The second speaker in the new season of The Nalanda 2017 was Colonel Ajai Shukla (Retired). He was in conversation with Professor Pankaj Chandra and the topic of discussion was 'Guns versus butter: How much defence does India really need? Colonel Shukla works as Consulting Editor (Strategic Affairs) with Business Standard. From 2001-08, he was a war correspondent at NDTV. Before taking up journalism, he was a combat soldier in the armoured corps from 1979-2001.