Indian Defence Review

India’s Foreign Policy Dilemma

India is today at a point of inflection. A cautious myopic vision will spell doom. The MEA needs to be confident enough to take onboard all instruments available in the country to consolidate India’s interests. “Military diplomacy’’ is generally anathema in diplomatic circles, which is self-constraining. India...

Fighting International Terrorism: Taming the Beast

The Thesaurus describes an “Act of Terrorism” as the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political, religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear. The term “international terrorism” is...

China’s Air and Space Strategy

“As for the revolution in soldiery, the competition between the military forces is moving to outer space here…. This is historically inevitable, and this development cannot be reversed. The PLAAF must formulate a modern day idea of security area, area of interests and exploration of space. We must develop space troops...

India’s Foreign Policy Dilemma

China’s Air and Space Strategy

Sowing the Dragon’s Teeth: Role of United States in the Islamic World

The activities of the Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or the Islamic State (IS), which is its most recent avatar, have brought into sharp focus the schisms in the Islamic world. The most apparent aspect of the fault line in this is the fresh resurgence of the Shia-Sunni divide, with the Sunni militant IS...

Limited Rise in India’s Defence Budget 2015 - 16

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while presenting his maiden budget on 28 Feb, 2015 underlined that defence of every square inch of our mother land comes before anything else. …push towards ‘Make in India’ initiative will curtail over-dependence on imports. He announced an increase in the defence budget by 10.95...

Defence Budget 2015-16: Allocation Inadequate for Modernisation

The finance Minister has hiked the defence budget for FY 2015-16 by 9.46 per cent to Rs 2,46,727 crore, which is Rs 23,357 crore more than the revised estimates for the current financial year that stand at Rs 2,22,370 crore. This small increase is grossly inadequate to give a boost to military modernisation that...

The Future of India’s Air Power

The humongous prolonged gestation period in designing and operationalising any weapon system by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and assembly line manufacturing by the Defence Public Sector Units (PSUs) is unacceptable. If the DRDO and Defence PSUs do not get their act together, India would be...

Fighting International Terrorism: Taming the Beast

Article 370: The untold story

It is often not realized that among the causes of Kashmir problem – inclusion of plebiscite in the Instrument of Accession, reference of Kashmir to UN, halting Indian offensive when it was poised to drive out the invaders from Kashmir, Article 370 has played no less a part in preventing J&K from becoming an integral...

Humanitarian Crisis in the BTAD of Assam: A view from the Field

On 23rd and 24th December 2014, 82 Adivasis (including 26 women and 16 infants) were shot dead by suspected militants belonging to the National Democratic Front for Bodoland (Songbojit) or NDFB(S) in Kokrajhar, Sonitpur, Udalguri and Chirang districts of Assam. The murder of these innocent civilians in these horrific...

MBDA names Jérôme Dufour as Director of Communications

Jérôme Dufour has been appointed MBDA’s new Director of Communications and will take up his role on 9th March, 2015. He will report directly to Antoine Bouvier, CEO of MBDA, and takes over from Yves Barillé who has moved to Airbus Helicopters as its new Director of Communications. Aged 46, Jérôme Dufour started...

Reliance Infrastructure Acquires Pipavav Defence and Offshore

Reliance Infrastructure Limited today announced the acquisition of Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering Company Limited, together with sole management control. Reliance Infrastructure, together with its wholly owned subsidiary Reliance Defence Systems Private Limited, has agreed to acquire from the Promoters of...

Sagem wins another contract from MBDA for SIGMA 30

Sagem (Safran) has signed a contract with European missile manufacturer MBDA to integrate SIGMA 30 navigation and pointing systems on several VL MICA surface-to-air weapon systems for international markets. Sagem designed the SIGMA 30 pointing system to give air defense systems independent deployment and firing...

Threat from Nepal's Instability

Nepal shares a 1751 Km land boundary with India and 1414 Km with China (Tibet). Although landlocked and surrounded by these two Asian giants, Nepal’s geographic, economic and cultural orientation is exclusively intertwined with India. Given the liberal India-Nepal border regime and ethnic similarities between the two...