Bihar Governor Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (R) said India needs to strengthen its space technologies and capabilities to address emerging national security challenges. The Governor was Chief Guest at the launch of a book ‘Taramandal Sangram— Constellations at War’, at the India International Centre in New Delhi on Wednesday. 

The book by Lt General SPS Pannu, former Deputy Chief of Army Staff, urges India to stop viewing space as an elite scientific domain and start embracing it as a strategic industrial domain and recommends the creation of a military industrial space complex. 

Lt General Hasnain who was Corps Commander of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps, recounted experiences in the Kashmir Valley, where absence of adequate space-based surveillance had repeatedly left commanders without a clear picture of what was happening on the ground. He recalled an incident in 2008, when terrorists infiltrated his brigade sector in Uri and remained ahead of security forces for several days. “For those seven days, I know what we were missing— we were missing an Eye in the Sky,” he said. After the November 26, 2008 Mumbai attacks, when the Pakistan Army had deployed a Division in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) which the Indian Army could not locate. "We were making wild guesses every day,” Gen Hasnain said, while describing how commanders had to rely on limited information to determine where Pakistani formations were positioned.

“If you have an eye in the sky, all this cannot be missed,” he said, stressing how satellite imagery and space-based intelligence could provide commanders with a much clearer operational picture. Gen Hasnain contrasted the capabilities of drones and satellites, saying, “A drone gives you a window. A satellite gives you a canvas to look at.” While drones provide detailed tactical information, satellites can offer a much broader operational picture across large areas.

Recalling the February 2021 Chamoli disaster, when a massive debris flow struck the Rishi-ganga and Tapovan areas of Uttarakhand, Hasnain said the scale and origin of the event were initially difficult to determine. It was eventually satellite-based analysis by India's National Remote Sensing Centre, working with an overseas laboratory, that helped identify a massive chunk of ice that had broken away near the Nanda Devi mountains. Similar disasters in Sikkim in 2023 and Dharali in Uttarakhand in 2025, he said, demonstrate the growing importance of space-based monitoring for disaster preparedness and response.

This represents a transition from what he called “information superiority” to “decision superiority”, where multiple reinforcing inputs allow commanders to make faster and more informed decisions.

However, Gen Hasnain stressed that the relevance of space technology extends well beyond warfare. Drawing on his experience as Member in the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), he highlighted the role of satellite technology in understanding disasters in the Himalayan region.

Savio Rodrigues

Savio Rodrigues is a Research Analyst at Escape Velocity MediaWorks Pvt Ltd, where he writes extensively for Chakra Newz on defence, national security, geopolitics and emerging technologies. He holds a Master's degree in International Relations and Strategic Studies from the University of Mumbai and has experience in geopolitical risk analysis, strategic research and international affairs.