Do You Know Why Fund Kaveri Engine Is Trending?

Social media, especially X, was abuzz with various posts with the hashtag #FundKaveriEngine, topping the country's trending list. Here's a quick look at what it's about.

The Kaveri Engine is an indigenous project led by India's Gas Turbine Research Establishment, under the Defence Research and Development Organisation. Started in the 1980s, the Kaveri was designed to be a high-performance jet engine to power India's homegrown fighter aircrafts, mainly Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.'s Light Combat Aircraft Tejas.

The engine aimed to deliver notable thrust and efficiency, reducing India's reliance on foreign technology for its defense capabilities.

Despite decades of development, the Kaveri Engine faced significant technical challenges, including issues with thrust output and reliability.

As a result, the project was shelved in the 2010s, with the LCA Tejas relying on imported General Electric Aerospace's F404 engines instead.

It reached social media's limelight after recent developments involving the delivery of GE Aerospace's announcement of the delivery of the jet engines for the Tejas LCA-Mk1A. This took place after significant delays. Netizens also expressed support for more indigenous technology to be developed instead of having to rely on US-based companies like GE Aerospace for India's defence needs.

This lead to many X users using their accounts to retweet the hashtag #FundKaveriEngine to bring wider attention to this indigenous piece of tech that had been shelved and was about to be relegated to obscurity.

Prominent figures like Shiv Aroor, a notable NDTV journalist who specialises in coverage of Indian defence sector, also voiced his support for the initiative, reposting an edited still of himself on the NDTV channel holding the engine with the words #FundKaveriEngine edited on to the top band above him.

"I don’t know who did this, but damn, I’m on board! #FundKaveriEngine," he wrote.