Shrinking Influence

Despite India’s pretensions of an emerging great power, its influence is shrinking -both, internally as well as on its external periphery. Internally, Naxalites and insurgent outfits control more than forty percent of the Indian Territory. Similarly, its borders are volatile with neighbours nibbling into its territory as well influence. Arrival of militaries of great powers [...]

Gujjar Agitation: Internal Security Ramifications

The purpose of this article is not to dwell on the political and social dynamics of the recent Gujjar agitation, but to highlight the pernicious internal security ramifications of such agitations and its impact on the internal security of the nation and cohesion of the armed forces. The armed forces has have so far been [...]

China & The 123 Agreement

Between July, 2005, when India and the US agreed in principle on civilian nuclear co-operation, and June, 2006, Beijing’s reaction was unmistakably unenthusiastic. It sought to justify its lack of enthusiasm on the ground that such a special waiver to India, when it has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and not given [...]

Military Power

Pavan Varma in his book “Being Indian” (Penguin Book 2002):

“Historically Indians have a very mediocre record of defending themselves against foreign invaders”.
“Why do Indians prostrate so abjectly before the rich and the mighty? Why are they so indifferent to the sufferings of the weak and the poor?”

Bharat Verma in his article [...]

Middlemen in Defence Procurements

“Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always seems one too many, his profit looks too easy, and even when you admit that he has a necessary function, you feel that this function is, as it were, a personification of something [...]

Extended South Asian Region

Till the early 20th century Asia was referred to as one entity – the Orient. Subdivision of its regions changed the nomenclatures to Near East, East (the Indian subcontinent) and the Far East. This continued till the Second World War, when South East Asia came into vogue – to refer to the region under Japanese [...]

Let us shed tears for ourselves

Large sections of the nation shed tears on July 11, 2007, in memory of the 190 innocent Indians belonging to different religions who were killed a year ago in a series of explosions in suburban trains of Mumbai by jehadi terrorists inspired by the ideology of Al Qaeda. Their tears were also an expression of [...]

Chinese Anger

January 22, 2007: Female students of the Jamia Hafsa madrasa attached to the Lal Masjid in Islamabad occupied a Children’s Library adjacent to their madrasa to protest against the demolition of seven unauthorized mosques constructed on roads in Islamabad by which President Pervez Musharraf often travels. The mosques were demolished on the [...]

Siachen: An episode to remember

In the troubled relationship of India with Pakistan, there have been very few occasions when the latter desired a genuine end to some of the problems. Siachen belongs to this rarest of the rare category. The event belongs to the period of Gen Zia-ul-Haq, who had seized power in Pakistan in 1977 and made himself [...]

Nuclear Deal versus Nuclear Capability

The proclaimed benefits of the Indo-US nuclear deal are unexceptionable. Firstly, we would become eligible to receive nuclear fuel from the Nuclear Suppliers Group. This would enable us to build and operate nuclear power plants. The power plants are – it is stated – required to meet the shortfall in electricity production and also provide [...]