Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone for the Indian National Defence University (INDU) at Binola, Gurgaon, Haryana, on May 23. The event was attended among others by the Governor of Haryana Jagannath Pahadia, Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Minister of External Affairs Salman Khurshid, Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Selja Kumari, Minister of State for Defence Jitendra Singh, Chief Minister of Haryana Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the three service chiefs.

Spread over more than 80 hectares of land, the proposed Indian National Defence University will be set up as a fully autonomous institution to be constituted under an Act of Parliament and will be fully functional in 2018. While the President of India would act as the visitor, the Defence Minister will be its Chancellor.

It may be recalled that after the Kargil conflict, the government had set up a Review Committee, headed by eminent strategic expert K. Subrahmanyam, which had recommended the establishment of an university to exclusively deal with defence and strategic matters. The aim of INDU would be to provide military leadership and other concerned civilian officials knowledge based higher education for management of the defence of India, and keeping them abreast with emerging security challenges through scholarly research and training. The INDU would develop and propagate higher education in defence studies, defence management, defence science and technology and promote policy-oriented research related to national defence.

The think tanks of the university would provide inputs for policy formulation. The university would prepare officers for high level leadership, staff and policy responsibilities. The National College of Defence Studies (NCDS), Indian Institute of Defence Technology (IIDT), Indian Institute of Defence Management (IIDM) and the Defence Institute of Distance and Open Learning (DIDOL) would be the constituent colleges and institutions of the INDU.