Rajnath Singh
NEW DELHI: The armed forces are maintaining a high-state of operational readiness while honing their combat skills in the major tri-service ‘Trishul’ exercise in northern Arabian Sea and the western front with Pakistan, even as defence minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday once again said Operation Sindoor is still underway. Singh said the country’s leading probe agencies are conducting “a swift and thorough inquiry” into the car blast near Red Fort in the capital on Monday evening and “findings of investigations will soon be made public”. “I want to firmly assure the nation that those responsible for this tragedy will be brought to justice and will not be spared under any circumstances,” he added, speaking at Delhi Defence Dialogue organised by Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. The minister went on to stress the importance of harnessing new age technologies to bolster defence capabilities, including disruptive ones like AI, machine learning, quantum computing and swarm tech, “in light of the prevailing international security environment and ongoing Operation Sindoor”. CDS General Anil Chauhan, in turn, said Operation Sindoor “is a compelling example of modern warfare, where precision strike capabilities, network-centric operations, digitised intelligence, and multi-domain tactics were effectively deployed within a compressed time-frame” during the cross-border hostilities with Pakistan from May 7 to 10. “War is all about winning. There are no runners-up in a war. There are no silver medals for valiant efforts or consolation prizes for brave attempts. Stakes in any kind of conflict are always high, the very fate of nations or survival of nations,” the CDS said. The country’s political leadership has been repeatedly stressing that Operation Sindoor has only been “paused” and full operational military preparedness is being maintained to respond to any misadventure from Pakistan. Towards this end, Trishul exercise was launched a fortnight ago to conduct joint multi-domain operations across diverse terrains, as was reported by TOI earlier.
