Isolated statements from China and Pakistan soliciting India’s participation in CPEC could be part of a strategic mind-game. India must consider engaging astutely in this mind-game.
Guterres has to forcefully convey to the new US administration that the US-UN relationship is a two-way street, where both parties need each other to safeguard their respective interests.
While certain changes in the format of the defence Demand for Grants have brought even more complexity to the task of estimating India’s official defence budget, the fact remains that there has only been a meagre increase of 5 per cent which is grossly inadequate to keep the Armed Forces in fighting form.
Suriname’s national army remains critically deficient in terms of air transport and maritime surveillance aircraft. It is an open question whether country’s armed forces will prove equal to the task of combating transnational organised crime.
If the defence expenditure relationship to the GDP of 1.65 per cent is maintained, we may see a budget estimate (BE) for defence expenditure of Rs. 285,000 crores, against the current year BE of Rs. 249,099 crores.
While the New Year attack in Istanbul underscores Turkey’s endemic vulnerabilities, India too needs to be on guard. Messaging by the ISIS is often followed by action.
The presentation of the Union budget on February 1 is expected to ensure full utilisation of allocated funds and will ensure that ‘New Schemes’ can be processed, approved and contracted from April 1, 2017.
Through this white paper, China has affirmed its regional ambitions and aims to shape the regional security agenda in the Asia Pacific on its stated terms.
The 2017 Conference also comes at a time when the existing international discourses on securing cyberspace, whether it be the UNGGE process or the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), seem to be unable to cope with the accelerated developments in cyberspace.
While the December 2016 White Paper sheds enough light on China’s growing ambitions in the space sector, it at the same time only reveals what China wants the rest of the world to know.
