To promote ‘Aatmanirbharta’ in defence and innovation, a number of big-ticket announcements were made by Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh during the plenary session of ‘Swavlamban 2.0’, the two-day seminar of Naval Innovation and Indigenisation Organisation (NIIO), which commenced in New Delhi on October 04, 2023.

The main highlight was the release of the fifth Positive Indigenisation List of Department of Military Affairs (DMA) comprising 98 items.

• Highly complex systems, sensors, weapons and ammunition have been included in the list. All these items will be procured from indigenous sources as per provisions given in Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020 in staggered timeline. 
• Shri Rajnath Singh also launched 76 challenges for the industry under 10th Defence India Start-up Challenges (DISC 10) & DISC 10 PRIME of Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) and five problem statements under iDEX for Fauji. In addition, two INDUS X challenges under ‘INDUS-X Mutual Promotion of Advanced Collaborative Technologies’ (IMPACT) challenges jointly finalised by iDEX and United States Department of Defense (US DoD) were launched by the Raksha Mantri.
• He also released the Indian Navy’s updated Indigenisation Roadmap ‘Swavlamban 2.0’. A special interactive session for the industry to explain the nuances of the roadmap is planned on Day 2 of the seminar.