India

Today, military historians as well as those dealing with colonial South Asian history tend to overlook the fact that during the First World War, the Indian Army was Britain’s strategic reserve. It vitally despatched over 150,000 troops to the Western Front to shore-up the British sector in the critical period of 1914-1915. To the Indian sepoys who crossed the kala pani to fight, die or be wounded in the trenches there, it was a jarring initiation into modern industrialised warfare.

• Chandar S. Sundaram
• October 2015
• Journal of Defence Studies

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.

• Ajey Lele
• July 16, 2015
• IDSA Comments

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.

• P. Stobdan
• July 08, 2015
• IDSA Comments

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.

• Gautam Sen
• July 06, 2015
• IDSA Comments

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.

• P. Stobdan
• July 06, 2015
• IDSA Comments

The BBIN-MVA would enable seamless sub-regional connectivity, deeper integration on economic issues and people-to-people contact between the four counties.

• Nihar R. Nayak
• June 19, 2015
• IDSA Comments

India’s ministerial presence at the Shangri La Dialogue could have helped India to articulate the new government’s strategic thought and expand from the realm of military diplomacy to defence diplomacy. So, is India’s defence establishment blind to probable benefits of participating in the Dialogue or are they thinking differently?

• Ajey Lele
• May 29, 2015
• IDSA Comments

Nehru fought for Mongolia’s status at the United Nation. Today, Modi’s India has greater economic strength to nurture the relationship with Mongolia.

• P. Stobdan
• May 13, 2015
• IDSA Comments

At a time when the battlefield has been progressively transforming from the conventional to unconventional, the role of Special Forces will become critical in shaping its outcome. Conflicts in the past decade have established the primacy of such forces. Their role has evolved and today special operations are meant to be decisive and achieve strategic objectives. The Indian security establishment has also been taking notice of these changes and by and large making right moves.

• Amit Kumar
• April 2015
• Journal of Defence Studies

Three months after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was swept to power at the centre in the general elections held in April–May 2014 to the 16th Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Indian Parliament), the Standing Committee on Defence was constituted under the chairmanship of Major General B.C. Khanduri (Retd.), former Chief Minister of the northern state of Uttarakhand and a prominent member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the main constituent of the NDA.

• Amit Cowshish
• April 2015
• Journal of Defence Studies