The Swavlamban 2026 plenary session in New Delhi on Monday will have Defence Minister Rajnath Singh as the Chief Guest. He will felicitate industry partners for their work in defence innovation and indigenisation, and release two documents that set out what the Indian Navy wants Indian industry to build.

The plenary opens the fifth edition of the Navy's flagship Naval Innovation and Indigenisation Seminar.

Swavlamban 2026 plenary to release Navy technology priorities

The two documents are the Swavlamban 5.0 document and the Compendium on Technology Imperatives. According to the Ministry of Defence, they will serve as reference points for industry on the Navy's technological priorities, its operational requirements and the areas open for indigenous development.

The Navy's curtain raiser release on October 19 had also listed a third publication for release at the seminar, the Naval Unified Systems, Ethernet and Tactical Utilisation (NAUSETU) Interface Standards.

Two days at the Manekshaw Centre

The seminar runs on Monday and Tuesday at the Manekshaw Centre under the theme Strength and Power through Innovation and Indigenisation, and the Swavlamban 2026 plenary is the opening event. The two days bring together the Armed Forces, industry, start-ups, MSMEs, academia and investors. The Indian Navy is organising it with the Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO) and the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM).

Exhibition on counter-drone, AI and quantum systems

A thematic exhibition will display Indian innovations in five areas. These are maritime surveillance, counter-unmanned aerial systems (counter-UAS), artificial intelligence and quantum technologies, nuclear, biological and chemical defence (NBCD) and safety, and efficiency enhancers. Products that have moved from an idea towards a working system will be shown as success stories.

The talks will look further ahead. Sessions are planned on quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and hypersonic technologies, with the focus on how each could be used in future warfare and naval operations. Indian firms are already working in some of these fields, including quantum hardware backed by DRDO funding. Other sessions will cover self-reliance and the iDEX ecosystem, resilient domestic supply chains, academic entrepreneurship, and helping start-ups scale up promising indigenous technologies. Meetings with investors and venture capitalists will deal with funding, scaling and commercialisation.

Over 4,000 iDEX proposals so far

The numbers behind the event have grown each year. At the curtain raiser briefing, Vice Admiral Ajay Kochhar, Vice Chief of the Naval Staff, said more than 4,000 proposals had come in from Indian innovators through the iDEX framework. The first edition drew around 800 participants, and nearly 3,000 attended last year. This year's exhibition will have more than 100 stalls.

iDEX has also featured in the Defence Minister's recent addresses on defence self-reliance.

Swavlamban since the maiden seminar in 2022

The first Swavlamban was held in New Delhi on 18 and 19 July 2022, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Chief Guest and Rajnath Singh as Guest of Honour. Its highlight was the release of iDEX challenges under SPRINT, a joint project of the DIO and the Naval Innovation and Indigenisation Organisation aimed at developing at least 75 indigenous technologies and products.