Comment & Briefs

While India has a reliable vehicle for launching less than 2 tonne satellites into LEO, it lacks the necessary infrastructure to obtain larger commercial benefits from this capability.

The security audit should be done in a realistic frame and may include some interlocutors and officers of the C&AG`s department given their understanding of the functioning of the state government machinery at various tiers as well as their independence of approach.

By extending the notion of national security to the domains of space and the earth’s poles, the Chinese government has expressed its determination to undertake every measure to safeguard interests even in areas beyond the national border.

Even if China has not stated that it cannot settle the border question with India in the immediate future, its actions certainly hint at its preference for border peace and control over an early resolution.

Will Europe sleepwalk into a Grexit and the attendant collapse of Euro and the European Union as it did in World War I about a hundred years ago? The answer depends mainly on Chancellor Merkel.

Indian Navy must focus fresh attention on the challenge posed by the Pakistan-China maritime nexus in the Western Indian Ocean.

Modi would find the Eurasian dynamics at odds with his vision of containing China along with the United States. He will have to display pragmatism for building greater convergence with China and Russia.

To reconnect with the Eurasian market, India needs to explore the option of a direct land-link through China, i.e., reviving the traditional Ladakh-Xinjiang axis as the natural gateway to Eurasia.

There are also grey areas to the extent that the professional and hierarchical relationship which the Consultants will have with regular IFS officers is yet to be clearly outlined.

East and Southeast Asia are known to get affected by various diseases routinely. Particularly, various waterborne and other diseases likely malaria and dengue fever commonly affect the regions. There is a concern that global warming may translate into explosive growth of mosquito-borne diseases. In addition to this, growing number of natural disasters are found escalating the health related challenges. All this eventually poses a threat to health, economic and human security.