Operations
Every named operation
20 operations between 1948 and 2025 — offensives, peacekeeping deployments, disaster relief and evacuations. Each has a full account of what it set out to do, what it achieved and what it cost, and names the catalogued equipment it was conducted with — so a platform can be read forward into what it did, and an operation backward into what it was fought with.
How the ranking works. Half of it is measured — English Wikipedia pageviews over a fixed 24-month window, on a log scale. The other half is our own 1–5 rating of consequence, which is a judgement and not a measurement. Sort by date instead if you would rather not take our word for the second half.
Accounts follow the cited sources. Casualty and loss figures are contested for most entries here, frequently along national lines; where they appear they are given as disputed rather than settled, and where they could not be stated fairly they are left out.
10 of 20 operations
May – July 1999
Operation Vijay (1999)
विजय
Retaking ridgelines above 16,000 feet, in the highest-altitude war ever fought.
- Theatre
- Kargil, Ladakh
- Equipment
- 8 catalogued
Representative1–8 June 1984
Operation Blue Star
The costliest operation in the Army's domestic record, and the most contested.
- Theatre
- Amritsar, Punjab
- Equipment
- 1 catalogued
18–19 December 1961
Operation Vijay (1961)
विजय
Thirty-six hours that ended four and a half centuries of Portuguese rule in India.
- Theatre
- Goa, Daman and Diu
- Equipment
- —
7–10 May 2025
Operation Sindoor
सिंदूर
Precision strikes on nine sites, and the first combat use of India's own air-defence network.
- Theatre
- Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir
- Equipment
- 10 catalogued
13–18 September 1948
Operation Polo
Five days that brought the largest princely state into the Union.
- Theatre
- Hyderabad State
- Equipment
- —
13 April 1984 — present
Operation Meghdoot
मेघदूत
The seizure of the Siachen Glacier, and the longest-running deployment on Earth.
- Theatre
- Siachen Glacier, Ladakh
- Equipment
- 7 catalogued
1987 – 1990
Operation Pawan
पवन
A peacekeeping deployment that became India's longest counter-insurgency abroad.
- Theatre
- Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka
- Equipment
- 4 catalogued
3–4 November 1988
Operation Cactus
A coup stopped overnight, 1,200 miles away, by paratroopers who landed in the dark.
- Theatre
- Malé, Maldives
- Equipment
- 2 catalogued
RepresentativeDecember 2001 – October 2002
Operation Parakram
पराक्रम
The largest mobilisation since 1971 — and a war that never came.
- Theatre
- The western border
- Equipment
- 5 catalogued
RepresentativeApril – May 2015
Operation Maitri
मैत्री
First responders on the ground within six hours of the Gorkha earthquake.
- Theatre
- Nepal
- Equipment
- 6 catalogued