ISRO needs to conduct a thorough enquiry particularly because failure in a time-tested and launch proven “stage one technology” is undesirable.

The conflict over rare earths is not only a consequence of the monopoly amassed by China but is also reflective of the current flux in global power hierarchies.

Would China’s strategic error in inviting Japanese hostility place more blocks to its rise as an unchallenged regional power or would it be able to override the Japanese threat in ample measure by altering its strategic game and finding a meeting ground with the United States?

Kan’s statement about sending the SDF to the Korean peninsula to rescue Japanese citizens and people of Japanese origin in the event of an emergency has raised the spectre of a possible revival of Japanese militarism.