India’s Military Modernization: Strategic Technologies and Weapons Systems, edited by Rajesh Basrur and Bharath Gopalaswamy The Oxford University Press could not have timed it better with its second part of the two-part project on Indian military modernisation in the field of advanced technologies like cruise missiles, nuclear weapons, anti-satellite weapons, missile defence, and information warfare. The adjoining regional countries of the Indian peninsula are flooded with new research vis-à-vis modern weapons and in utilising technology to develop even more advanced weaponry. It is, therefore, prudent for India to step up and be recognised for the power that it professes to be. Rikeesh Sharma January 2016 Journal of Defence Studies
Facebook’s Free Basics: A Digital Apartheid Free Basics actually leads to converting the internet, which is supposed to be a global public good, into a ‘controlled’ platform. For some this even amounts to compromising on their ‘human rights’. Ajey Lele January 07, 2016 IDSA Comments
The Iran-Saudi Confrontation: Who will win in the end? Unless addressed, the escalation of tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia can have serious adverse consequences for regional stability and peace and also for ongoing efforts to bring to an end the war in Yemen and the wars in Syria. K. P. Fabian January 06, 2016 IDSA Comments
Naga Peace Accord and the Kuki and Meitei Insurgencies in Manipur The Naga peace accord is a historic step. It needs to be followed up by correct policy interventions that serve to undercut the relevance of the Kuki and Meitei insurgencies and thus usher in peace in Manipur. Sushil Kumar Sharma January 05, 2016 Policy Brief
Nuclear India through a Western Eye Like a section of the US non-proliferation community that relishes supporting and sympathising with China and Pakistan, Levy and the Center for Public Integrity have followed the same approach. Rajiv Nayan January 04, 2016 IDSA Comments
Securing Cyberspace: International and Asian Perspectives Publisher: Pentagon Press2016 This edited volume contains the papers presented at the 18th Asian Security Conference at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses held in February 2016. The authors, drawn from government, law enforcement, diplomacy, private sector, armed forces and academia, examine a range of issues central to cybersecurity. The chapters in this volume not only provide an outline of the journey so far, but more importantly, give indicators of future trends in cybersecurity from the vantage point of the respective experts. Contributions from Asia are particularly highlighted to promote and provoke greater discussion on perspective from within the region on cybersecurity issues. ISBN 978-81-8274-918-4, Price: ₹. 1295 E-copy available Cherian Samuel , Munish Sharma Book
India–Myanmar Relations: Changing Contours by Rajiv Bhatia Myanmar is an underrated neighbour with the potential to influence India’s vital strategic and economic interests. To keep track of the pulse of the mystic nation that is India’s closest Southeast Asian neighbour demands not just a scholarly approach but an empathy and an emotional connect. Rajiv Bhatia’s book, India–Myanmar Relations, is timely as it comes during a period when Myanmar is going through a significant phase of transition. Myanmar today stands at a crossroads confronted by a combination of developments on the domestic, regional and global planes. Udai Bhanu Singh January 2016 Strategic Analysis
Right Turn in Indian Polity: Modi on BJP’s Chariot by Yogesh Atal and Sunil K. Choudhary Actors, events and processes that determine the characteristics of the political scene in contemporary India may rightly be understood via a number of tropes—all equally useful and deficient at the same time. This is especially true in case of the ongoing churning in Indian democracy. If for the decade of the 1990s the tropes were Mandal, Market and Mandir, the tropes to understand contemporary politics in India have acquired the shape of ‘Governance’ and ‘Development’. Shashank Chaturvedi January 2016 Strategic Analysis
Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years by A. S. Dulat and Aditya Sinha Until recently, most top officials in India who had dealt with very sensitive issues in government refrained from writing about them. The adage they followed was that what everyone wanted to know could not be written, and what could be written was something that no one was interested in. Not surprisingly, even when former civil servants have written anything, it has generally been a self-serving swansong of their accomplishments, which other than them no one really considers accomplishments. Sushant Sareen January 2016 Strategic Analysis
Dynamics of ‘Civil-Military’ Relations in India The burgeoning scholarship on the army’s role in nation building, or the lack of it, is unsurprising. In the modern political order, a nation without its own army is hardly imaginable. A crucial relationship exists between the two, which is also a reason for the uneasiness about the army’s pro-active involvement in the nation-making process. Political sociologists have been uncovering striking causal relationships that demonstrate the crucial role of the army and its internal ‘organisation’, ‘control’ and ‘function’ for the subsisting units of the modern world system: nation-states. Nazir Ahmad Mir January 2016 Strategic Analysis
