Comment & Briefs

The Digital Silk Road can give China the power to shape global digital governance norms in its favour and the political, economic and strategic tools to be a technological hegemon, posing enormous challenges to emerging economies like India.

The GFR 2017 permit individual ministries to issue detailed instructions to address the needs and complexities of procurement carried out by them. The question is whether those principles and rules come in the way of the Ministry of Defence evolving a more efficient procurement procedure that meets the armed forces’ aspirations.

The domestic politics of the Maldives might significantly change if the position of the MDP government weakens. It might change the flavour of India–Maldives bilateral relationship and will also have an impact on the security environment in the Indian Ocean region.

The Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has not succeeded in adding any additional universal stigma to nuclear weapons. It lacks the support base needed for replacing the Cold War vintage “Mutual Assured Destruction” with “Mutual Assured Abstinence”. The nuclear weapon countries’ faith in the deterrence logic remains intact.

If existing procurement procedures are a hindrance in acquiring state-of-the-art defence materiel expeditiously, a case needs to be made out, based on demonstrable drawbacks of the existing system for a detailed blueprint of what system should replace it.

Envisioned as a sustainable alternative to China’s BRI, US-led Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative seeks to narrow down infrastructure deficit in the developing world. However, with their several distinct areas of focus, BRI & B3W can possibly share both complementary & competitive equations.

The Russia–Myanmar relationship is gathering strength. Bangladesh wants to use the increasing bonhomie between Russia and Myanmar to start a tri-lateral process to reach an amicable solution to the Rohingya refugee crisis.

The Ministry of Defence has taken significant steps in recent times to boost domestic defence manufacturing and increase the role of the private sector to reduce dependence on imports and achieve self-reliance.

The inter-state border disputes in the Northeast have persisted for long. Efforts need to be redoubled to find a political solution, mediated by the Union government, which is binding on all the states concerned in the Northeast.

The drawbacks of over-reliance on China as a single manufacturing source has led to countries adopting “China Plus One” strategy to diversify supply networks. Whether Supply Chain Resilience Initiative by India-Japan-Australia can assist in partial decoupling from China is yet to be seen.