Handling a high-tech Chinese military

Unanswered questions remain over India's readiness for such a contingency

Inaugurating a new production line last Sunday in Vadodara, Gujarat, where Tata Advanced Systems will build C-295 transport aircraft for the Indian Air Force in technology partnership with Airbus Defence and Space, Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked up his vision of “atmanirbharta.” India, he declared, would soon be a huge manufacturer of transport aircraft, having shed the “makeshift approach” of the previous government where the manufacturing sector barely survived through subsidies.

Yet there remain serious questions over the Indian military’s capabilities, and whether it could prevail in the two-front war that analysts anticipate, with China fighting its version of an