Business
What’s the best way to detect and destroy drones?
Adrienne MurrayTechnology reporter
AFP via Getty ImagesIn the northern Danish city of Aalborg, the firm MyDefence makes equipment that jams and repels drones.
“We’ve had a big surge of interest,” says chief executive, Dan Hermansen.
He says that up until early October his company was mainly dealing with defence firms, but now it has “completely shifted”.
The small, box-like kit made by MyDefence is mostly used by the military of Nato countries and Ukraine.
However lately demand has grown from civilian customers.
“It’s coming from critical infrastructure,” he adds, “from big companies, looking to protect their own assets”.
The device detects communication between the drone and its pilot, then breaks that connection, explains Mr Hermansen, by emitting a powerful radio signal on the same frequency.
Rather than falling out of the sky, the drone is pushed away and has a controlled landing. If it tries to reconnect to a GPS signal, that can be blocked too, he adds.
Mr Hermansen reckons that radio frequency jamming works against 80 to 90% of the drones that are flown.
MyDefenceWhile forcing an unwanted drone to crash land is a good result, it’s essential to be able to detect it first.
“The first part is really about identification. And the second part is an interceptor system,” explains Kasper Hallenborg, director of The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute at University of Southern Denmark.
Identifying a drone is not so easy, points out Andreas Graae, the head of research at the Institute of Military Technology at the Danish Defence Academy.
“[Drones] can be very small or really big, and are often produced from materials like plastic or fabrics that are very hard to detect on a traditional radar,” he says.
A suite of technologies are under constant development, to help find drones.
That includes acoustic sensors that listen for the drone’s buzzing; advanced optical cameras, with very high resolution; and increasingly sophisticated tactical radars, which work over longer ranges and can even differentiate between a drone or a bird.
Once detected, a drone needs to be disabled. Electronic jamming, similar to that used by MyDefence has leapt forward, thanks in large part to the war in Ukraine.
“[Ukraine’s] frontlines are totally jammed,” Mr Graae says, which means that drone controllers lose control of their machines.
So, Russia and Urkaine have adapted by using drones controlled by fibre optic cables, or using drones that can navigate autonomously, or fly along pre-programmed routes.
Such drones need to be intercepted or shot down and plenty of firms are working on novel ways to do that.
Among them is Swedish start-up, Nordic Air Defence. It is developing a low-cost interceptor designed to strike the targeted drone, forcing it to crash.
“It’s missile shaped, so travels incredibly fast,” he adds. “It’s incredibly easy to manufacture. It is basically 3D printed,” says Jens Holzapfel, the company’s business director.
AFP via Getty ImagesCost is a criticial factor in countering drones.
Last month, Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte said: “It’s unacceptable to shoot down drones costing one or two thousand dollars with missiles that may cost half a million or even a million dollars.”
That’s been a big lesson from Ukraine, says Mr Graae. “It’s become a competition of how cheap you can actually make a drone attack, and how expensive it is to defend against.”
“As hostile drones become cheaper, it puts pressure on the defender to manufacture low cost products,” agrees Mr Holzapfel.
Low-cost drones are increasingly a security issue away from the frontlines of Ukraine.
Poland and Romania had their airspace breached by Russian drones; while separate drone incidents were reported, in Norway, Sweden, Lithuania, Romania and most recently at Germany’s Munich airport.
In Denmark tensions have also run high after a string of mysterious sightings at airports and military installations around the country.
That spurred the defence ministry to deploy “several capacities” that can detect, track and jam drones; and last week Sweden announced plans to invest more than $365m (£275m) in anti-drone systems, including measures to jam and shoot them down, as well as the deployment of hunter drones.
Mr Holzapfel at Nordic Air Defence currently works with Sweden and its European allies. As well as the military, clients are from law enforcement agencies and security companies.
But he also sees civilian sectors like shipping and the oil and offshore industries as potential markets.
AFP via Getty ImagesIn a civilian setting. simply shooting down a drone might be too risky.
“It could be rather dangerous,” says Kasper Hallenborg, pointing to the falling parts and potentially flammable fuel.
“We saw the impact in Poland,” he continues. “That was just drone fragments, which more or less removed the roof of a house.”
Early detection would help, says Mr Hallenborg: “Then you can probably take it down somewhere it’s more safe to do so.”
At short ranges, shooting out nets to tangle up the drone is another method and cheap lasers are also being developed.
There are also safer, so-called soft-kill options, including hacking. “That’s a more secure way to neutralize the drone, because then you can actually control the landing,” says Mr Graae.
Crucially, a traffic management system is urgently needed, suggests Mr Hallenborg, involving electronic license plates for each drone device and way for users to register the flight in advance.
“Then we can quickly identify which drones are allowed to be there and those that aren’t,” says Mr Hallenborg.
“The [Danish] police have been overloaded with people telling them about what they’ve seen in the sky. A lot of these drones are probably there with a [legitimate] purpose,” he says.
Buying property from an NRI? Worried about obtaining TAN? Not anymore. To relax the compliance burden, the Budget has proposed that resident individuals and HUFs need not have a Tax Deduction and Collection Account Number (TAN) if they are purchasing a property from a non-resident Indian (NRI). The amendment will take effect from Oct 1, 2026.Under the proposed framework, resident individuals or HUFs can report the tax deducted at source (TDS) by quoting PAN, as is done when the transactions are between two residents. Presently, if a person buys an immovable property from a resident seller, the person is not required to obtain TAN to deduct tax at source. However, where the seller of the immovable property is a non-resident, the buyer is required to obtain TAN to deduct tax at source.Ameet Patel, partner at Manohar Chowdhry & Associates, said this used to be a detailed process. “At present, if a resident were to purchase an immovable property from an NRI, there is no separate relaxation regarding compliance with TDS responsibilities. As a result, in such cases, the buyer needs to obtain a TAN, register on the portal, and then deduct TDS u/s. 195, and pay to the govt. Under section 195, as with all other regular TDS sections, a quarterly e-TDS statement is required. A buyer would need professional help for all this.”Hinesh Doshi, CA, welcomed the move. “There used to be an unnecessary compliance burden due to this. While the process to obtain TAN is simple, people used to obtain TAN for just one transaction. So, this is a good riddance.”
The former One Direction member-turned-solo artist appears on the Sunday Times list for the first time.
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Budget 2026: FM Nirmala Sitharaman gives a strong push to manufacturing, infrastructure and job creation, while proposing a simpler tax and customs system.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents the Union Budget 2026-27.
Budget 2026 Takeaways: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday presented the Union Budget 2026-27, giving a strong push to manufacturing, infrastructure and job creation, proposing a simpler tax and customs regime, and hailing the government’s modernisation drive as a “reforms express”.
The Budget 2026 is anchored around three ‘kartavyas’ — driving growth by enhancing productivity and competitiveness, building people’s capacity, and ensuring inclusive development under the vision of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas.
In her ninth consecutive Budget in Parliament, Sitharaman laid out a multi-pronged strategy to sustain growth amid global uncertainty, including expanding domestic electronics and semiconductor capabilities, de-risking infrastructure projects, skilling India’s youth for emerging technologies, and easing compliance for taxpayers and importers.
Here are the key takeaways from Budget 2026 across manufacturing, infrastructure, skills, AI, taxation and customs duty.
Manufacturing Gets A Boost
Budget 2026 put a special emphasis on the manufacturing landscape in India. The outlay for electronics components manufacturing was raised sharply to Rs 40,000 crore, while new schemes for rare earth magnets, chemical parks, container manufacturing and capital goods seek to reduce import dependency, and strengthen domestic supply chains. Textiles got an integrated, employment-oriented package covering fibres, clusters, skilling and sustainability.
Infrastructure-Led Growth
Infrastructure got a boost with a higher capex allocation and initiatives like a risk guarantee fund to de-risk projects for private developers, new dedicated freight corridors and national waterways, dedicated REITs (real estate investment trusts) for recycling of significant real estate assets of central public sector enterprises (CPSEs), and a seaplane VGF (viability gap funding) scheme.
The Centre’s capital expenditure (capex) target has been increased to Rs 12.2 lakh crore for FY27, up from Rs 11.2 lakh crore earmarked for the current financial year. Moreover, maintaining the fiscal discipline, Sitharaman said the government expects the fiscal deficit to be at 4.3 per cent of the GDP in 2026-27, lower than 4.4 per cent projected for the current financial year.
Tier-II and Tier-III cities were placed at the centre of urban growth via City Economic Regions, backed by reform-linked funding.
“We shall continue to focus on developing infrastructure in cities with over 5 lakh population (Tier II and Tier III), which have expanded to become growth centres,” Sitharaman said in her Budget Speech.
Greater Emphasis On Skilling
The Budget placed renewed emphasis on the services economy as a jobs engine. A high-powered Education-to-Employment and Enterprise Committee will realign skilling with market needs, including the impact of emerging technologies.
Content creation and creative industries get a boost through AVGC labs in schools and colleges, support for animation, gaming and comics, and new institutional capacity for design and hospitality. Tourism-linked skilling, from guides to digital heritage documentation, signals a clear intent to convert culture and content into employment and exports.
“I propose to support the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies, Mumbai in setting up AVGC Content Creator Labs in 15,000 secondary schools and 500 colleges,” FM Sitharaman said. AVGC stands for animation, visual effects, gaming and comics.
AI & Semiconductors Push
Artificial intelligence (AI) was positioned as a cross-sector force multiplier rather than a standalone theme. The Budget provided a push to artificial intelligence (AI) by promoting adoption with governance, agriculture, education and skilling, including proposals for AI-enabled advisory tools for farmers and AI integration in education curricula.
On hardware, the semiconductor strategy expanded decisively under ISM 2.0 (India Semiconductor Mission 2.0), with focus on domestic equipment manufacturing, materials, research centres and workforce development, signalling a long-term commitment to building a resilient chip ecosystem in India.
Taxation, ITR, TDS, TCS
A major structural reform comes with the Income Tax Act, 2025, effective April 1, 2026, containing simpler rules and redesigned forms.
Budget 2026 provided compliance relief for individuals, including extended timelines for revising returns to March 31 from December 31 earlier, staggered ITR due dates, and easier filing of Form 15G/15H through depositories.
Individuals with ITR-1 and ITR-2 returns will continue to file till July 31, and non-audit business cases or trusts are proposed to be allowed time till August 31, according to the Budget Speech 2026-27.
“I propose to extend time available for revising returns from 31st December to up to 31st March with the payment of a nominal fee. I also propose to stagger the timeline for filing of tax returns. Individuals with ITR 1 and ITR 2 returns will continue to file till 31st July and non-audit business cases or trusts are proposed to be allowed time till 31st August,” Sitharaman said.
TDS (Tax deducted at source) rules were clarified for manpower services, while a rule-based system for lower or nil TDS certificates is proposed. TCS rates were cut to 2% for overseas tour packages, education and medical expenses under liberalised remittance scheme (LRS). Litigation is targeted through integrated assessment and penalty orders, lower pre-deposit requirements, and wider immunity provisions.
TDS on the sale of immovable property by a non-resident will be deducted and deposited through resident buyer’s PAN (Permanent Account Number)-based challan instead of requiring TAN (Tax Deduction and Collection Account Number), Sitharaman said.
Customs Duty Tweaks
Customs duty rationalisation continued with a clear focus on domestic manufacturing, energy transition and ease of living. Exemptions have been extended or introduced for capital goods used in lithium-ion batteries, critical minerals processing, nuclear power projects and aircraft manufacturing.
Personal imports will become cheaper with a reduction in duty on goods for personal use from 20% to 10%. Seventeen cancer drugs and additional rare-disease treatments were exempted from customs duty. Process reforms aimed at trust-based, tech-driven clearances, faster cargo movement and lower compliance costs, especially for exporters and MSMEs (micro, small, medium and enterprises).
STT On F&O Hiked
The Budget increased securities transaction tax (STT) on futures trading from 0.02% to 0.05% and on options trading from 0.10% to 0.15%, a move that upset the capital markets with the BSE Sensex crashing more than 2,300 points from the day’s high and the NSE Nifty dropping to 24,571.75.
Securities Transaction Tax (STT) is a direct tax imposed on the buying and selling of securities in India.
Commenting on the Budget, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “The Union Budget reflects the aspirations of 140 crore Indians. It strengthens the reform journey and charts a clear roadmap for Viksit Bharat.”
February 01, 2026, 14:43 IST
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