Jaipur, July 17 -- Rajasthan will soon have India's third defence corridor after Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, said lieutenant general Manjinder Singh, general officer commanding-in-chief of the South Western command of Indian Army, on Wednesday. "We have already sent a proposal to the government to make a defence corridor at the Rajasthan's Industrial corridor area. They have stated that they will make a policy on that proposal in the next six months. Rajasthan will be the third state in India to have such a defence corridor. It will benefit both the industrialists and the defence staff," Singh said addressing the press during a tech seminar by the Sapta Shakti command at the Jaipur Military Station. He further added, "Rajasthan's strategic position is very crucial for India. It will be the only Pakistan-bordering area to have a defence corridor now. The units of the armed forces here will now not need to go to Uttar Pradesh or Tamil Nadu for repairing or procuring any defence equipment. They can get it from Rajasthan itself." Highlighting the importance of developing the technologies in the defence sector, he also said, "Future warfare will only be about algorithms, drones, cyber, and hypersonic technologies. India's own Operation Sindoor has shown how the use of technology could ensure precision to launch an attack on the specific target without any undue escalation." "Budgetary constraints and the bureaucratic determination might slow the path to experiment with new technologies but it is the need of the hour. We need more private sector collaboration for it," Singh added. He also stressed on spending more on the human capital in the military. "Army is the biggest capital of any military force. A good investment should be done to boost their mental agility and tech efficiency." Meanwhile, during the seminar, the president of the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM), Rajinder Singh Bhatia said, "Tech is like a teenage son or a daughter. Every sector must invest in dedicated people for its improvement. During the recent warfares in the last two decades, we have seen that any nation is no longer ashamed of using modern technology. It is interesting to see how the tech has been started using during World War I with the German air strike and has now been used during the Russo-Ukraine war with their artillery ammunition." "Most of the modern technologies, these days, are majorly developed in the defence sector and then come to the use of the civilians. Breakthrough technologies, therefore, will require more collaboration with the start-ups that generate most of the innovating technologies," he said. He further added: "India has currently 1.37 Lakh registered start-ups- of which 32,000 are working in the tech domain. It is our duty to make the defence sector more accessible for them so that they can reach out and test their new technologies. It is a shortcoming for us to create more infrastructure for testing. But the military grounds like Jaipur Military Station that have a vast area could easily turn out to be a suitable testing ground," Bhatia said. However, Bhatia also underlined the economic facet of the warfare. "In the recent Israel-Iran war, the former had spent about $6 billion in a 12-day-long battle. Russia has so far spent $500 Billion to continue their war against Ukraine. Notably, Ukraine has also spent 39% of their GDP in this war. It is clear that we need a strong economy that will ensure an economically strong military that a nation doesn't even have to face a war. Tech could be a solution there too," Bhatia added. The chairman of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), Alok Joshi, said, "Tech preparation for future warfare needs a sustainable and nation-wide approach. We need to encourage domain expertise in technology, and make the path widen for interaction not only among organisations but within an organisation." He said, "Procurement matter has to have a mechanism where innovators get more access to the defence sectors. They must also be given feedback. This gives confidence to the developers"...