India is one of the top five defense spenders in the world with a total expenditure of $50.6 billion in 2016, up from $46.6 billion in 2015. It now has the fourth biggest defense budget next to Saudi Arabia and Russia, based on the 2016 Jane's Defence Budgets report, released by IHS Markit research firm on Dec. 12.

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Although the US, China, and the UK, remained on the top three spots, the report revealed that India is poised to surpass UK and become the third biggest spender by 2018, the Quartz noted.

"Procurement spending has been constrained in India over the last three years as personnel costs have increased," Craig Caffrey, IHS Jane's principal analyst, said, noting that many experts anticipate that 2017 will see a military dedicated to modernization.

"Over the next three years, India will re-emerge as a key growth market for defence suppliers," Caffrey added.

Meanwhile, the total global defense spending also jumped to $1.57 trillion. As mentioned earlier, US tops the list with $622.03 billion, followed by China and the UK with $191.75 billion and $53.81 billion, respectively. Saudi Arabia, which landed on the fifth spot, spent $48.68 billion. And Russia, which used to occupy the fourth place slid down to sixth with $48.44 billion.

Ever since Prime Minster Narendra Modi assumed his position in May 2014, India has started boosting its defenses. In fact, it bought a $5.57 billion worth of arms and ammunitions overseas and signed an $8.28 billion deal to acquire 36 Rafale fighter jets from France, according to the International Business Times.

China, on the other hand, is set to surpass the whole of western Europe's spending by 2020 and the entire Asia-Pacific region combined by 2025, NDTV noted.

TagsIndia defense news, India defense market, IHS markit, Defense spending by country, defense spending