same time, with a substantive rank of captain. In April 1948, the former Viceroy's Commissioned Officers had been re-designated as Junior Commissioned Officers.
On the 15th of January 1949, Lieutenant General K. M. Cariappa took over from General Sir Roy Bucher as the first Indian Chief of the Army Staff and Commander-in-Chief. India celebrates Army Day on that date every year. On the 26th of January 1950, the day India became a republic, all active-duty officers who had held the King's Commission were recommissioned and confirmed in their substantive ranks.
Pakistan invaded Kashmir on the 22nd of October 1947, and the state's ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, looked to India for help. He appealed to the governor-general, Lord Mountbatten of Burma. Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession to India on the 26th of October. Indian troops were airlifted to Srinagar from dawn on the 27th. Among them was General Thimayya, who later became a Chief of the Indian Army.
The war set former comrades against each other. Pakistani forces were halted along what is now the Line of Control, and an uneasy UN-sponsored peace returned by the end of 1948. UN Security Council Resolution 47 called for a plebiscite on accession, but only after Pakistan withdrew its army. Pakistan refused to pull back, and the dialogue on the resolution went no further.
Hyderabad State, ruled by the Nizam, chose to remain independent after partition. On the 12th of September 1948, Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel ordered Indian troops to secure it. Five days of fighting followed. Five infantry battalions and one armoured squadron took part, backed by an Indian Air Force squadron of Hawker Tempest aircraft. Major General Joyanto Nath Chaudhuri accepted the surrender of the Nizam's forces on the 18th of September. He then served as military governor until 1949.
Portugal refused to give up Goa, Daman and Diu, even after Britain and France left their colonies on the subcontinent. Portuguese prime minister and dictator António de Oliveira Salazar rejected India's repeated attempts at negotiation. On the 12th of December 1961, India launched Operation Vijay. Small contingents of Indian troops finished the job in twenty-six hours. Thirty-one Portuguese soldiers were killed, the frigate Afonso de Albuquerque was destroyed, and over 3,000 Portuguese were captured. General Manuel António Vassalo e Silva surrendered to Major General Kunhiraman Palat Kandoth.
The war with China in 1962 began over the Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh border regions. India claims Aksai Chin as part of Kashmir, and China claims it as part of Xinjiang. A road China built there, linking Tibet and Xinjiang, was one trigger. The Indian Army was ordered to the Thag La ridge, about 3 miles north of the disputed McMahon Line. Chinese forces attacked its positions there. On the 12th of October, Nehru ordered the Chinese expelled from Aksai Chin.
Poor coordination among army divisions, and a late decision to use the Indian Air Force in large numbers, handed China a crucial advantage. On the 20th of October, Chinese soldiers attacked from both the northwest and the northeast and captured large portions of Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh. China then withdrew unilaterally from Arunachal Pradesh. The dividing line became the Line of Actual Control.
The Henderson-Brooks and Bhagat committee was set up to find the causes of the poor performance. Its report criticised the decision not to let the air force strike Chinese transport lines, out of fear of an aerial counterattack on Indian civilian areas. Much of the blame fell on defence minister Krishna Menon, who resigned soon after the war. The report remains classified.
On the 1st of October 1967, Chinese troops invaded Sikkim, then a protectorate of India, in the clash known as the Cho La incident. Fighting flared again on the 10th. Indian losses were 88 killed and 163 wounded, against 300 Chinese killed and 450 wounded at Nathula. The Chinese Army left Sikkim afterwards.
Pakistani president Ayub Khan launched Operation Gibraltar in August 1965. Paramilitary troops slipped into Indian-administered Kashmir to stir up anti-India agitation. Pakistani leaders believed India was still recovering from the Sino-Indian War and could not handle both a military thrust and a Kashmiri rebellion. India reacted swiftly with a counter-offensive. On the 1st of September, Pakistan answered with Operation Grand Slam, invading the Chamb-Jaurian sector. The Indian Army then attacked all along the border, with Lahore as its prime target.
In the north, prolonged artillery barrages helped India capture three important mountain positions in Kashmir. By the 9th of September, Indian forces had pushed deep into Pakistan. The next day, at the Battle of Asal Uttar near Khemkaran, an offensive by Pakistan's 1st Armoured Division was blunted, and India took its largest haul of Pakistani tanks. The Battle of Chawinda was the biggest tank battle of the war and the largest since World War II.
India reported about 3,000 casualties at the ceasefire, while an estimated 3,800 Pakistani soldiers were killed. Between 200 and 300 Pakistani tanks were destroyed or captured, and India lost between 150 and 190. The war is described as inconclusive. Even so, the return to pre-war positions under the Tashkent Declaration caused an outcry in New Delhi. Many believed political pressure from the United States and the United Nations, not military necessity, had forced the ceasefire.
Six years later, a crisis in East Pakistan drew India in. An independence movement there was crushed by Pakistani forces. Thousands of Bengalis fled to India, creating a major refugee crisis. In early 1971, India declared full support for the Bengali freedom fighters known as Mukti Bahini, and Indian agents were extensively involved in covert operations to aid them. On the 20th of November 1971, the 14 Punjab Battalion of the 45th Cavalry captured Garibpur, a strategically important town just inside East Pakistan.
At 17:45 on the 3rd of December, the Pakistan Air Force launched a preemptive strike on ten Indian air bases, among them Srinagar, Pathankot, Agra and Jodhpur. The strike failed, and it gave India its reason to declare full-scale war that same day. By midnight the Indian Army, accompanied by the Indian Air Force, had begun a three-pronged assault into East Pakistan. It won several battles, including the decisive Battle of Hilli. A battalion-level airborne operation at Tangail brought the capitulation of all resistance within five days. Observers credited the early gains largely to the speed and flexibility of Indian armoured divisions.
On the western front, A Company of the 23rd Battalion, Punjab Regiment, met the Pakistani 51st Infantry Brigade near Ramgarh, Rajasthan, on the 4th of December. At the Battle of Longewala, the outnumbered company held the advance until the Indian Air Force sent fighters against the Pakistani tanks. In the end, 38 Pakistani tanks and 100 armoured vehicles were destroyed or abandoned, and about 200 Pakistani troops were killed. Only two Indian soldiers died. At the Battle of Basantar, fought from the 4th to the 16th of December, about 66 Pakistani tanks were destroyed and 40 more captured. Pakistani forces destroyed only 11 Indian tanks.
On the 16th of December 1971, elements of three Indian corps under Lieutenant General J. S. Arora entered Dhaka as part of the Indo-Bangladesh allied force. Pakistan's Lieutenant General A. A. K. Niazi signed the Instrument of Surrender, and more than 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war were taken. About 11,000 Pakistani soldiers had been killed in action, against 3,500 Indian battle deaths. Pakistan also lost 220 tanks to India's 69. The Simla Agreement followed in 1972, but later flare-ups kept both armies on watch.
During the president's rule of 1971, under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the army and police launched Operation Steeplechase against the Naxalites. The operation had been organised in October 1969. It killed hundreds of Naxalites and put more than 20,000 suspects and cadres in prison, including senior leaders. Lieutenant General J.F.R. Jacob later recalled that Home Secretary Govind Narain told him "there should be no publicity and no records". Jacob asked for written orders and was refused by Army Chief Sam Manekshaw.
The army also turned inward in later decades. It launched Operation Blue Star and Operation Woodrose in the 1980s against Sikh insurgents. In 1987 it sent a contingent to Sri Lanka as part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force. In 1995 it carried out Operation Golden Bird against insurgents in northeast India. Northern Command bears the prime responsibility, with paramilitary forces, for law and order in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Siachen Glacier never appeared as a demarcated line on the maps that India and Pakistan prepared and exchanged in 1947. Before the 1980s, neither country kept a permanent military presence there. From the 1950s, Pakistan sent mountaineering expeditions to the glacier. By the early 1980s, it was granting special expedition permits, and United States Army maps showed Siachen as part of Pakistan. The practice gave rise to the term oropolitics.
India launched Operation Meghdoot in April 1984. An entire battalion of the Kumaon Regiment was airlifted to the glacier. The army secured the passes of Sia La and Bilafond La, and by 1985 more than 1000 square miles claimed by Pakistan was under Indian control. In late 1987, Pakistan mobilised about 8,000 troops near Khapalu, hoping to take Bilafond La. They were repulsed, with about 23 Indian soldiers killed and more than 150 Pakistani troops dead. Further Pakistani attempts followed in 1990, 1995-1996 and 1999.
Holding the glacier is a logistical burden. The army built a helipad at an elevation of 21,000 feet. In 2004 it was spending an estimated US$2 million a month to support its personnel there. The peak of Saltoro Kangri, the highest in the region, could let Indian forces watch Pakistani or Chinese movements.
In 1998, India and then Pakistan carried out nuclear tests. The Lahore Summit eased tensions in 1999, but the optimism was short-lived. In mid-1999, Pakistani paramilitary forces and Kashmiri insurgents seized heights in the Kargil district that the Indian Army had left empty for the winter. Some of those heights, including Tiger Hill, overlooked the Srinagar-Leh Highway, the army's main supply route. From their observation posts, the intruders could direct artillery fire onto it.
India mobilised about 200,000 troops and launched Operation Vijay. Its first priority was to retake the peaks near the highway. Point 4590, which had the nearest view of the road, was recaptured on the 14th of June. About 250 artillery guns were brought in, but at many points neither artillery nor air power could dislodge soldiers who were out of sight. Direct frontal assaults on peaks as high as 18,000 feet were slow and costly. After the Washington Accord of the 4th of July, in which Sharif agreed to withdraw Pakistani troops, most fighting slowed. The final attacks came in the last week of July, and fighting ceased on the 26th of July, now celebrated as Kargil Vijay Diwas. Indian deaths stood at 527. More than 700 regular Pakistani soldiers were killed, along with about 3,000 Islamist fighters.
On the 18th of September 2016, four armed militants attacked an army base near Uri and killed nineteen soldiers. On the 29th of September, the army announced "surgical strikes" on militant launch pads across the Line of Control. Indian media reported between 35 and 70 killed. Partial footage was released on the 27th of June 2018. After the Pulwama attack in 2019 killed 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, India carried out an airstrike near Balakot on the 26th of February. A peace offer was agreed on the 22nd of March 2019.
Operation Surya Hope shows a side of the army that has nothing to do with battle. The army conducts humanitarian rescue during natural calamities and other disturbances, and the government can requisition it to cope with internal threats.
Abroad, India has been the largest troop contributor to United Nations peacekeeping missions since their inception. It has taken part in 43 missions, with a total contribution exceeding 160,000 troops and a significant number of police. In 2014 it was the third largest contributor, with 7,860 personnel serving in ten missions. Of these, 995 were police, including the first UN Female Formed Police Unit. In all, 157 Indians have been killed on such missions. The army has also provided paramedical units to help withdraw the sick and wounded.
In November 1986, the army launched Operation Brasstacks to simulate a full-scale war on the western border. It was the largest exercise ever held in India. It included nine infantry divisions, three mechanised divisions, three armoured divisions and one air assault division, plus three independent armoured brigades. Amphibious assaults were rehearsed with the Indian Navy, and the exercise allegedly included nuclear attack drills. It raised tensions with Pakistan, followed by a rapprochement in mid-1987.
Later exercises grew in scale and ambition. In the Rajasthan desert from April to May 2012, the Jaipur-based South Western Command ran Exercise Shoorveer with over 50,000 troops. Several hundred artillery pieces and infantry combat vehicles took part. Exercise Ashwamedha, held in the Thar desert, tested network-centric warfare with over 300,000 troops. In April 2016, Exercise Shatrujeet tested the strike corps based at Mathura, in a scenario involving nuclear, biological and chemical warfare.
Some exercises are held with foreign armies. Since 2004, the army has trained every year with the Mongolian Army in Exercise Nomadic Elephant. Yudh Abhyas has run since 2005 with the United States Army. Its eighth edition, from the 3rd to the 17th of May 2013, brought in the 99th Mountain Brigade and the 50th Independent Parachute Brigade on the Indian side. Exercise Shakti with the French Army has run since October 2011, and it practises counter-insurgency in snowbound mountain terrain.
Army headquarters in New Delhi sits at the top of 14 corps and 40 divisions. Six operational commands and one training command, the Army Training Command at Shimla, report directly to it. Each command is headed by a lieutenant general. The 40 divisions include four RAPIDs, 18 infantry divisions, 12 mountain divisions, three armoured divisions and three artillery divisions. A brigade holds around 3,000 combat troops with supporting elements. The smallest unit is the section, with 10 personnel under a Havaldar.
The army's doctrine rests on two kinds of formation. Holding formations contain an enemy attack. Strike formations then counter-attack, or, in an Indian offensive, hit a point of India's choosing. The army is large enough to devote several corps to the strike role.
An infantry regiment, by inherited British practice, does not fight as a body. Its role is to supply trained battalions to field formations. Battalions of one regiment may be scattered across several brigades, divisions and theatres, and soldiers usually spend their whole career in the regiment they join. The Madras Regiment dates to 1758 and the Punjab Regiment to 1761. The Parachute Regiment was raised in 1945.
Most regiments recruit by region, caste or religion, such as the Assam Regiment, the Jat Regiment and the Sikh Regiment. There have been fears that soldiers' loyalty lay more with their regiment and community than with the Indian union. To counter this, "all India" regiments were created, including the Brigade of the Guards and the Parachute Regiment.
The Mechanised Infantry is the newest combat arm, and it was the brainchild of General Krishnaswamy Sundarji, Chief of the Army Staff from 1986 to 1988. The Corps of Signals was formed on the 15th of February 1911 under Lieutenant Colonel S. H. Powell. The Army Aviation Corps followed on the 1st of November 1986.
Conscription is provided for in the Indian constitution but has never been imposed. The army has a sanctioned strength of 49,932 officers and 1,215,049 enlisted personnel. On the 4th of June 2017, the chief of staff announced plans to open combat positions to women, starting with the military police.
On the 14th of June 2022, the government introduced the Agnipath scheme. It hires soldiers below commissioned rank for only four years, and they are called Agniveers. The scheme was implemented in September 2022 and was criticised for lack of consultation and public debate. Opposition parties warned it bypasses long tenures and pensions. Infantry battalions have also added drone platoons, and the army is pursuing an infantry modernisation program called Futuristic Infantry Soldier As a System, or F-INSAS.
On the 18th of March 2024, the army founded the Signals Technology Evaluation and Adaptation Group, known as STEAG. It will evaluate emerging communication technologies, including 5G and 6G networks, quantum technologies and software-defined radios.
Updated
Common questions
When was the Indian Army established?
The Indian Army was established on the 1st of April 1895, when the separate Presidency Armies of Bengal, Bombay and Madras were unified into a single force. Its earliest roots go back to the Military Department the East India Company created at Calcutta in 1776.
How big is the Indian Army?
The Indian Army has 1,248,000 active troops and 960,000 reserve troops, which makes it the largest standing army in the world. It is an all-volunteer force and supplies more than 80% of India's active defence personnel.
How many Indian soldiers served in World War I?
About 1.3 million Indian soldiers served with the Allies in World War I between 1914 and 1918. Of these, 74,187 were killed or missing in action.
What did the Indian Army do in the 1971 war that created Bangladesh?
The Indian Army launched a three-pronged assault into East Pakistan after the Pakistan Air Force struck ten Indian air bases on the 3rd of December 1971. Its forces entered Dhaka on the 16th of December, and more than 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war were taken.
What happened in the Kargil war in the Indian Army's history?
In mid-1999, Pakistani paramilitary forces and Kashmiri insurgents occupied heights in the Kargil district, and the Indian Army mobilised about 200,000 troops in Operation Vijay. Fighting ceased on the 26th of July 1999, now celebrated as Kargil Vijay Diwas, with 527 Indian soldiers killed.
How is the Indian Army organised?
The Indian Army is organised into 40 divisions in 14 corps, under six operational commands and one training command. Army headquarters is in New Delhi under the Chief of the Army Staff.
What is the Agnipath scheme in the Indian Army?
The Agnipath scheme was introduced by the Government of India on the 14th of June 2022 to recruit soldiers below commissioned rank for four years only. Those recruited are called Agniveers, and the scheme was implemented in September 2022.
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- 181NewsWhat is Tour of Duty in Indian Army – Times of India14 May 2020
- 182NewsExplained: The Agnipath scheme for recruiting soldiers – what is it, how will it work?The Indian Express — 15 June 2022
- 183News'Agnipath': What is India's new military recruitment system?Sushant Singh — 16 June 2022
- 184NewsWhy Is There So Much Anger Against Agnipath Scheme, Especially In North India?Abhishek De — 18 June 2022
- 186Put Agnipath on hold, take it up in Parliament: OppositionJun 17, 2022
- 187How Indian Army's Military Intelligence Directorate works : Special Report – India TodayIndiatoday.intoday.in — 28 January 2012
- 189NewsWhat is STEAG, Army's new elite tech unit2024-03-18
- 190BookIndian Army Order of BattleRichard Rinaldi et al. — General Data LLC — 2010
- 192Know about Ghatak commandos, the invincible Special Forces of India10 February 2014
- 196NewsArmed forces facing shortage of nearly 60,000 personnel: Government27 December 2017
- 198BookThe Military Balance 2020Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Incorporated — 14 February 2020
- 199General V K Singh takes over as new Indian Army chief31 March 2010
- 201Unstarred Ques no. 4929, Lok SabhaAjay Bhatt — 1 April 2022
- 202PIB INDIA
- 20314 Different Uniforms of Indian Army1 June 2023
- 204Army to adopt new combat fatigues next year15 January 2022
- 205Indian Army Day 2022: Indian Army unveils new combat uniform with a digital disruptive patternFirstpost.com — 15 January 2022
- 210Agniveer Yojana – MyGov.in14 June 2022
- 212Recruitment model for soldiers to create an 'Agniveer' rankRahul Singh — 2022-06-14
- 215Why Nepal's Gurkha fighters want to join India's army againPriyanka Shankar
- 219Our History
- 220Army running low on ammunitionRajat Pandit — TNN — 24 March 2014
- 222NewsArmy to get attack helicopters: Defence MinistryGautam Datt — 13 October 2012
- 223NewsDRDO's F-INSAS programme to be ready in two years9 July 2013
- 226Army to set up new corps for operations along LAC2024-02-20
- 227Army's Central Command gets 'combatised' to counter China, new corps raisedSnehesh Alex Philip — 2024-02-20
- 231'New All-Arms Brigades Being Formed': Army Chief Announces 'Rudra' On Kargil Vijay DiwasAshesh Mallick — 2025-07-26
- 232'Rudra' to power up brigades for future warsAjay Banerjee — 2025-07-28
- 235Explainer: High on mobility and firepower, Rudra brigades align with post-Op Sindoor strategyVijay Mohan — 2025-07-27
- 236NewsAll about Indian Army's new Rudra brigade and Bhairav Commando units2025-07-27
- 237Bhairav, Rudra units to boost combat powerMayank Singh — 2025-08-11
- 239New weapons, specialist units to boost army's capabilitiesRahul Singh — 2025-10-22
- 241Integrated Battle Groups2022-05-11
- 242NewsArmy's first Integrated Battle Groups to be structured by end of next monthDinakar Peri — 2019-07-28
- 243NewsArmy to debut its Mountain Strike Corps next month, at HimVijay exercise in ArunachalPhilip — 2019-09-11
- 244Integrated Battle Groups are in final stage, says Army ChiefMayank Singh — 2022-05-11
- 245NewsConsultations on creation of Integrated Battle Groups being compiled: Army Chief Gen. PandeDinakar Peri — 2022-05-10
- 246NewsNew government to decide on Army's integrated battle group plan2024-06-10
- 250Indian Army's Integrated Battle Groups await final approval: General Upendra DwivediMayank Singh — 2025-01-13
- 262Army ramps up two-front readiness, 5 Bhairav Commando units ready for frontline deploymentJavaria Rana — 2025-08-25
- 263NewsBhairav commandos to add muscle to Army by October 312025-08-30
- 264NewsArmy equips 380 infantry battalions with 'Ashney' drone platoons2025-10-22
- 267Press release77th Republic Day Parade: Kartavya Path set to unveil unique mix of 150 years of ‘Vande Mataram’ and the nation’s progress & military might, immersed in rich cultural diversity and Jan BhagidariPress Information Bureau — 2026-01-25
- 273NewsDefence ministry nod to Rs 79,000 crore military projects2025-12-30
- 274Press releaseDAC clears proposals worth Rs 79,000 crore to enhance the capabilities of the Armed ForcesPress Information Bureau — 2025-12-29
- 275NewsIndian Army to buy 850 Kamikaze drones worth Rs 2000 crore2025-12-19
- 276NewsTASL, NIBE bag ₹1,577-crore Army contracts for loiter munitionsSaurabh Trivedi — 2026-08-15
- 279NewsArmy puts to test its new ‘Shaurya’ drone squadron for tank units2026-03-27
- 280NewsSurveillance boost: Army to raise ‘Baaz Battalions’2026-06-30
- 281Army to set up specialised Baaz Battalions to boost drone warfare capabilitiesShivani Sharma — 2026-06-30
- 282JournalThe Indianisation of the Indian Army 1918-45William Gutteridge — 1963
- 283BookThe Military Balance 2010International Institute for Strategic Studies — Routledge — 2010
- 284BookThe Military Balance 2012International Institute for Strategic Studies — Routledge — 7 March 2012