Comment & Briefs

If a product is indigenously designed, developed and manufactured, should the percentage of indigenous content in that product really matter so much?

It is time India devised a cohesive national policy to guard its interests in space and effectively address existing and emerging challenges.

The Task Force has not extended the principle of Strategic Partnership to the whole gamut of big contracts in which the private sector is supposed to play a major role. And it visualises strategic partners as poor cousins of state-owned entities.

The need of the moment is an encryption policy that does not come in the way of innovation but at the same time reduces undue opportunities for criminal and terrorist activities.

China’s continuing complicity in nuclear proliferation networks would weaken the global nuclear security regime. Hence, China must cooperate with the international community for reinvesting the benefits achieved by the Nuclear Security Summit process, and help develop stronger nuclear security architecture in the Indian subcontinent.

SAARC satellite was an opportunity for Pakistan to display its enthusiasm for space cooperation with India, but its strategic calculations appear to have ‘jammed’ its vision.

Settler entrenchment has reached a point where no peaceful assimilation of the entire West Bank into a compact territory of a future Palestine state and a harmonious division of Jerusalem city linked to this entity may be possible.

Introduction of the ‘Buy (Indian-IDDM)’ procurement category, the revamped ‘Make’ procedure, structural change in AAP, and higher and flexible indigenous content requirement in certain procurement categories are all likely to deepen the involvement of domestic industry in defence production.

‘Transfer of Technology’ does not magically elevate defence production capabilities to cutting-edge levels and help attain future self-reliance because technology sellers employ restrictive trade practices to prevent such an eventuality.

Defence planning has had a troubled history since its inception, in spite of several experiments with the structures and processes of planning. It will, therefore, be in the fitness of things to re-evaluate the existing architecture of planning.