Northeast India continues to be an industrially underdeveloped and infrastructurally deficient region. The poor condition of infrastructure in the region demands serious attention. Studies in the region reveal that a people’s perspective of development, i.e., roads, electricity, telecommunications and water, falls rightly within the ambit of critical infrastructure. Critical infrastructure is directly linked to economic development, national security, access and availability of educational and health infrastructure.
Strategic culture as a concept is generally understood as pertaining to the influence of the cultural dimension in national strategy. The concept rose to prominence due to the inability of the structural realist theory to explain differences in behavioural patterns among nations. However, a diverse array of perspectives has evolved on the concept, spanning four generations of theorization, giving rise to numerous debates.
Ladakh is one of the largest administrative units in India, in terms of its territory. Due to its contiguity with Xinjiang and Tibet and its close proximity to Central Asia, and enjoying a central position in the network of overland caravan routes that were linked to the Silk Route, Ladakh acted as an important gateway in the Indo-Central Asian exchange of men, materials and ideas through the ages.
Sujata Ashwarya, Israel’s Mediterranean Gas: Domestic Governance, Economic Impact, and Strategic Implications, Routledge, London and New York, 2019, 312 pp., Rs.1,495 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-367-37503-4
National security—in its traditional sense—is associated with the protection of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a state, as well as its critical interests abroad. However, the lethal nature of pandemics is increasingly raising scientific awareness about their national security dimensions.
