India, March 16 -- The defence ministry has unveiled a new blueprint for transforming the armed forces into an integrated, agile and technologically advanced military capable of deterring enemies and ensuring the strategic interests of the country at a time of geopolitical churn and expanding conflicts in different parts of the world. The "Defence Forces Vision 2047" is also in keeping with the government's plans to change India into a developed nation by 2047, the centenary of Independence. Two central pillars of this new vision are synergy among the three services in developing capabilities, planning and operations, and self-reliance in defence technologies and manufacturing, including the development of indigenous technologies and solutions that mirror India's security challenges. This is probably the first time since India's nuclear tests of 1998 and the Kargil war the following year that a government has focused on overarching defence and security reforms in a comprehensive manner. There have been other attempts at reforms in fits and starts - such as the development of the "Cold Start" doctrine for greater nimbleness in mobilising joint forces, the planned creation of theatre commands, and the more recent move towards the creation of a multi-layered air and missile defence system in the form of Mission Sudarshan Chakra. There has also been greater emphasis on networking and the use of technologies such as artificial intelligence for surveillance and targeting, and new platforms such as unmanned aerial and submersible vehicles. The wars in Ukraine and West Asia, as well as the limited India-Pakistan conflict last year, demonstrated how much warfare has changed, making it all the more urgent for India to speedily adopt new technologies and platforms such as drones to protect itself from a wide array of threats in a difficult neighbourhood....