New Delhi [India], November 18 (ANI): Union Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said that Operation Sindoor was one of the best vindications of India's achievements in the space sector.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the India International Space Conclave here in the national capital, he underscored how the warfare scenario has changed and is driven by technology.

Jitendra Singh, who is also Minister of State in the PMO, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space, said India has high-quality startups, and many of them are becoming very lucrative entrepreneurs.

'India has now started attracting engagement and investment in the space sector from across the world. India is fast emerging as a preferred global destination for space sector engagement and investment. From a decimal economy, today we are an eight-million US economy...We hope to go up four, five times in the next eight, ten years, which means around 40-45 billion...Space will be an important contributor to India's future economic growth,' he said.

'The entire warfare has been totally transformed into a technology-driven warfare. The contact warfare is now on the decline and Operation Sindoor was one of the best vindications of India's achievements both in the space sector as well as in the atomic energy sector and we have succeeded in demonstrating our capacities, which would not otherwise be easy to demonstrate because you can't blow up missiles and just test how efficiently it works. But incidentally, Pakistan gave us an opportunity to test our capacities,' he added.

India had launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 night in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, which claimed the lives of 26 innocent civilians.

India hit terror infrastructure in Pakistan and PoJK through precision strikes and repelled the subsequent Pakistani aggression by pounding its airbases.

The Union Minister highlighted the growing global interest in India's space sector, particularly from the private sector.

He also highlighted the chronology of events that have made the positive change happen 'in a short span of just about half a decade'.

'We had the same scientists, the same ISRO, the same Sriharikota, the same human structure. So what has happened in half-a-decade which couldn't have happened in the last six, seven decades?' the Union Minister asked, the minister said, taking a veiled dig at Congress-led governments.

India, he said, had the talent in plenty, the potential, and the commitment, but possibly what it lacked was the kind of 'milieu' expected of policymakers.

Among various space sector initiatives and reforms, the government opened up the space sector to private companies in 2020 in a landmark decision.

In 2023, in a stellar display of prowess, India soared to new heights with the successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the South Pole of the Moon, opening up new avenues and interest in the space domain.

These milestones not only enhanced India's standing in the global space economy but also fueled the engines for the private space sector in India.

Indian space startups have emerged as a strong pillar for the private space industry over the last decade, particularly following the landmark move to open the Indian space sector to private companies in 2020.

In 2023, the Government released the Indian Space Policy, which provides a level playing field to Non-Government Entities [NGEs] in the space sector by enabling their participation across the entire value chain of space activities in an end-to-end manner.

An amendment was also made to the Foreign Direct Investment policy for the space sector, enabling a higher threshold for foreign investment across various space domains.

'These space (sector) reforms in the last five years has been a turning point. And I think the greatest credit for this, as I mentioned a few moments back, what was possibly lacking was enabling milieu from the policymakers. And therefore it will be very much in the fitness of things that the greatest credit goes to the government in place and the head of the government, Prime Minister Modi,' Jitendra Singh said. (ANI)