BRIC
BRIC
Fair Observer provides analysis of important issues, events and trends in the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China.
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India’s Agni-V missile is said to have profound implications for its security. But its strategic significance is complex and the picture is at best a mixed one. By Rajesh Basrur India’s launch of the Agni V, an intermediate-range missile close to intercontinental range, has been widely hailed as a “game changer” and a “milestone” in India’s quest for security. Now that the applause has died down, it is worth looking a little more closely at the claim. In fact, at least three “games” can be identified and the performance is mixed: the first and most touted game is irrelevant, the second is a winning game, and the third a losing one....
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India’s precarious position between Pakistan and China makes its self-defence system crucial. Background On 19 April 2012 India launched its Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, Agni-V, from Wheeler Island off the east coast of India. Agni-V has a range of nearly 5000km (3000 miles) and features Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs) with each missile being capable of carrying two to ten separate nuclear warheads. It gives India the strategic advantage of being able to strike major cities of its neighbors, including Beijing. The first missile of the series, Agni-I, was successfully developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) under the...
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By Mayank SinghThe successful launch of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), Agni-V, has not only catapulted India into the elite group of nations possessing ICBM’s, but also conveyed a bold foreign policy statement. Vijay Kumar Saraswat, chief of the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) which designed and manufactured the strategic missile, was quick to announce that the missile was “not any country specific”. Despite this, the political message emanating from the launch has not been lost on anybody. The strategic missile is proposed to be inducted in the Indian army within a couple of years, after two more experimental launches. Regional Relationships or the...
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360° Analysis / Politics / Europe / BRICBy A. Yanov The toxic combination of a stagnant economy and Putin's counter-reforms could make Russia a danger to Europe in the near future. According to historian Alexander Yanov, the country's greatest hope for neutralizing this threat and effecting real change is an alliance between its opposition movement and Europe. On the eve of the Russian elections, British weekly The Economist released an issue with a rather sensationalist headline on its cover: “The beginning of the end of Putin” - without a question mark at the end. As supporting evidence, the magazine quoted Director of the Levada Center Lev Gudkov, “The regime is losing its legitimacy in the eyes...
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By Olga Khvostunova Despite Putin’s seemingly overwhelming victory, independent observers reported voter fraud and the Russian opposition continued protesting in Moscow and other major cities. International leaders were wary in offering their congratulations to the president-elect. The numbers diverge As the Russian Central Election Commission reported on March 5th, the turnout for the presidential election was at least 5% higher than for the parliamentary in December 2011. As a result of this increase in civil activity, Vladimir Putin gained 63.8% of the votes, thus proving to the world that he didn’t need a runoff election. His opponents got significantly fewer votes: Gennady...
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360° Analysis / Politics / BRIC / AsiaBy D. Jesudas Bell As India and the world welcome the recent democratization of Myanmar, this presents India an opportunity to increase its access to south east Asian countries as well, especially with members of ASEAN which still have catching up to do – particularly Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. The desire of Myanmar’s leaders to open the country to the outside world has led to considerable euphoria in India – which sees its policy of engagement with the once-isolated nation paying off. There is also speculation that lifting economic sanctions could create a stimulus that might facilitate India’s access to other ASEAN countries and be especially beneficial...
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By Mark N. KatzIndia and the United States now seem like natural allies, but cannot take their relationship for granted. Since the dawn of the 21st century, two remarkable events have occurred. One is the emergence of India as an acknowledged great power. The other has been the dramatic improvement in Indian-American relations. These two events are not the same. India could have emerged as a great power without an improvement in Indian-American relations. By the same token, Indian-American relations could have improved even if (as is the case with most of America’s allies) India was not regarded as a great power. But the fact that these two events have occurred simultaneously is not simply...
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By S.AgarwalInsight on the environment for entrepreneurs in India. An entrepreneur in India, referred to as Kishore, sat down for a meeting with the patriarch of an industrial house in Chennai, with whose US-educated son he had already had several meetings, and who was ostensibly managing the family wealth. The son was excited about the value of the infrastructure-focused IT services start-up that Kishore was pitching. Both infrastructure and IT are booming sectors in India and the start-up surely had much promise as an investment. About 15 minutes and just a couple of questions later, the patriarch lost interest in the discussion, began to pay more attention to the television, and encouraged Kishore...
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An insider’s opinion on Brazil’s apathy to the Occupy movement. Brazilians seem to have had either little interest, or have greatly misunderstood the purpose of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. With the exception of a small number of fools like me, excited and involved in the process, who thought it possible to play Don Quixote and win, most people sat idly by their televisions, grappling lazily to understand the frequently incoherent news on TV – a shallow picture of young people camping out in the financial heart of the world’s “capital of cool,” New York City. Having lived in “the city” for almost a decade, I felt inspired to bring a...