Comment & Briefs

There are speculations whether the present budget is sufficient to meet expenditure on big ticket items but one has to bear in mind that it is only the advance payment – generally 15% of the contract value – that becomes payable on signing of a new contract. Even if new contracts are signed for say INR 50,000 crore, MoD will require just about INR 7,500 crore for those schemes.

Boko Haram has recently emerged as one of the deadliest and most brutal terrorist groups with links to the global jihadi movement. The group is grounded in a region where it can tap into ethnic ties and take advantage of weak security environment, generic condition of lawlessness and socio-economic marginalization.

The editorial also intrinsically marks the return of the ‘pro-Pakistan’ lobby in the US non-proliferation community, and the American media, which was culpable in encouraging the many indulgences of the Pakistani military and nuclear establishment for many decades and facilitating favourable non-proliferation policies for Pakistan to effectively pursue a clandestine nuclear programme with technological aid from Western companies.

The government in Baghdad has lost control over a stretch of territory to ISIL. It follows that Iraq is at present inexorably moving towards dissolution. In any case, it will be a difficult if not impossible task to recover in full the territory under the ISIL and its associates.

The author recounts his memories of the US military base at Manas International Airport in Bishkek, which was the hub for onward movement of about 15,000 troops and 500 tons of cargo a month to and from Afghanistan. The folding of the US base has not only put an end to the US-Central Asia saga but in effect the US overseas military presence is now retracted to the line of its power limits in Europe.

On 3rd July 1914 nearly a hundred years ago at Simla, Tibet and India signed the Simla Convention that gave birth to the McMahon Line separating Tibet from India in the eastern sector. Much is made by some that the Simla Convention was not a legal document but from the time of the Convention till 23rd January 1959, the Chinese government never officially, in any document, ever challenged the McMahon Line.

The Defence Minister made two significant points: one, the need for making a significant amount of the nation’s resources available for defence and two, he talked about the slow pace of acquisition of defence equipment as the key concern. These are unexceptional statements of intent and the challenge would be to meet these objectives.

There is no one nationalist Sri Lankan view. Among the Sinhalas, there are also the liberals who are quite realistic about their assessments and would argue that there may be a change in leadership in India, but the cornerstone of India’s policy vis-à-vis Sri Lanka will remain the same. The Tamils, on the other hand, are unanimous in their view that India can and should play a major role in bringing meaningful political reconciliation to the country.

While the visit was proposed as a good will visit, some of the issues that have been bedeviling bilateral relations came up for discussion particularly, from the Bangladesh side, the conclusion of Teesta and the ratification of the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA). The EAM assured Dhaka that New Delhi would conclude the LBA and is already in the process of building a consensus on Teesta.

The global thrust on economic integration has certainly accrued greater space to India that the non-alignment actually stands for. It allows India to reach out to both the US and China without fear of taking sides and draw in the benefits from both of manufacturing, investments, trade and commerce.