India

The Declaration pushes for a more equitable norm and the New Development Bank is an interesting outcome. The initial subscribed capital of $50 billion dollars and the responsibilities of the functioning are to be shared equally among the founding members of the bank. While China will host the headquarters, the regional centre will be located in South Africa; similarly the first President of the Bank will be from India, the First Board of Governors from Russia and the first chair of Board of Directors from Brazil.

• Ruchita Beri
• July 22, 2014
• IDSA Comments

Terrorism finance (TF) has been termed as the life blood of terrorism, one of the most important factors sustaining its continuing threat, both from within and without. In the West, a large body of work on the subject appeared after 9/11; in the Indian context, however, there is little contribution towards existing literature. This article contextualizes the reality of terrorism finance in India and provides an alternative framework for a better understanding of this threat.

• Vivek Chadha
• July 2014
• Journal of Defence Studies

The Guidelines of 2012 have been under review for some time. While a drastic shift in the policy is unlikely, some changes in the policy, clarity about some of the existing provisions and simplification of the procedure seem necessary to make the policy work better.

• Amit Cowshish
• July 17, 2014
• IDSA Comments

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.

• Amit Cowshish
• July 11, 2014
• IDSA Comments

Brazil will hold the 6th BRICS Summit of Heads of State and the Governments of BRICS from 15 July 2014 to 16 July 2014. It is a coalition of emerging economies providing alternative ideas of global governance.

• Nachiket Khadkiwala
• July 11, 2014
• Backgrounder

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.

• A. Vinod Kumar
• July 07, 2014
• IDSA Comments

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.

• Amit Cowshish
• July 01, 2014
• IDSA Comments

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.

• Abanti Bhattacharya
• June 29, 2014
• IDSA Comments

The proposal to relax the present cap on FDI in defence has expectedly drawn sharp reactions. Those who oppose argue that higher FDI is not required and, more importantly, it will not be in national interest, not the least because it will stymie the process of indigenization. This calls for a dispassionate analysis.

• Amit Cowshish
• June 26, 2014
• IDSA Comments

In principle there is nothing wrong in revisiting the doctrine but such revisions/reviews must be based on sound and valid reasons. The proponents of the doctrinal review argue that India’s existing doctrine is ill-suited to deter Pakistan from using tactical nuclear weapons against India.

• G. Balachandran , Kapil Patil
• June 20, 2014
• IDSA Comments