PIB TrackerAn F-35 is flying out of Jodhpur, and Dhaka and Colombo are there too
Seven foreign air forces at Tarang Shakti 2026. The aircraft list and the participant list are each saying something the release does not.
What happened
- The IAF began the operational phase of Exercise Tarang Shakti 2026 at Air Force Station Jodhpur.
- The exercise runs 26 September to 12 October 2026, themed "Power in Partnership" - the second edition after 2024.
- Seven participating nations: Australia, USA, UAE, France, Germany, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh; several more attend as observers.
- Aircraft include the F-35 Lightning II, Rafale, F-16, A400M, MRTT, C-130, C-130J and KC-30A.
- Beyond flying: a seminar, an industrial tour for foreign contingents, the Sekhon Marathon, heritage tours and yoga.
For Prelims
- Tarang Shakti: India's largest multilateral air exercise, inaugurated in 2024. The 2026 edition runs at Jodhpur under the theme "Power in Partnership".
- The Sekhon Marathon: named for Flying Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon, the only Indian Air Force recipient of the Param Vir Chakra - awarded posthumously for the defence of Srinagar in 1971.
- F-35 Lightning II: a fifth-generation stealth fighter. Its presence at an Indian base matters for what it implies about operating procedures and data handling, not for the sorties flown.
- The tanker and airlift set: MRTT and KC-30A are air-to-air refuellers; A400M, C-130 and C-130J are transports. Reach, not firepower, is what these platforms train.
- Interoperability: the ability of different forces to operate together - common procedures, compatible communications, shared mission planning. It is built in exercises and cannot be improvised in a crisis.
- Friendly Foreign Countries (FFC): the standard Indian designation for partner nations in a military exercise, distinguishing participants who fly from observers who watch.
- Why Sri Lanka and Bangladesh matter here: both are participants, not observers, in an exercise otherwise weighted towards NATO members and the Gulf - neighbourhood-first and Western partnership running through one event.
- The industrial tour: a deliberate feature. Exercises are also defence marketing, and India is now the host showing its aerospace ecosystem rather than the visitor inspecting someone else's.
For UPSC: Military exercises are diplomacy with airframes, and this one has an unusually legible guest list. Use it on defence diplomacy and interoperability, on India's simultaneous partnerships with the United States, France and the Gulf, on neighbourhood-first policy where Sri Lanka and Bangladesh appear as participants rather than observers, and on exercises as a route to defence exports.
What it is NOT: The release names no Indian aircraft at all, which makes the participant list one-sided in a document about interoperability. It gives no numbers - not of aircraft, personnel or sorties - for any contingent, including the IAF's. It does not say which countries are attending as observers, so the wider diplomatic footprint is unstated. It gives no detail on what the missions will involve, beyond "a range of missions", and no comparison with the 2024 edition in scale or participation. And it says nothing about what data-handling or security arrangements accompany a fifth-generation aircraft operating from an Indian base.
For Mains
Syllabus: GS2.18 · GS3.20 · Linkage L2
Anchor
The aircraft list at Jodhpur reads F-35 Lightning II, Rafale, F-16, A400M, MRTT, C-130, C-130J and KC-30A. The participant list reads Australia, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. An American fifth-generation fighter, a French fourth-generation fighter and two South Asian neighbours are in the same exercise on Indian soil, and the release presents this as routine.
Substantiation (data)
Tarang Shakti 2026 runs from 26 September to 12 October at Air Force Station Jodhpur, the second edition after the 2024 debut, themed "Power in Partnership". Seven Friendly Foreign Countries are flying and several more are attending as observers. The platform mix covers combat, airlift and air-to-air refuelling, and the programme includes a seminar, an industrial tour for the foreign contingents, the Sekhon Marathon, heritage tours and yoga.
Position
Hosting is the substance here. For most of its history India went to other people's exercises; running a multilateral air exercise on home bases means Indian air traffic control, Indian ranges, Indian maintenance procedures and Indian mission planning become the common standard for a fortnight. The industrial tour makes the commercial intent explicit - the visiting contingents are also a market, and an exercise is the cheapest demonstration an exporter can stage.
Counterpoint
The release names eight foreign aircraft types and not one Indian one. For an exercise whose stated purpose is interoperability and whose stated subtext is India's indigenous aerospace capability, the omission is conspicuous. Nor are there numbers anywhere - no aircraft counts, no personnel strength, no sortie rates, no comparison with 2024 - so "largest" and "wider canvas" are adjectives without evidence.
Problematisation
Two countries on this list are not like the others. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are participants rather than observers in an exercise otherwise composed of NATO members, a Quad partner and a Gulf state. That is India using a Western-weighted platform to pull its immediate neighbours into shared procedures - a quieter and more durable form of influence than any bilateral agreement, and one that costs the neighbours nothing to accept.
Conclusion
Read the guest list rather than the theme. India is simultaneously flying with the United States and France, hosting the Gulf, and bringing Colombo and Dhaka onto the same flight line - which is strategic autonomy expressed as an airfield schedule rather than a communique.
Deploys into: Defence diplomacy and interoperability · Neighbourhood-first through military exercises · Strategic autonomy across competing partnerships · Exercises as defence export marketing
Ministry of Defence · 2026-09-27 · PRID 2315563 · PIB source ↗