Indian Defence Review

Pakistan - Terror tags don’t worry Beijing’s Darling

News about the recently released UNSC consolidated list of individual terrorist and terrorist entities naming 139 from Pakistan including prominent names like Dawood Ibrahim and LeT chief Hafiz Saeed was headlined in Indian media. The list includes all individuals who have either lived in Pakistan, operated from there...

Backroom Snippets from Islamabad

Indian High Commission Housing Residential Complex on about 15 acres plot is coming up in Diplomatic Enclave, Islamabad. It is 98% complete and will be fully operational by Sep 18. On becoming functional, interference from ISI may stop and thus ISI is worried. ISI intervened on 15 Feb and stopped the work and snapped...

The Strategy of Moral High Ground in Jammu and Kashmir

The two epics of Indian Philosophy; Ramayana and Mahabharat portrayed wars fought for righteousness and justice. These wars depicted ‘Victory of Virtue over Vice’. Even Christianity supported and practised the ‘Just War Theory: Initially, propounded by St Augustine of Hippo in the 4th Century and later, St Thomas...

Pakistan - Terror tags don’t worry Beijing’s Darling

Backroom Snippets from Islamabad

The Strategy of Moral High Ground in Jammu and Kashmir

Maritime Air Ops: Ex Gagan Shakti – 2018

During both phases of Ex Gagan Shakti, the IAF is effectively exercising its Maritime war fighting concepts on both the Western and Eastern seaboards. Air Dominance, over the entire extended area of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) in support of the Indian Navy (IN) is being demonstrated by employment of combat enablers...

Military Diplomacy: A Vital Tool for Furthering National Interests

“While the civil bureaucracy and the political leadership in our MOD continue to constrain the Indian military’s engagement with the world, China is consciously promoting it.” — C Raja Mohan A nation’s strength to thwart diverse threats to its interests and adequately address the varied transformational...

Indo-French Relations: Will the Partnership take a Step Further?

According to most commentators, the visit to India of French President Emmanuel Macron has been an unqualified success. For the first time, a French President was on the cover a national magazine; another first, President Macron gave an interview from the Elysee Palace in Paris which was broadcasted in prime time on a...

Internal Peace: Understanding the Structural Issues

Increasingly, as the country becomes more powerful, external threats reduce in intensity, but the army finds itself engaged in restoring internal peace. This becomes of even greater importance when the external enemies use the internal fissures to fight a proxy war against us; a low cost, low risk option for our...

Did India ever formulate Kashmir Policy !!!

Article 35A, which essentially determines as to who can be permanent citizen of Jammu and Kashmir is the lynchpin of Article 370. It was a Presidential Order in the year 1954 by way of which Article 35A was made operative. It has never been intrinsic to the Indian Constitution. This stark illegality or Constitutional...

Cyber Security: Civil and Military Implications

The capability of India’s matchless troops in on-the-ground, blood-and-guts fighting is legendary. But if operational logistics is compromised in advance by a hostile military, wars may be lost even before engaging in battles and such battles as engaged in, will prove costly in terms of soldiers’ lives lost due to...

Kalyani Rafael Advanced Systems (KRAS) announces Expansion

Kalyani Rafael Advanced Systems (KRAS), a joint venture between Kalyani Strategic Systems Ltd. and Rafael Advanced Defence Systems Ltd. of Israel is all set to expand its product profile. The JV will now venture into the space of Missile systems with the New Generation Precision Guided Munitions (NGPGM), Air Defense...

Indian delegation witnessed performance of Ka-226T helicopter

The representatives of the Indian MoD visited Kamov Helicopters of Russian Helicopters Holding Company (part of Rostec) within the framework of the project of the delivering 200 units of Ka-226T rotorcraft and establishing its serial production in India. The Indian military took part in the demonstration flight of...

Dr Alexander Sagel takes over as head of Weapon and Ammunition division of Rheinmetall Defence

Dr Alexander Sagel, until now head of the Hardparts division at Rheinmetall Automotive, assumed overall responsibility for the Weapon and Ammunition division of the Group’s Defence arm effective 1 April 2018. In his new position he simultaneously serves on the executive board of Rheinmetall Defence, reporting directly...

Myanmar: Time to focus on Economy

With the Cease fire process as well as the desired progress in Constitutional reforms going no where, it is but...

Leaders root for peace in Kashmir, Kashmiriyat holds the key

The chief of the Indian Army, General Bipin Rawat, recently made a significant statement on Jammu and Kashmir,...

Defence Budget: Beyond the Numbers

As reported by the Times of India on April 04, this year’s discussion on the general budget in parliament will go down in history as the shortest since 2000 with both houses collectively spending just about one day on rushing through it. This puts paid to whatever expectation there might have been that the grave concern over the inadequacy of the defence budget expressed by the Standing...

Raksha Mantri to Pursue India’s Defence Cooperation Agenda in SCO

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s Annual Defence Ministerial Meeting to be held in Beijing on April 24. This is the first time that an Indian Defence Minister will be attending such a meeting, which will have the...

One more Airport in Tibet: Govern the Borders by First Stabilizing Tibet

Radio Free Asia (RFA) has reported that the Chinese authorities have seized some farmland near Lhatse in Central Tibet to build a new airport. The displaced Tibetan villagers would have been offered far less in compensation than the land is worth. According to a plan announced by...

Resetting India–Nepal ties: Oli shows his pragmatism

The visit by Nepalese Prime Minister KPS Oli to Delhi on April 6 continued a tradition going back to 1990, wherein the elected leader of Kathmandu makes India the first destination for an official visit. While this is a reiteration of the resilience of bilateral ties, the...

United States-Russia Military Confrontation 2018 & its Implications for Indian Foreign Policy

United States and Russia are in a state of edgy military confrontation which has all the potential of a flare-up and military showdown. Inherent in this are serious implications for India and its foreign policy would be severely tested. Geopolitically, strange is the emerging reality that the United States has chosen the Middle East for a showdown with Russia where the strategic challenges to United States are much lower in scale than in Indo...