India's defence spending: Ramping up security through imports | Counting the Cost

Tensions between India and Pakistan - two nuclear-powered neighbours - have been rising after India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended seven decades of autonomy in Kashmir.

But even more broadly, India has been increasing its defence spending in the past few years to update its ageing war arsenal. In 2018, it was the world's fourth-biggest defence spender.

But what exactly is India buying? Some of the big-ticket upgrades it is looking to make include 114 new aircraft worth $15bn, for which India has asked the likes of Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Saab to make a pitch.

As it steps up security in the Indian Ocean, the government is also in the market for six missile warships and other vessels worth $2.2bn.

India is seen - particularly by the US - as a bulwark to a rising China. But the problem is that India is not spending as much as China on defence. Beijing’s defence budget is $175.4bn in 2019, while India's is just $62bn.

"If you look at Chinese spending on its military it's more than three times what India spends," Arjun Sreekumar, a senior aerospace and defence consultant at Frost & Sullivan, tells Counting the Cost.

"The US is planning to use India as a counterweight in its Asia-Pacific strategy. But for it to be a capable counterweight, India has to fast-track its procurements and reduce current obsolescence levels within its forces. India cannot counter China by numbers, but what it can do is it can modernise its forces with advanced technology that can act as force multipliers," he says.

India is also spending $5bn on buying Russia’s S-400 missile defence system, plus another $5bn on helicopters, warships and other gear. But some defence and geopolitical analysts have questioned whether it is in India’s interests to buy equipment from the likes of both the US and Russia.

"There is going to be a lot of competition between the US and Russia within the market. And I think what the Indian forces want is to get the best of both worlds whilst not being locked into dependency traps," Sreekumar says.

"India is going to be a huge defence market over the next five to six years. It already is, but a lot more defence programmes will be signed in the future."

Is pay-TV killing niche sports?
The English Premier League is the richest football league in the world. And it got there through multi-billion dollar deals struck with pay-TV channels globally.

Seeing the money roll in, many other sports have sought similar deals with rich TV networks. But at what cost? With most younger audiences preferring online or free-to-air viewing options, many legacy sports could be losing out to e-sports, such as the $30 million, three-day Fortnite World Cup championship held in New York recently. The competition's 16-year-old winner took home $3 million, and every other player left with $50,000. This, for a video game competition which could be watched on YouTube.

On the flip-side is an established sport like cricket, whose showpiece tournament, the ICC World Cup, was broadcast on pay-TV. The average viewership on Sky Sports was only about 600,000 per game. However, when England made it to the final, it was broadcast on free-to-air TV and 7.3 million people watched that match against New Zealand.

The recent FIFA Women's World Cup also saw record audiences in France and England because the games were on free-to-air networks. It was seen as a huge success, with the women's game finally getting the recognition - if not the same level of pay - for its stars.

As competition heats up and the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Twitter sign more sports deals, the landscape is changing. But will legacy sports be able to keep hold of younger viewers?

"Viewing habits are changing," says Minal Modha, the consumer research lead at Ampere Analysis. "We are seeing that there has been a decline in people watching regular TV channels, across not only younger demographics but older ones as well. And there has been an increase in people watching through Smart TV, through their tablets, through their mobiles. So I think these sports are going to have to be reactive to these changes."

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