NEW DELHI, July 26 -- Chief of defence staff General Anil Chauhan on Friday said that Operation Sindoor, India's direct military action against Pakistan after the April 22 Pahalgam terror strike, is still on, adding that the country's military readiness must always remain at a very high level. Chauhan said there were no runners-up in war and any military must always be alert and operationally ready. "Our preparedness level has to be very high - 24X7, 365 days," he said at a seminar organised by the Centre for Air Power Studies. India launched Operation Sindoor in the early hours of May 7 and struck terror and military installations in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) following the Pahalgam terror strike. Between the launch of the operation in the early hours of May 7 and the ceasefire on May 10 evening, Indian forces bombed nine terror camps in Pakistan and PoK, killing at least 100 terrorists, and the Indian Air Force struck targets at 13 Pakistani airbases and military installations. To be sure, the political and military leadership has maintained that Operation Sindoor has only been paused. In June, defence minister Rajnath Singh said Operation Sindoor was the natural progression of the 2016 surgical strikes and the 2019 Balakot airstrikes in Pakistan, and it was conducted in a manner that forced Islamabad to ask for a ceasefire, articulating India's firm resolve against terror. In his address, Chauhan stressed that "information, technology and scholar warriors" will play an important role in the future. He underlined the role of scholar warriors in modern warfare. He described a scholar warrior as "a military professional who combines intellectual depth and combat skills, who possesses strong academic knowledge and practical military expertise that enable him to analyse complex situations and address diverse challenges to meet military aims and objectives." Chauhan also underlined the importance of decision-makers who have the ability to move across domains without hesitation, linking strategic intent to executable plans. He stressed on the value of in-depth strategic knowledge and intellectual clarity in shaping military outcomes. Last week, the CDS said that Pakistan used unarmed drones and loitering munitions on May 10 during Operation Sindoor but it could not inflict any damage on Indian military or civilian infrastructure. Most of them were neutralized through a combination of kinetic and non-kinetic means, he said. Chauhan had earlier said the operation showed why locally developed unmanned aerial systems and counter-UAS "built for our terrain and our needs are crucial," stressing India cannot rely on imported niche technology. "Dependence of foreign technologies weakens our preparedness, limits our ability to scale up production and results in a shortfall of critical spares for sustenance and round-the-clock availability," he said at the time....