Indian Army conducts Exercise Skylight
- Indian Army has conducted a major pan-India exercise codenamed ‘Skylight’.
- This was aimed to test the operational readiness and robustness of its hi-tech satellite communication systems in the event of an attack by an adversary.
Skylight Exercise
- The first of its kind large-scale exercise to boost its space domain capabilities.
- The aim of the exercise was to test operational readiness of satellite communication assets and training of personnel manning these.
Coverage of the exercise
- The exercise covers the islands of Andaman and Lakshadweep to the high reaches of the northern borders.
- All satellite communication assets of the Indian Army were activated during this exercise.
Rationale behind this exercise
- The idea was to validate and showcase the resilience of its communication capabilities in case terrestrial connectivity is disrupted in future conflicts.
- Space-based communications will prove to be decisive in a conflict as terrestrial systems are bound to get disrupted.
- India wants to leverage space capabilities for supporting a variety of military operations.
- Complex aerospace technology has begun impacting military operations, and communications, in particular.
- The northern borders with China are a primary area of concern because of the challenges related to topography.
- This exercise also assumes significance against the backdrop of China’s long-standing thrust on “informatised” and “intelligentised” warfare.
Way Forward
- Indian Army is also pursuing ‘Quantum Computing and Communications’ for much better and secure C4I2SR systems for wars of future.
- C4I2SR stands for command, control, communication, computers, intelligence, information, surveillance and reconnaissance.