I can understand your frustration regarding doing a PHD and then waiting on the rolls to be selected for Professorship to a bunch of freshers who will call you names behind your back. If you are indeed a PHD guy I pity you for chasing grant money and dealing with internal politics. Not only you will have no money by retirement but private sector or some college will assign you to their labs as a 'Bhishma' to fuchchas after your contract is over. Who knows we'll meet someday in management and least I can do is offer you a drink.
I have made many so called 'projects' for defence establishments but the truth is most of the efforts are basically to create groundwork for technology transfer. Basically whole DRDO ecosystem is geared towards technology absorption and not innovation. You can have a thousand labs but nepotism and lackadaisical attitude is killing us. My work primarily deals with microwaves and sometimes embedded systems although can't reveal much because of Pakis and gooks lurking here.