Wings Of Hope: Drones Carry Dreams, Stirring Aerial Alchemy Across Fields, Skies, And Screens

The Drone Story - Part 4: Drones are defining the 21st century, both on and off the battlefield. While they continue to play a crucial role in military operations, their hybrid capabilities are increasingly being adapted for civilian use.

Outside of combat, UAVs have found irreplaceable use cases across industries by offering efficient, safe, and cost-effective solutions in agriculture, construction, real estate, energy, public safety, media, entertainment, logistics, wildlife monitoring, and more. They come in various shapes and sizes, with their design often tailored to specific applications.

Drones enable a wide variety of use cases across industries (ETV Bharat)

Common drone configurations include multi-rotor design (equipped with multiple propellers), single-rotor helicopter design (featuring one large central propeller), fixed-wing design (resembling aeroplanes), and fixed-wing hybrid VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing). For civilian and most other use cases, multi-rotor drones, equipped with multiple propellers, are the default choice as they are ideal for stable hovering and short-range tasks like aerial photography and inspections.

Types of drones based on their shape and rotor design (ETV Bharat Creative)

Drones breathe life into content creation

A drone’s capability to fly high and capture dynamic aerial shots is now a crucial element in the media and entertainment industries. Shots taken by drones are now common in films, TV shows, commercials, and live events, offering creative angles that were once difficult or expensive to achieve. Content creators worldwide, especially travel vloggers on Instagram and YouTube, are utilising drones to add breathtaking aerial shots of surreal locations to their videos, including popular names from India, such as Isa Khan, Tanya Khanijow, Priyansh M Jain, Mayank Tiwari, Nithin Prabhakar, and many more.

One such creator, Gaurab Bhandari from Nepal, who's been using drones since 2019 mainly for aerial filming, has utilised the technology to shoot commercials, documentaries, music videos, and stock footage libraries. "Most of the time, I use DJI drones, and in recent years, I also started using FPV drones for more advanced shots," he says while talking to ETV Bharat.

"Drones have contributed a lot to my work. In recent years, I have been mostly hired for aerial filming purposes. With drones, I am able to shoot angles and movements which were almost impossible before with normal cameras," he adds.

Explaining the impact of using drones in his work, he further says, "The next big advantage is the reach it provides. I can stay in one place and film locations and subjects that are far away, sometimes even kilometres away. I have also filmed in places which would be risky or even not possible to film by humans."

Bhandari also highlights the advancements in commercial drones, especially the option of variable lenses that open the door to creative possibilities. "Different focal length gives different perspectives in aerial shots," he says, pointing to the content he uploads on his Instagram account.

He also highlights the requirements to take drone permits from the authorities, which he says is no longer a hassle for him, considering he's been in the game for years. Additionally, he says that the process has helped him learn the production side of work, including planning shoots and managing permissions, which only ended up helping him add a new skill as a line producer—one who manages the day-to-day financial and logistical operations of a shoot.

"Drone technology has overall brought new possibilities in my filmmaking journey," Bhandari adds.

The broader impact of drone technology

Much like in content creation, drones have become indispensable in the real estate industry, enabling professionals to capture dynamic shots that offer potential buyers unique perspectives of properties and their surroundings. In the construction process, drones help builders capture high-resolution images and 3D models that support project planning, progress monitoring, and issue detection, reducing the need for manual inspections in potentially hazardous environments.

For a regular drone, smartphone acts as the viewfinder (ETV Bharat)

Drones also provide fast and accurate geospatial data for topographic surveys, land development, and infrastructure planning. India’s Bullet Train construction is also utilising drones—together with other advanced technologies like AI, ML, LiDAR, AR, VR, robots, and IoT-enabled sensors—to increase "efficiency, accuracy, and safety", as explained by SV Desai, Whole Time Director & Senior Executive Vice President (Civil Infrastructure), L&T.

L&T has been using drones and other advanced technologies in the construction of India's Bullet Train project (L&T)

Environmental conservation efforts leverage drones to monitor wildlife, track endangered species, and study ecosystems in remote areas. They also help combat poaching by providing real-time surveillance of protected zones.

Public safety agencies use drones in search and rescue operations, where thermal cameras and GPS help locate missing persons and assess dangerous situations without endangering responders. Drones also play a crucial role in disaster response by surveying damage and delivering supplies.

Multi-industry applications of drones (ETV Bharat Creative)

The logistics industry is also exploring drone applications as it tests drone-based package delivery, especially in hard-to-reach areas, with the potential to reduce delivery times and operational costs. Back in 2013, the then-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed a plan to deliver goods using commercial drones, which has been in operation in select locations in the US since 2022, with active plans for expansion into the UK and Italy.

Precision farming and India’s NaMo Drone Didi scheme

Drones enable precision farming, allowing humans to better monitor crop health, assess soil conditions, and track plant growth. They are also used to accurately apply fertilisers and pesticides, among other tasks. A notable initiative is the Indian government’s "NaMo Drone Didi" scheme, which empowers women’s self-help groups (SHGs) by providing them with drones to offer rental agricultural services for farmers, assisting with tasks like spraying liquid fertilisers and pesticides. The initiative aims to equip 15,000 women from SHGs with training and drones between 2024 and 2026, so that they can supply aerial spraying services to farmers on a paid-per-acre basis.

Drone Didi Neetu Rai (ETV Bharat)

Hailing from a village in Varanasi, 'Drone Didi' Neetu Rai travels from village to village and helps people spray pesticides and fertilisers through the drone. "Today, I cover an acre in 10 minutes. This not only generates income for me but also benefits farmers," Neetu said. She charges Rs 300 per acre and claims to have earned Rs 3 lakh in the past 13 months.

Another flagbearer of the scheme, Bimla Sinwar from Sirsa, Haryana, says, “This scheme is empowering and liberating - more than just drone training. It is lifting women out of limitations, financially and in the process, women are getting respect from society. Those confined to kitchens are on the fields operating drones worth lakhs.” She was also one of the 107 women who received the NaMo Drone Didi Award from PM Modi.

In another part of the country, Kumuduni Swain from a village in Odisha, has also mastered the art of using drones to spray fertilisers on farmlands. She has also trained thousands of women in her locality to operate them, helping them not only improve farm efficiency but also earn a sustainable livelihood. She operates a 10 kg drone with precision, spraying fertiliser on one acre of land in just six minutes, saving farmers half a day of work. “It was not easy for me. I have learned this work slowly with many challenges,” she says.

Drone Didi Kumudini Swain (ETV Bharat)

On the same lines, the Tamil Nadu government has also started to procure DGCA-certified agricultural drones and survey-grade drones to modernise farming practices and strengthen land-survey operations in the state.

Drone Rules 2021

To streamline the usage of UAVs in the country, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) introduced Drone Rules 2021, classifying not only drones (based on their weight) but also setting up flying rules, zones, and license systems.

Notably, the rules classify drones by weight into nano (up to 250 g), micro (250 g–2 kg), small (2–25 kg), medium (25–150 kg) and large (above 150 kg) categories. A remote pilot licence is not required for nano drones and for micro drones when flown for non-commercial purposes, while all other categories require a valid licence issued through the DGCA’s Digital Sky platform. Additionally, every unmanned aircraft system should be registered on the platform and receive a unique identification number, unless exempted.

Drone classification and license requirements in India as per Drone Rules, 2021 (ETV Bharat Creative)

Indian airspace for drone operations is divided into green, yellow and red zones, where green zones allow drone flights without prior permission up to prescribed altitude limits, yellow zones require clearance from the relevant air traffic control authority, and red zones are no-drone areas where operations are permitted only with approval from the central government.

Way forward with drones

From the ominous buzz in conflict zones to the quiet hum over farmlands and distant landscapes, drones have transcended their military origin to become indispensable tools of modern life. As unmanned aerial vehicles continue to change the face of warfare around the world, their diverse civilian applications are also redefining every sector they touch, transforming how we farm, conserve, create, protect, and rescue.

As Professor Shreyas Nambiar, Chief Business Officer at Universal AI University, notes, “This transition demands robust governance frameworks to manage innovation responsibly. The future of drones will hinge not just on technological capability but on the choices humanity makes today.”

India’s NaMo Drone Didi initiative is a testament to how innovation can be both inclusive and impactful. With a clear regulatory framework like Drone Rules, 2021, and growing public-private collaborations, the stage is set for drones to become as useful and common as tractors in fields and cameras in studios.

Drones offer aerial photography for a wide variety of usecases (ETV Bharat)

Drones are no longer just eyes in the sky or tools of war used by humans to rain down fire on other humans; they are also the hands that build, uplift, and empower—sowing seeds in fields, delivering aid to the unreachable, mapping the future from above, and giving voice to those once grounded by geography or circumstance.

The drone story is still unfolding, and it is flying faster than ever.