The controversy surrounding General V.K. Singh’s memo has brought to the fore more deep-seated problems in India’s civil-military relationship. As recent deliberations in the Indian parliament suggested, the controversy over the leaking of a confidential communication between Army Chief, General V.K. Singh, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has become increasingly acrimonious.... Continue Reading
India is bearing witness to a tense political situation in the Maldive Islands. Its response may be vital in shaping the future of the Maldives and India’s relation with it. The ongoing political crisis which erupted on February 7 in the small island nation of Maldives, led to the ouster of former President Mohamed Nasheed and the swearing-in of the Vice President Mohammed Waheed Hassan... Continue Reading
India’s greatest challenges are that its political class seems oblivious to the big picture and that national security does not receive the attention it warrants in Parliament. For India, the year that has dawned will have to address a complex set of security and related strategic challenges. Appropriate lessons will have to be gleaned from the tainted year that has ended—a year... Continue Reading
A critical appraisal of India’s ability to conduct itself as a nuclear armed state. November 2011 is a particularly appropriate time to review how effective India’s defence policy has been in managing the complex national security(NS) challenges it has been dealing with since August 1947.The short assessment is that the existing higher defence management policies are far from... Continue Reading
India is riveted on what has been termed as the biggest corruption case todate – the 2G telecom scandal – that began in a special CBI court in Delhi on Friday (Non 11). On trial are former telecom minister A Raja and the high profile MP – animozhi, daughter of DMK supremo, Karunanidhi, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and 12 other individuals that includes senior... Continue Reading
The October 31 attacks in Afghanistan are further complicating matters for US and NATO troops in the region and underlining the question of how best to leave Afghanistan. This year's Halloween (Oct 31) has been horrific for the US and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) forces. The deadly suicide car bomb attack on an armor-plated US military bus in Kabul on Saturday (October 29) that... Continue Reading
Implications of recent Chinese history on Chinese-Indian relations. A hundred years may be a brief temporal punctuation for an ancient civilisation like China or India but the commemoration of the 1911 Xinhai revolution that overthrew the Qing dynasty in China may be deemed an event of tectonic proportion for Asia, in particular and the world by extension. Two millennia of... Continue Reading
