India also took care of its 'neighbors' in the budget! maldives will get more love, but this country is on top.
Union Budget 2025: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the General Budget 2025-26. During this, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) reduced some of the aid given to foreign countries.
Like the last several years, this time toothereis not going to be any significant increase in the share of defence in GDP in the general budget. Last time it was decided to give 2.4 percent of GDP for defence. This time toothe share of defence is going to be between 1.9 percent to two percent of GDP. This does not mean that the Government of india is not paying attention to the strength of the defense sector or it is being ignored.It is also not that the strength of the defense sector is being affected due to not increasing the expenditure, but the truth is the opposite. India is becoming self-reliant in defense production, costs are decreasing.
For this reason, india imports only those weapons, defense equipment or defense technology, which indian scientists or defense engineers have not been able to develop yet. Due to this, due to the decrease in defense imports from abroad, the indian army is becoming more powerful even though there is not much increase in the defense budget. India has the fourth-largest defense budget in the world.
After China, America, and Russia, india has the fourth-largest defense budget in the world. However, most of the three countries with a higher defense budget than india spend on advanced technology such as artificial intelligence or cyber warfare. A large part of the defense budget in Indiais spent on modernization and armed forces personnel.However, in recent times, due to the increasing threat from China, india has started important initiatives towardsdealing with cyber warfare and AI-based advanced defense technology.