Sudhi Ranjan Sen, Bloomberg News (Bloomberg) -- India increased its defense spending by about 1%, throwing the timing of its military modernization program into doubt while it faces a protracted standoff with China along their disputed Himalayan border. Overall, military spending increased to 3.47 trillion rupees ($47.4 billion), up from 3.43 trillion rupees in the previous financial year, budget documents indicate. Indiaâs expenditure is about a quarter that of Chinaâs -- in May 2020, Beijing announced a yearly defense budget $178.6 billion, according to data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. There had been an expectation that Indiaâs defense budget would receive a ârobust increaseâ in response to the deadly clashes with Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh, said Laxman Behera, associate professor at the Special Centre for National Security Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.