We need a CJCS, not CDS In the light of the renewal of the debate on higher defence reform, there were some questions on the late K Subrahmanyam’s views on the matter. In my few interactions with him, Mr Subrahmanyam was resolutely in favour of a US-style Joint Chiefs of Staff and with theatre commands. ...
China is at its most vulnerable moment since the Tiananmen Square upheaval of 1989. At a recent panel discussion at the College of Defence Management, Secunderabad, I argued that it is important to include the dimension of China’s vulnerabilities in the way we see the India-China dynamic. The following is a summary of my remarks: ...
Manage grievances, improve social capital, take security seriously and get better ambulances. This appeared in Saturday’s DNA. It’s not difficult to set off a bomb blast in Mumbai, or for that matter in any Indian city. It doesn’t require the person to be highly trained, it just requires the person to be motivated enough to ...
Here is a preliminary, and hence, tentative assessment of yesterday’s terrorist attacks on Mumbai. 1. Regardless of who set off the three coordinated bomb blasts, it was an act of terrorism. Even if the explosives were set off by members of organised crime syndicates, as some initially suggested, they constitute terrorism. Terrorism is political theatre ...
Can we help Washington and Tehran to get over it? This is the unedited version of yesterday’s column in Business Standard. As the war in Afghanistan enters what might be an endgame, it remains clear that there is broad convergence of geopolitical interests between two sets of players: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China on the ...
Washington is negotiating by other methods So the Obama administration has announced that it has suspended $800m in aid to the Pakistani military establishment, amounting to around a third of the annual outlay. This is a bold departure from the traditional throw-more-money-at-the-problem approach that has not quite worked for the United States, Pakistan or other ...
US State Department’s view on India’s regional role Here’s an excerpt from the transcript of an online Q&A with Robert Blake, US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia. Nitin Pai: You have been one of the few U.S. officials to state that India is part of East Asia. How do you see ...
And is making the Pakistani military establishment squirm Abdul Qadeer Khan wrote a 11-page confession in 2004. He also wrote and spirited out of Pakistan copies of another letter in 2003 to buy him protection from the Pakistani military-jihadi complex. Simon Henderson, a former British journalist, acquired a copy of the letter in 2007, by ...
The following is the civil society’s draft of the Fasting & Political Blackmail (Regulation) Bill, 2011 (also known as Jan Fast Pal or #FastingBill2011). This Bill has been compiled using inputs from members of the civil society including @Acorn, @Pragmatic_D, @Calamur, @Filter_C, @SudhaKanago, @Smitaprakash, @mango_indian, @sjagadish and @spinoza9642 The full list of participants and their ...