Pawan Kumar Chandana: The Indian Space Entrepreneur Taking Private Rockets Global After spending years inside ISRO, Pawan Kumar Chandana helped build Skyroot Aerospace into a private launch company capable of reaching orbit. Vikram-1’s July 2026 success has now turned that ambition into a commercial proposition — and TIME’s recognition of Chandana puts a new face on India’s rapidly expanding space economy. For decades, India’s space story was overwhelmingly associated with one institution: ISRO. That story is changing. On July 18, 2026, a rocket developed by Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace lifted off from Sriharikota and successfully reached Low Earth Orbit. It was not simply another Indian launch. It was the first time a private Indian company successfully conducted an orbital launch from Indian soil. Behind that achievement is Pawan Kumar Chandana, Skyroot’s co-founder and CEO, a former ISRO scientist who moved from designing space systems inside India’s national space programme to building a private company capable of selling launch services to customers around the world. His inclusion in TIME100 Next 2026, a list recognising emerging leaders shaping the future, gives the achievement a wider international context. TIME describes TIME100 Next as a platform for people shaping the future and defining the next

Jodhpur RIFF 2026: When Rajasthan’s Folk Traditions Meet the World Under a Desert Moon From dawn music at Jaswant Thada to late-night performances within the historic Mehrangarh Fort complex, Jodhpur RIFF returns from October 22 to 26 with Rajasthani folk traditions, Indian classical music and international collaborations. As the festival marks its 20th year, its […]

Karishma Swali: How Indian Craft Is Finding a New Language Through Contemporary Art Karishma Swali’s work sits at an increasingly important intersection in Indian culture: traditional embroidery, contemporary art, fashion and the economic agency of women artisans. Through the Chanakya School of Craft and her own artistic practice, she is part of a movement asking […]

As India marks the centenary of Satish Gujral’s birth, exhibitions and conversations in Mumbai are bringing renewed attention to an artist who treated painting, sculpture, murals, architecture and design not as separate careers, but as different languages of the same creative mind. Some artists spend a lifetime perfecting one language. Satish Gujral spent his life […]

When “South Indian art” means more than geography There is a danger in calling something a “South Indian art movement” too quickly. India’s contemporary art scene is too diverse for a single regional label to explain it. Kerala is not Tamil Nadu; Hyderabad is not Bengaluru; Chennai is not Kochi. Artists move between cities, institutions […]

India’s Military Strength in 2026: Beyond the Numbers How powerful is India’s military? It sounds like a question with a simple answer: count the soldiers, tanks, aircraft, ships and submarines. But modern military power is rather less cooperative than a spreadsheet. A country can have thousands of tanks and still face problems with maintenance. It can possess hundreds of aircraft but have fewer available for immediate operations. It can have a large navy but still need greater numbers of tankers, submarines and long-range surveillance systems. So when we look at India’s military strength in 2026, the interesting story is not simply how many weapons India possesses. It is how those numbers combine with geography, technology, manpower, industrial capacity and strategic deterrence. Open-source assessments currently place India among the world’s major military powers. GlobalMilitary’s 2026 assessment ranks India fourth globally and lists about 1.48 million active troops, approximately 1.16 million reserves, 2,256 military aircraft and 353 naval vessels. MilitaryCompare also places India fourth in its 2026 ranking, although its underlying figures differ somewhat. The differences are a useful reminder: military statistics are estimates, not cricket scores. A massive manpower base India’s greatest conventional military asset remains manpower. The latest open-source estimates

India’s defence-export story is entering a more interesting phase. The latest signal is not another overseas order for an Indian-made weapon. It is a decision to manufacture Indian-designed autonomous drone technology on European soil. Bengaluru-based Flying Wedge Defence & Aerospace (FWDA) has signed an industrial partnership with Portugal’s Keydef, the defence and aerospace division of Portuguese technology company SketchPixel LDA, under which Keydef will invest an initial €6 million in FWDA’s technologies and the companies will establish production capabilities in Portugal for international markets. The agreement covers FWDA’s Kaal Bhairava autonomous UAV and YAMA interceptor drone, with the proposed Portuguese operation eventually intended to extend across the company’s wider portfolio of surveillance, air-defence and civilian systems. For India, that makes this more than a manufacturing announcement. It is an experiment in whether an Indian defence startup can move from exporting products to becoming part of an international defence-technology supply chain. From Bengaluru engineering to European manufacturing FWDA describes itself as a Bengaluru-based developer of autonomous aerial and AI-enabled defence systems. Its product portfolio includes the Kaalbhairav series and YAMA, alongside other UAV and civilian applications. The company’s own product information describes the Kaalbhairav Lite as an indigenous long-endurance UAV with

Akash Goes Global: Why India’s Air Defence System Matters Beyond Central Asia India’s Akash air-defence system has moved from an indigenous military programme to an export product with customers across the South Caucasus and Central Asia. The significance is bigger than another missile sale: it shows India beginning to compete for influence in a defence market historically shaped by Russia and increasingly contested by China, Turkey and other suppliers. For decades, the map of India’s defence relationships was relatively easy to read. Russia was central to India’s military hardware ecosystem. Western suppliers occupied important niches. Israel became a significant technology partner. And China was largely viewed as the strategic competitor rather than a market opportunity. That map is changing. India’s indigenous Akash surface-to-air missile system has now been exported to Armenia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, according to Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh. Armenia was the first foreign customer and acquired multiple batteries; Singh subsequently confirmed exports to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. He described Akash as one of India’s defence-sector success stories and said its production had stabilised. The geography is important. Armenia is in the South Caucasus. Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are in Central Asia. That distinction matters because the development is not

India Ranks 38th in Global Innovation Index 2026. Can It Turn Startup Success into Scientific Strength? India’s 38th-place finish in WIPO’s Global Innovation Index highlights an unusual strength: the country produces innovation results that outperform its relatively modest research and development base. Strong digital services, startup finance and intellectual property activity are helping India climb. […]

India’s 5G Equipment Makers Want to Go Global. Can They Compete with the World’s Telecom Giants? Tejas Networks, HFCL and Dixon Technologies represent three different routes into the global telecom equipment market: developing network technology, building connectivity products and manufacturing hardware for established brands. India’s telecom equipment market could reach $50 billion by FY2032, according […]

Kota Dussehra Mela: Why a 300-Year-Old Fair Still Matters to Modern India Kota’s Dussehra is much larger than a single evening of Ravana Dahan. Tracing its documented history to 1723, the fair has evolved from a royal and religious observance into a sprawling public celebration where Ramleela, folk culture, commerce, entertainment and community life meet. […]

The Coconut Economy of the Andaman Islands: Can One Island Crop Become a Tourism Story? At the Islands Coconut Carnival in Sri Vijaya Puram on October 17–18, the humble coconut will appear as food, craft, product and cultural symbol. But behind the celebration lies a bigger question: can an island crop create a sustainable chain […]