This raises a vital question for defence planners: Is it time to redefine the notion of "self-reliance"? There is self-reliance in design, which the DRDO has historically propagated; and there is self-reliance in manufacture, i.e. the licensed production in India of military equipment that was designed elsewhere.
The DRDO has realised the need to be more discriminating in choosing the technologies it will develop. Strategic technologies that will always be denied