Articles By Lt Gen Vinay Shankar
Has NFU stumped the BJP manifesto?
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 02 May , 2014
It would be reasonably in order to assume that the BJP manifesto was drafted after much deliberation and debate involving all the intellectuals of the party and many outside. It would also be...
Army: Wings Must Grow
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Vol. 28.1 Jan-Mar 2013 | Date: 13 Apr , 2013
The government approval for the Aviation arm of the Indian Army to acquire attack helicopters is the outcome of decades of dialogue, representations, haggling and persistence. The resistance by...
Nuclear Deal versus Nuclear Capability
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Vol 22.1 Jan - Mar 2007 | Date: 16 Sep , 2012
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...
India's Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) prevents procurement
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Vol 25.4 Oct-Dec 2010 | Date: 13 Jul , 2012
“A comparison with other defense industries would be in order to draw some relevant deductions. Take China, Turkey, South Africa, South Korea, Israel and closer home even Pakistan. We began at...
The Match with Pakistan
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Vol 20.2 Apr-Jun 2005 | Date: 24 Apr , 2012
We should not blame our cricketers or our hockey players for our dismal record against Pakistan. It is something to do with our national psyche. This hypothesis is validated if we look at the...
Parameters for Indian Army 2020
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 16 Feb , 2012
Recently under the aegis of the Army a seminar was conducted to discuss the shape, size and structure of our Army in 2020. The scope of the seminar also included an assessment of emerging...
Steering India's Military Capabilities
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Vol 23.3 Jul-Sep 2008 | Date: 12 Feb , 2012
If we were to comment on the attitude of our leadership to our country’s defence preparedness the conclusion would be of unwitting indifference. There is no other plausible explanation to the...
The Challenge of China
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Book Excerpt: Threat from China | Date: 11 Feb , 2012
The recent denial of a visa by China to one of our senior most serving army officers has taken the Indian Security and Diplomatic establishment by considerable surprise, more so when the visa was...
Thinking the Unthinkable
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 19 Oct , 2011
While our Prime Minister plays the conjuror with war clouds and the mysteries of lightening strikes, a grave and potently disastrous possibility of an armed Indo –Pak conflict is being...
The Price of Security
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 29 Aug , 2011
The political and administrative elite of India has yet to assimilate a fundamental lesson in the management of the Country’s defense policy. Like in almost every other sphere the quality of...
Army's Capability Accretion
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Vol 25.1 Jan-Mar 2010 | Date: 31 Jan , 2011
The challenges that the Army is expected to face in the next decade are not likely to be any less formidable. An appraisal of the emerging threats in fact indicates an increasing complexity of...
Defence Industry: Change in approach overdue
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Vol 23.1 Jan-Mar 2008 | Date: 22 Dec , 2010
It is almost seven years since the first set of major policy changes were promulgated by the Government to give a fillip to our stagnating and moribund defence industry. The fundamental...
Catalysing the Defence Industry
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Vol 21.4 Oct-Dec 2006 | Date: 15 Dec , 2010
Any current survey of India’s Defence Industry would take us back to the Fiat and Ambassador age. Should it be so at a time when we are on the threshold of emerging as a software superpower and...
Diagnosing the Pakistani Overreach
By: Lt Gen Vinay Shankar | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 05 Nov , 2010
Our Foreign Secretary in a recent talk has stated that “India’s efforts to bridge the trust deficit and pave the way for a serious and comprehensive dialogue were thwarted by a level of...