Bengaluru, India:The Indian Air Force (IAF) today opened the second edition of Ran Samwad, its flagship national-level seminar on contemporary defence strategy, at the Air Force Technical College in Bengaluru. Organised under the aegis of Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQIDS) at IAF’s Headquarters Training Command, the two-day event (April 9 & 10) has drawn senior military leaders, academics, think-tank experts, industry representatives, foreign delegates and media professionals for focused deliberations on the evolving character of conflict.
Ran Samwad was conceived as a practitioner-driven platform to encourage candid, cross-domain dialogue on the complexities of war, warfare and warfighting. By assembling voices from across the defence ecosystem and beyond, the seminar seeks to build a shared understanding of emerging security challenges and to translate conceptual clarity into operational readiness. This year’s theme, “Multi-Domain Operations (MDO): An Imperative for Addressing Conventional and Irregular Threats”, places the spotlight on the integrated use of capabilities across land, air, sea, space, cyber and cognitive domains, a concept increasingly viewed as essential for success in both state-on-state confrontations and hybrid, irregular conflicts.
`The seminar opened with an address by Air Marshal S Shrinivas, who described modern warfare as a fast, interconnected multi-domain battlefield that now extends into cyber, space and cognitive realms. Subsequent sessions have featured high-level interventions from the three services. Navy Chief Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi underscored that multi-domain operations are not alien to Indian strategic thought, drawing parallels with Kautilya’s Arthashastra and its emphasis on integrated instruments of state power, diplomacy, deception and military force. He stressed that technological convergence and compressed timelines demand doctrinal agility rather than rigid templates.
Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi highlighted the need for commanders to evolve into “techno-commanders” capable of orchestrating effects across domains, noting that today’s battlespace no longer arrives with formal declarations but unfolds quietly through multiple theatres and actors. Vice Admiral Sameer Saxena, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Southern Naval Command, elaborated on the “Whole-of-Nation” approach, arguing that victory in future conflicts will hinge as much on alignment between government, military and civil society as on kinetic capabilities, with the cognitive domain, the battle of perceptions and narratives, remaining decisive.
Air Marshal Tejinder Singh, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief South Western Air Command, told participants that MDO is “the new normal,” not jargon. He pointed to recent conflicts as evidence that information superiority and decision dominance are now as critical as traditional firepower, requiring seamless integration of kinetic and non-kinetic effects at speed.
The seminar’s agenda includes dedicated sessions on the evolution and global trends of MDO, doctrinal adaptation, training imperatives, civil-military fusion and the re-imagining of operational art for command and control in contested environments. Organisers have positioned the event as a structured contribution to India’s broader preparedness for multi-domain conflict, aligning with ongoing efforts to enhance jointness and theatre-level integration under the Chief of Defence Staff.
Proceedings are being live-streamed to enable wider professional and strategic audiences to follow the discussions in real time. As the second edition of Ran Samwad unfolds against a backdrop of regional instability and rapid technological change, the seminar is expected to yield actionable insights that will inform India’s defence posture in an era where threats respect no single domain and victory demands synchronised, whole-of-nation responses.
contact: drrajeshjauhri@gmail.com
Dr Rajesh Jauhri is a Journalist with an experience of over 25 years in Indian and foreign media, a Social Scientist, an Ac-complished Author, a Political & Strategic Analyst, a Marksman (Rifle & Pistol), an Orator, a Thinker and an Educationist. He holds a Ph.D. degree on “Impact of colonial heritage on Indian police”. He runs an NGO dedicated to the social and eco-nomic uplift of tribal communities in MP and two decades back, he established a school in a village of Indore district, providing education and moral values to children belonging to underprivileged and minority families. Has received multiple awards in various fields.
