Interviews/Spotlights
Defining Victory: The Dilemma in Anti-Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency
By: Col Harjeet Singh | Issue: Vol 24.3 Jul-Sep 2009 | Date: 12 Jan , 2011
The usage of the term, ‘war’ when battling terrorism or insurgency raises several issues. An important one is the use of the term ‘victory’ to delineate the desired objective in this...
Indian Energy Security-II
By: Ashish Puntambekar | Issue: Vol 23.1 Jan-Mar 2008 | Date: 29 Dec , 2010
The Indian Need India is growing fast. Last year, a survey of some 600 companies by the NCAER found that an astonishing 96 percent of them were operating at close to their optimal levels of...
Indian Energy Security-III
By: Ashish Puntambekar | Issue: Vol 23.1 Jan-Mar 2008 | Date: 29 Dec , 2010
The Pipelines SPV The pipelines Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV 2) will be a consortium of Indian energy companies and strategic investors some of whom will be investing primarily for tax purposes....
France & Nuclear Disarmament between vision & realism-III
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 25.4 Oct-Dec 2010 | Date: 24 Dec , 2010
The second part of the speech is consecrated to disarmament. It is probably the most detailed account by a French President When international security improves, France draws the consequences....
France & Nuclear Disarmament between vision & realism-II
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 25.4 Oct-Dec 2010 | Date: 23 Dec , 2010
People are ‘reproducible’ the Great Helmsman is said to have stated. That day, Nehru understood that India and China were not brothers, though Mao was at his charming best, when Nehru left...
France & Nuclear Disarmament between vision & realism-I
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 25.4 Oct-Dec 2010 | Date: 22 Dec , 2010
The question of nuclear disarmament has always given rise to diverse, if not opposite reactions. Commentators have described the positions of different nations (and sometimes within the same...
Burma to Japan with Azad Hind-III
By: Air Commodore Ramesh S Benegal | Issue: Book Excerpt: Burma to Japan with Azad Hind | Date: 19 Dec , 2010
The story goes that the aircraft managed to land on the runway that night amidst the confusion that existed at the base with aircraft landing and taking off in streams. The commandos managed to...
Burma to Japan with Azad Hind-II
By: Air Commodore Ramesh S Benegal | Issue: Book Excerpt: Burma to Japan with Azad Hind | Date: 18 Dec , 2010
The first two months of our training were devoted to toughening us up and putting us through ground subjects such as the principles of flight, meteorology, aero-engines and some Japanese military...
The Great Game: 21st Century Version-III
By: Vikram Sood | Issue: Vol 22.3 Jul-Sep 2007 | Date: 16 Dec , 2010
Both China and Pakistan are getting ready for an economic boom that will include transit trade to Central Asia. The Pakistan Army’s National Logistics Cell, which has a near monopoly, will...
The Great Game: 21st Century Version-II
By: Vikram Sood | Issue: Vol 22.3 Jul-Sep 2007 | Date: 15 Dec , 2010
The new US foreign policy of “transformational diplomacy” is not merely about just reporting the world as it is but about replicating nation-states into US clones. Post conflict multinational...
The Great Game: 21st Century Version-I
By: Vikram Sood | Issue: Vol 22.3 Jul-Sep 2007 | Date: 14 Dec , 2010
The Rules of the Game:The current century began in an intensely violent manner and there are no signs of a let up. Two and a half deadly wars are being fought in our neighbourhood and threaten to...
Inside Iraq: Five Days in Hell-III
By: Scott Taylor | Issue: Vol 25.3 Jul-Sep 2010 | Date: 10 Dec , 2010
“We are Ansar al-Islam.” …I knew that this group …had links to al-Qaeda. When it had proved impossible to enter Mosul safely, we had circled back into the desert and spent the night at...
Inside Iraq: Five Days in Hell-II
By: Scott Taylor | Issue: Vol 25.3 Jul-Sep 2010 | Date: 09 Dec , 2010
“She is encouraging her ‘sons’ to go out and become martyrs and die in battle…” In the morning, Tal Afar was strangely quiet except for the continuous buzzing of the unmanned Predators...
Inside Iraq: Five Days in Hell-I
By: Scott Taylor | Issue: Vol 25.3 Jul-Sep 2010 | Date: 08 Dec , 2010
This is a first hand account of a journalist, Scott Taylor, about his tryst with death at the hands of Islamic extremists in Iraq about five years back. The religious and social dynamics in the...
Taiwan's courtship with India-II
By: Prakash Nanda | Issue: Book Excerpt: Rising India | Date: 07 Dec , 2010
Major Advantages: First, given the importance of China in Indian foreign policy, Indian policy makers, foreign policy analysts and think tanks must understand Beijing well. This is particularly...
Taiwan's courtship with India-I
By: Prakash Nanda | Issue: Book Excerpt: Rising India | Date: 06 Dec , 2010
Ever since the communists under the late Mao Tse-tung forced the then Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek in 1949 to flee to Taiwan, the situation across the Taiwan straits that separate Mainland...
Indo-French Friendship to Partnership-III
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 23.1 Jan-Mar 2008 | Date: 05 Dec , 2010
Obstacles to Indo-French Relations: At the outset, it is necessary to point out that today no major political differences darken the sky between Paris and Delhi except, of course, the unexpected...
Indo-French Friendship to Partnership-II
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 23.1 Jan-Mar 2008 | Date: 04 Dec , 2010
Phase 2: 1971-1990: The Office of the Historian of the US State Department which has recently released the declassified documents of the Nixon Administration terms the policy of the US President...
Navy to build blue-water capability with a balanced force structure, says...
By: Bharat Verma | Issue: Vol 25.1 Jan-Mar 2010 | Date: 01 Dec , 2010
Admiral Nirmal Verma interviewed by IDR One of the most significant events in the recent times has been the commissioning of India’s nuclear submarine in July this year, even if she has a way...
26/11: Pak Army Irregulars attack Mumbai-II
By: B Raman | Issue: Book Excerpt: Mumbai 26/11 | Date: 26 Nov , 2010
According to the Hindustan Times ( December 2, 2008), the LeT’s name as the main plotter of a sea-borne terrorist strike in Mumbai directed against some sea front hotels figured in three...