Successful PSLV-C20/SARAL Mission: India’s French “Space” Connect For almost the last 50 years, space collaboration has significantly remained intact between France and India. They have worked together on a range of issues from satellite applications, developing small satellites to earth system science and weather satellites. Ajey Lele | March 07, 2013 | IDSA Comments
Innovation: The New Mantra for Science and Technology Policies in India, Pakistan and China “Innovation” has become a buzz word in recent science and technology policies of various countries. It has also been given ample importance in the science and technology policies and programmes of India, China and Pakistan. It is interesting to know on what exactly these countries are focusing in their recent science and technology policies and how these new policies and programmes will help them in social development, economic growth, technology innovation and pursuing national interests. Swati Bute | March 07, 2013 | Backgrounder
India’s Defence Budget 2013-14: A Bumpy Road Ahead A GDP growth of less than seven per cent combined with the fiscal consolidation path that the Finance Minister has articulated in his budget speech means a lot of pressure on the defence ministry whose plan for current and future expenditure up to 2017 is based on past GDP growth rate of 8 to 9 per cent. Laxman Kumar Behera | March 04, 2013 | IDSA Comments
The Defence Budget 2013-14: Reasonable in the Existing Circumstances but Need for Re-orientation and Reform There is a need for an overhaul of the defence planning and budgeting systems to make them outcome oriented, which will lead to the development and maintenance of requisite capability through the defence forces as an entity over a specified long-term horizon. Gautam Sen | March 04, 2013 | IDSA Comments
India’s Defence Budget: Trends Beyond the Numbers In the larger scheme of things, fiscal prudence is a good trait and the reduction in deficits desirable, yet an overtly ambitious approach of reducing deficits into a number game may lead to developments that may hurt us not only in the security arena but in economic growth as well. G. Balachandran , Shruti Pandalai | March 04, 2013 | IDSA Comments
Countering Terrorism: The Way Forward A National Counter Terrorism Head needs to be established with the single point authority for all CT activity and with authorization to muster all resources within the country. The authority vested in him will be matched by his accountability to every terrorist strike. V. Mahalingam | March 03, 2013 | IDSA Comments
Bangladesh–Myanmar ITLOS Verdict: Precedence for India? The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is a body set up under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to deal with disputes that emerge because of a difference in the interpretation and application of the convention. 1 Bangladesh has had an ongoing maritime boundary dispute with India and Myanmar since 1974. On 14 March 2012, the ITLOS delivered a verdict and ended the long-running maritime boundary dispute between Bangladesh and Myanmar. Riddhi Shah | March 2013 | Strategic Analysis
Vortex of Conflict: US Policy toward Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq by Caldwell Dan The United States is currently facing daunting security challenges in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. In the midst of a growing domestic economic crisis and anti-Americanism abroad, there is an ongoing debate in the academic and policy-making circles questioning the basic American foreign policy goals towards these countries. For the present, it seems that the restoration of peace, stability and security and normal diplomatic relations with these countries is still a distant prospect. In this context, Dr. Saroj Bishoyi | March 2013 | Strategic Analysis
Strategic Importance of Radio Kashmir in Countering Pakistan’s War of Words against India Like any other government-owned media institution, Radio Kashmir has historically been entrusted with a mission to safeguard the territorial integrity of India and help in guarding its vital strategic interests. It acts as an agency that bridges the gap between the government and the people and creates a favourable opinion of India as a strong, modern and secular democracy in a region where fundamentalism and military ambitions have created rogue states. Rajesh Krishan Bhat | March 2013 | Strategic Analysis
Internal Conflicts: Military Perspectives by V.R. Raghavan (ed.)Vij Books, New Delhi, 2012, 324 pp. Internal Conflicts: Military Perspectives by V.R. Raghavan (ed.) India's tryst with destiny began on 15 August 1947. It did not take long for both conventional and sub-conventional challenges to manifest in the onward journey of the nascent country thereafter. While a number of accounts have since been written of state and region-specific insurgencies as a subset of sub-conventional threats, this edited volume attempts to analyse the conflicts from a military perspective. Vivek Chadha | March 2013 | Strategic Analysis