Comment & Briefs

The Hasina Government is in overdrive to meet the Covid-19 challenge head on, and ensure that this unforeseen threat does not snowball into a major national crisis.

Draft DPP-2020 marks a paradigm shift from the past in many respects. It contains several new features intended to hasten the procurement process and provide a further fillip to the Make in India initiative in defence.

There is a need to act quickly on the issue of force majeure to scotch all speculations about how the MoD is going to deal with the inevitable delay in performance of contracts and instil confidence among the vendors.

China has faced international condemnation and domestic unrest over its manipulation of information relating to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

COVID-19 presents a unique opportunity to the global new-age mega corporations to up their game and showcase their innovativeness and resourcefulness.

Even after five decades of its entry-into-force, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is largely seen as a Cold War era instrument that has failed to fulfill the objective of creating a pathway towards a credible disarmament process.

While maintaining cyber hygiene in these disruptive times is indeed a challenge, each organisation should work towards putting in place a tailor-made work-from-home cyber defence strategy.

The SIPRI report on the volume of international arms transfers during 2015-19 highlights the strengths of key strategic partnerships such as Russia-India, US-Japan and China-Pakistan, reinforced by arms trade.

Reforming defence pension is no more an option but a compulsion considering its exponential growth in the past, which is likely to continue in the future if no reform is undertaken.

The European Union-3 and Iran are indeed up against formidable odds to keep the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) alive going forward.