Despite political differences over regional issues, India and Saudi Arabia are intensifying cooperation on issues of mutual interest such as terrorism, piracy, security cooperation, and intelligence sharing.

Rather than continuing to harp on issues like inadequacy of defence outlays, the committee could actually bring about a tangible improvement in the state of defence preparedness by focusing on four specific micro areas.

The best of policies and procedures can come to naught because of indecisiveness in decision-making. There is little in DPP 2016 that addresses the problems which beset decision-making in the MoD.

While the economic-cum-strategic thrust towards CLMV countries has to be invigorated, a re-look at the Act East Policy is warranted to give it a more north-east development oriented under-pinning.