NDTV Defence Summit 2026 – India’s New Defence Edge, which is NDTV’s flagship, high-level defence forum, is back again with a new edition. The one-day conclave will be held on September 27 and will bring together senior defence officials, military officers and industry leaders for a day-long event.
The summit will feature addresses and discussions with the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force, along with the Chief of Defence Staff and senior defence officials. The panel will include Dr Samir V Kamat, Chairman, Former DRDO and Secretary, Department of Defence, R&D; Ashish Kansal, Director and CEO, SMPP Limited; and Sanjay Hazari, Chairman and MD, Munitions India. The next session, “AI Takes the Field. The panel will feature Sameer Joshi, CEO, Newspace; Lt Gen Raj Shukla (Retd.), Former Army Commander; and Suresh Kamate, GM Aerospace & Defence Business, dSPACE Technologies. Ltd; Rear Admiral R Sreenivas, VSM (Retd.), Chief Executive Officer, Bondada Group; and Arvind Kondangi, MD & CEO, TONBO Imaging. The fireside chat will feature Rajesh Kumar Singh, IAS, Defence Secretary, Secretary DDR&D and Chairman DRDO (Additional Charge).
Is Mankind still in Command?”, will be held from 12:40 pm to 1:10 pm.
From 11:45 am to 12:15 pm, the summit will feature Session 1: “The Threat Matrix: Rewriting India’s Rules of Deterrence”. From 1:25 pm to 1:55 pm, the next session “Building Bharat’s Arsenal of Innovation: AI, Drones & Beyond” will feature Bodhisattwa Sanghapriya, Founder & CEO, IG Defence; Brigadier Devasheesh Chowdhury (Veteran), Senior GM, Zen Technologies; Veddika Dalmia, Director, Hyper Stealth Technologies Pvt. From 2:45 pm to 3:10 pm, Session 6: “Beyond Assembly to Autonomy: Securing India’s Core Defence Technologies” will feature Tapan Bhatnagar, COO, SAAB FFVO India; Sankalp Srivastav, India CEO, Embraer India; and Rafal Mordrzewski, CEO, ICEYE. The summit will resume from 5:30 pm to 6:00 pm with the session on “Strategy to Capability: Building India’s Defence Edge”.
