India has yet again emerged as the world’s second-largest importer of weapons, accounting for 8.3 per cent of global arms sales for a five-year block (2021-2025), according to the latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).Ukraine, which is involved in a war with Russia, occupies the top spot and accounted for 9.7 per cent of global imports between 2021 and 2025.The SIPRI report — “Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2025” — was released on Monday morning and had a positive note that India’s dependence on imported arms had reduced. The report compared a previous five-year block (2016-2020) with the latest assessment (2021-2025) and said: “Indian arms imports fell by 4 per cent between 2016-20 and 2021-25.”The decrease could be partly attributed to India’s growing ability to design and produce its own weapons, although there were often substantial delays in domestic production, the report said. It also highlighted that India’s recent orders or planned orders, including up to 140 combat aircraft from France and six submarines from Germany, indicate its continued and probably increasing reliance on foreign suppliers.India’s principal suppliers for the period 2021-2025 had been Russia, France and Israel, said the SIPRI report even as it cited how India had shifted its arms relations away from Russia towards Western suppliers, especially France, Israel and the US, over the past decade. “Russia’s share of Indian arms imports dropped from 70 per cent in 2011-15 to 51 per cent in 2016-20 and 40 per cent in 2021-25,” the SIPRI report said. During 2021-25, France and Israel supplied 29 per cent and 15 per cent of India’s imports.The SIPRI report further argued that India’s imports were driven by its tensions with both China and Pakistan. Pakistan is the fifth largest importer of weapons, accounting for 4.2 per cent of all global imports. It was a 66 per cent hike from the previous five-year block of 2016-2020.