Militarisation of space inevitable reality, says IAF chief Chaudhari

Indian Air Force (IAF) Chief Air Chief Marshal V.R. Chaudhari on Wednesday said as nations increasingly rely on spacebased assets for building strategic advantage, “militarisation and weaponisation” of space have become the “inevitable reality”.

He said this in his address at a seminar on “Aerospace Power in Future Conflicts” at Subroto Park here.

“Through the annals of human history, the skies have often been regarded as realms of wonder and exploration, where dreams take flight and boundaries dissolve into the vast blue expanse,” he said. Yet, beneath this calmness lies a domain “fraught with competition where contest for aerial superiority” has shaped the destiny of many nations, he said.

“As we navigate these uncharted skies, air power being a key component of national power, would undoubtedly play a pivotal role and also serve as a symbol of national strength, a tool for peace and cooperation,” he said.

Air Chief Marshal Chaudhari said over the last few decades, understanding of the military operational environment has “significantly transformed” from primarily a force, time, and spacedriven battlefield to an arrangement of systems capable of simultaneous and independent operations across multiple domains.

“As nations increasingly rely on spacebased assets for building strategic advantage, militarisation and weaponisation of space has become an inevitable reality,” he said.

Currently, evidencebased guidelines do not exist with respect to prevention, screening, diagnosis, management, and palliation of lung cancer in India, despite the fact that lung cancer is one of the commonest cancers in India accounting for 10% of total cancer deaths in the country.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), understanding this gap, is now all set to launch a systematic review and metaanalyses which, it notes, will play a crucial role in synthesising existing evidence to inform decisionmaking in the management of lung cancer to guide clinical practice and improve patient outcomes.

The Council has launched an expression of interest (EoI) from researchers who are interested in conducting systematic reviews and metaanalyses.

“Prospective applicants will be tasked to conduct systematic reviews/metaanalysis pertaining to the identified review questions (PICOs) and assessing the quality of evidence using Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) tool,’’ the ICMR said, adding that the process of generating such evidence would entail the compilation of systematic reviews from the existing literature, focusing on welldefined review questions.

Grading methodology

“Additionally, the evidence derived from these systematic reviews and metaanalyses will be systematically assessed for its