Interviews/Spotlights
China’s ‘String of Pearls’ – Is Male Next?
By: Cmde Ranjit B Rai | Issue: Vol. 28.2 Apr-Jun 2013 | Date: 24 Jul , 2013
Although embroiled in disputes with Japan and ASEAN over islands in the South China Sea, China has just announced a ‘Look West’ policy which includes steps to deal with India. As per...
Avoidable Tragedies
By: Air Marshal B D Jayal | Issue: Courtesy: The Telegraph | Date: 20 Jul , 2013
It is now nearing a month since disaster struck the upper reaches of Uttarakhand, unleashing nature’s fury and shattering the lives of thousands of pilgrims and local people. The number of...
Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA): China's Dangerous Trap
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 11 Jul , 2013
Writing in these columns on the brazen Chinese intrusions into Indian Territory, it had been brought out that China considers ‘minds of the hierarchy (political and bureaucratic)’ of the...
Political Islam’s Failure
By: Kanwal Sibal | Issue: Courtesy: Mail Today | Date: 09 Jul , 2013
If the overthrow of President Mubarak by the mass of protestors in Tahrir Square in 2011 was a surprise, the ouster of President Morsi by even larger protests in Tahrir Square and across Egypt in...
Joining the Security Dots: Cyber Security, Surveillance and Democracy
By: Maj Gen S G Vombatkere | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 06 Jul , 2013
Edward Snowden, in his courageous, principled expose, has brought out how USA’s National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on most nations in the world. This spying is clearly to establish or...
India’s Energy Faux Pas
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Date: 03 Jul , 2013
The emergence of shale gas on the global scene has ushered a new era of energy revolution transforming the need versus resource debate with far reaching strategic ramifications. Heightened...
Defence Acquisitions: Risk Management — Better Than Crisis Management
By: Maj Gen Mrinal Suman | Issue: Vol. 28.1 Jan-Mar 2013 | Date: 02 Jul , 2013
It is very rare that a defence acquisition programme follows the planned timelines. There are a number of reasons for the same. Over-ambitious and impractical production estimates pose major...
MoD scuttled the proposal for a Permanent Chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee
By: Col (Dr) PK Vasudeva | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 19 Jun , 2013
Unfortunately, India is not likely to get a super-General as adviser to the defence minister and also member of the cabinet committee on security for advice on defence and national security...
Peace with Pakistan: an idea whose time has passed
By: Dr Prem Mahadevan | Issue: Vol 25.1 Jan-Mar 2010 | Date: 09 Jun , 2013
A leading Indian english language newspaper has chosen to begin 2010 by stirring up controversy. It has run a series of editorials advocating peace initiatives with Pakistan, despite the manifest...
Chinese Longue Duree: PLA Modernisation
By: Pinaki Bhattacharya | Issue: Courtesy: Aakrosh | Date: 05 Jun , 2013
An impressionable Henry Kissinger, the then U.S. national security adviser, was clearly awed by the presence of his Chinese interlocutor, Zhou Enlai, steeped in revolutionary history and the...
Route-Out aur Route-In Alag Hoga
By: Rahul Chutani | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 01 Jun , 2013
“Route-Out aur Route-In Alag Hoga” said the Ustad at the Indian Military Academy. This phrase sounded too basic and too simplistic at that time to the young boys sitting there, imbibing...
Senior leadership and ‘any peg in any hole’ syndrome
By: Maj Gen Mrinal Suman | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 29 May , 2013
The news of the posting of General David Petraeus as Commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan must have been received with a certain degree of disbelief by the status-conscious Indian...
Looking beyond the DBO face off
By: Maj Gen Dhruv C Katoch | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 21 May , 2013
With the Chinese removing the four tents pitched in Indian Territory at an altitude of 17,500 feet, a few kilometers South of Daulat Beg Oldi(DBO) in the Depsang Plains in Eastern Ladakh a...
New Jihadi Magazine in English focuses on South Asia, Including Afghanistan...
By: IDR News Network | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 07 May , 2013
SITE, an Internet monitoring group, has drawn attention to a new web-based jihadi magazine in English called “Azan”. According to SITE, the magazine is believed to have been started by...
DBO: India’s Response and Defence Preparedness
By: Brig Pillalmarri Subramanyam | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 04 May , 2013
The Chinese intrusion into the area of Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) on 15th April 2013, reportedly about 15 to 18 KMs South of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), once again brought into public debate the...
Illiteracy of War Drums
By: Lt Gen Prakash Katoch | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 02 May , 2013
In a recent TV debate on the Chinese intrusion in Ladakh, to a suggestion by a veteran Army General that India should be resolute in response, a Member Parliament from the ruling party said,...
Guns, Helicopters and the Treaty
By: Kanwal Sibal | Issue: Courtesy: The Telegraph | Date: 27 Apr , 2013
The United Nations general assembly has approved the arms trade treaty on April 2, causing India some discomfiture. India participated actively in the negotiations but could not endorse the final...
Chinese Incursion in Ladakh exposes Indian Army war machinery's (Un)...
By: Col (Dr) PK Vasudeva | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 24 Apr , 2013
Surprisingly, in a deep incursion, Chinese troops have entered the Indian Territory in Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) sector in eastern Ladakh and erected a tented post without digging any trenches,...
Let’s not get too relaxed on China
By: Kanwal Sibal | Issue: Courtesy: Mail Today | Date: 24 Apr , 2013
Reports of Chinese soldiers intruding 10 kilometres into Ladakh challenge once again our assumptions about the stability of the situation on the unsettled India-China border. Our expanding...
1965 War:True Story of 2/Lt Baljit Singh- I
By: Colonel Baljit Singh | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 22 Apr , 2013
The incidents narrated ahead are based on the experience of 2nd Lieutenant Baljit Singh, 3rd Madras Infantry Battalion, 69th Infantry Brigade, who had participated in the legendary 1965 Indo-Pak...