Indian Defence Review

Shaheen Bagh: Much More Than Meets the Eye

Shaheen Bagh has not only become a prominent landmark in Delhi but it has etched its name as an iconic movement in post- independence history of modern India. Ostensibly, Shaheen Bagh was chosen as a venue for peaceful sit-in protests by the Muslim community supported by the leftists and pseudo-liberals against the...

CDS’ Interview Raises Doubts on a Number of Issues

The Interview Should one believe that the authorisation of equipment like tanks and aircrafts to Services is based on the minimum requirement for highest operational preparedness, one is in for a surprise. Going by the interview given by General Bipin Rawat, the recently appointed Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) to a media...

Trump did not exempt Islamic Terror within India

The protesters at Shaheen Bagh very well comprehend the import and imperative of the CAA. They know it is about ‘coming’ and not ‘going’. For Hindus and Sikhs of the subcontinent partition was also about ‘coming’ into truncated India from Pakistan, and for Muslims it was about ‘going’ into...

Pakistan, FATF and Masood Azhar’s Houdini Act

The media is full with headlines like ‘Pakistan fails to get off the ‘Grey List’ of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). But a better way would be to say ‘Pakistan successfully avoids being placed on FATF’s ‘Black List’. On February 20, 2020, last day of its five-day meeting to review Pakistan’s...

Refugees from Pakistan speak of inhumane persecution of minorities in the country

The Parliament of our great Nation has enacted the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, (CAA), with the noble, justified and righteous intention of easing the process of grant of citizenship to the persecuted religious minorities of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The merits or otherwise of the Act, that are been...

Pakistan Fails Yet Again

Despite its intensive lobbying and cosmetic measures to convince the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to take it off the Grey List in which it was placed in June 2018, the international watchdog has once again placed Pakistan in the said List with a stern warning to be prepared to be placed in Black List if it does...

CDS’ Interview Raises Doubts on a Number of Issues

Indo-US Defence “Make in India” Aviation Initiative

The discussions on the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2005 actually started the India-US strategic cooperation and possibly of India leaning towards the USA. Because of years of military purchases from the erstwhile Soviet Union, later Russia, the process had its complexities. India needed high technology American military...

Role of Military History

Napoleon had once famously said that ‘morale to the material is like three is to one’. Military history that celebrates the glorious deeds of past can boost the morale of soldiers and citizens alike. In case of India however the prominent role played by the non-violent movement in attaining freedom, there is general...

Shaheen Bagh: Much More Than Meets the Eye

Trump did not exempt Islamic Terror within India

India’s Third Front

An opposition leader in the Lok Sabha taunted the capability of the Indian Armed Forces to deal with a two-front threat. The remark was by no means innocent, the message was meant for external and internal consumers. The external clients being Pakistan and China, and the internal consumers are the people who under the...

Marginal Increase in Defence Budget Could Mar Modernisation

The disappointing part is that there has been a very marginal increase in the capital outlay for defence for 2020-21 as compared to the budget estimates and revised estimates of 2019-20, which will affect several big-ticket projects of the defence forces that are being done for building capabilities against our two...

Drones: A Game Changer in Future Conflict

Drones have been called “the ultimate military growth industry”. Air, naval and land forces everywhere are striving to acquire these platforms. Herein lies the danger; thanks to advanced armed drones, aggression is becoming pain-free. Practically every military that has inducted UCAVs has sought to purchase even...

MBDA at DefExpo 2020: "Making in India"

“MBDA has two exciting focuses during DEFEXPO 2020: providing the highest performing missile technologies to India, and secondly delivering on Make in India as part of our longstanding partnership strategy with India. DEFEXPO 2020 is timely as it falls soon before the arrival in India of the first Rafale fighter...

How the US and Germany Fooled the World for Decades

The American and German intelligence communities used Crypto AG, a Swiss company that made encryption tools, to spy...

India must counter Pakistani roadmap to neutralise FATF

It is business as usual so far as Pakistan and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is concerned. In the periodic...

London Bridge to Kashmir and Beyond: What makes Jammu & Kashmir so Important?

One of the best sources for background information on the complicated subject of Jammu and Kashmir is a book by Alastair Lamb entitled Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy 1846–1990 (available online in PDF format). The Kashmir dispute has dominated India-Pakistan relations ever since the Transfer of Power in 1947. In this book, Lamb provides a detailed account of the history of the Northern Frontier...

Understanding the Political Perspectives of the Jammu and Kashmir War (1947-48)

“On 12th and 13th December 1948, the Indian Air Force bombed a Pakistani military stores and ammunition dump at Palak, situated between Kotli and Mirpur. These activities appeared to have added a new dimension of reality to the already existing Pakistani fears of a major Indian...

Time for the Centre to Walk its Kashmir Talk

Post abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the erstwhile state of J&K into two Union Territories (UT), the center announced that this constitutional transformation had been done to pave the way for better administration, good governance and economic development of the...

Hezbollah now most Prominent Threat to US

After the killing of Major General Qassem Suleimani the loudest voice (After Ayatollah Khamenei) threating United States came from Hezbollah. Secretary General of Hezbollah Sheik Hassan Nasrallah in his public speech said the US military in the Middle East would pay the price for...

Sri Lankan Refugees- Another Memorable Judgement

India has not ratified the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees nor the 1967 Protocol. Nor has India enacted so far a national refugee law. With the passing of the Amendment to the Citizenship Act different yardsticks are being applied to the refugees in different parts of the country. While the refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan have become entitled to Indian citizenship, the Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu continue...