New Delhi : Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defence and security summit, General Chauhan said that despite Pakistan being ahead of India in many metrics after Independence, India was now ahead on all fronts – from the economy to human development.
Today, India is ahead on all fronts: economic performance, human development, and social harmony, despite our greater diversity,” General Chauhan said. He underlined that India had reached out to Pakistan several times, like in 2014 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited then-premier Nawaz Sharif to his oath ceremony after the BJP’s win in the Lok Sabha polls.
“Diplomatically, we have reached out like in 2014 when the PM invited Nawaz Sharif. But it takes two hands to clap. If all we get in return is hostility, then disengagement may itself be a sound strategy for now,” he said. In the same breath, he highlighted that integrated radars, built into a cohesive network across India, proved to be crucial.
“We have not only used indigenous platforms like the Akash missile system effectively, but we have also built our own networking infrastructure for air defence without relying on foreign vendors. We have integrated radars from multiple sources into a cohesive network across India and that was crucial,” General Chauhan said.
