IDSA Comments

Diplomatic and political naivety, coupled with enormous pressure from a clueless America helplessly flailing its superpower muscle in the Af-Pak region, and of course that old disease that all Indian Prime Ministers’ suffer from – a sense of manifest destiny to normalise relations with Pakistan – have led to a Joint Statement by the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers in Sharm-el-Sheikh which is full of concessions, compromises and climb-downs by India.

• Sushant Sareen |
• July 20, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Gilani and Indian Prime Minster Manmohan Singh signed a joint statement on July 16, 2009 at Sharm el-Sheikh inEgypt on the margins of theNAM summit. In India the statement has been seen as a softening of India’s stand towards Pakistan. In Pakistan it has been seen as a “victory” for Pakistani diplomacy.

• Arvind Gupta |
• July 20, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

It is a dream project not only for India’s space research organization (ISRO) but for all Indians. With the successful launch of the Moon Mission, ISRO had put India into the bracket of deep-space achievers. The world took serious note of India’ space programme when in October 2008 ISRO successfully launched its satellite Chandrayan-1 towards the moon. If the 1998 Pokharan nuclear tests had helped India demonstrate its ‘hard power’ status, the success of the moon mission indirectly played a significant role towards establishing the ‘soft power’ credentials of the country.

• Ajey Lele |
• July 20, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed the U.S.-India Business Council in Washington D.C. on 17th June rekindling hope that India-U.S. relations could regain some of the traction lost under the Obama administration. She is now on a visit to India and it would be keenly watched for the actions she would take to match her words, especially since there is a growing uneasiness at the U.S. insensitivity to some of India’s important concerns. And the list of issues that could poison India-U.S. relations is getting longer.

• Thomas Mathew |
• July 19, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

The US Department of Defence has been contemplating whether to lift the ban on F-22 exports, the fifth generation stealth aircraft. This would mean that many of the US allies namely Japan, Israel and others might become interested in procuring the aircraft. For Japan it would provide much needed air superiority to the Japanese Air Force concerned at North Korean long range missiles and nuclear capabilities (even though the US has stationed a dozen F-22s at Kadena air base in Japan since May 2009). Israel would like to get the aircraft to launch any pre-emptive strike on Iran.

• Pankaj K Jha |
• July 13, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Referring to India’s recent troop deployment in Arunachal Pradesh and the construction of a new airbase at Tezpur, Assam, Zhang Haizjou writing in China Daily on June 10, 2009 states that “India is attempting to extend its control over a disputed border area…” Similarly, Li Hongmei writing in the People’s Daily has held India responsible for hiking tension over Arunachal Pradesh by harbouring “awe, vexation, envy and jealousy – in the face of its giant neighbour” China.

• Jagannath P. Panda |
• July 10, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

It all started on 26 June in the toy factory owned by the Hong Kong-listed Lacewood International in China’s Shaoguan city of Guangdong province. An official news agency wrote "Six Xinjiang boys raped two innocent girls at the Xuri Toy Factory." It was found to be a hoax, but the rumour spread quickly through the Internet sparking a deadly clash between the Uighur workers and Han Chinese who fought each other with knives and metal pipes in which two Uighur labourers were reportedly killed and 118 injured.

• P. Stobdan |
• July 09, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Critics have it that the last bout of reforms in India’s defence sector in the wake of Kargil has not been taken to its logical conclusion. There are two key areas over which there is considerable debate. One is the continuing absence of a Chief of Defence Staff, and the second is the cosmetic integration between the Ministry of Defence and the Service Headquarters. It is asserted that the latter is the result of bureaucrats protecting their turf in a perverse interpretation of civil control.

• Ali Ahmed |
• July 06, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Taliban represent a present and clear danger to Pakistan. This is because, firstly, they seem to have finally lost faith in Pakistani commitment towards their cause and are not willing to accommodate any more its policy of running with the Talibani hare and hunting with the American hound.

• P. K. Upadhyay |
• July 02, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

The United States House of Representatives passed a landmark legislation H.R. 2454, the "American Clean Energy and Security Act," by a narrow margin of 219-212 on 26 June 2009. This bill requires the reduction of nationwide greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent of the 2005 level by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050 through a "cap-and-trade" program under which companies would buy and sell emissions credits. The bill has more hurdles to cross before it becomes a law.

• Avinash Godbole |
• July 01, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) held its ninth summit on June15 -16, 2009 in Yekaterinburg. The Heads of the SCO member states, observer states and guests of the host state - President of Afghanistan, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Executive Secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Secretary-General of the Eurasian Economic Community, and Secretary-General of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, participated in the meeting.

• Meena Singh Roy |
• June 24, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

South China Sea is a disputed maritime area. This is because of the multiple and often overlapping maritime claims on parts of the Sea by China, many ASEAN countries (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam) and Taiwan. Two incidents in the past one month have brought the issue once again to the forefront. In May, the Chinese permanent mission at the United Nations (UN) presented a note to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon claiming sovereignty over 80 per cent of South China Sea including the disputed islands of Paracel and Spratly.

• Sandeep Anand |
• June 23, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

The delicately maintained fragile peace in Northeast Asia received a severe jolt when North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test on May 25, 2009, followed by the test launch of four short-range missiles. Earlier on April 5, North Korea had launched a long-range rocket, which drew condemnation from the UN Security Council (UNSC) in the form of a strong presidential statement.

• Pranamita Baruah |
• June 23, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Australia is not a racist country. The state has some of the toughest laws against racial discrimination. Though there is a history of discrimination against its aboriginal population today the country is sensitive to matters concerning race and ethnicity.

• Namrata Goswami |
• June 22, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

It is obvious today that realpolitik is shaping the relationship between the world powers and China. There was hardly any debate on the Tiananmen Square Incident barring a few newspaper articles. It appears is that the world order has accepted the way China behaves and is also ready to make concessions on the Human Rights issues as seen during the Tibetan Uprising last year. The question is why is the world ready to make so many compromises when it comes to China?

• Gunjan Singh |
• June 19, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

In recent months the international media has focused on the issue of Pakistan becoming a failed state soon. A top US counter terrorism expert David Kilcullen who advised David Petreaus in Iraq on counter terrorism strategy has opined that Pakistan may fail within six months. Concerns about stability in Pakistan became more acute when Taliban began their advance out of Swat towards Punjab earlier this year. The media highlighted the fragility of Pakistan by pointing out that the Taliban had come within 100 miles of Islamabad.

• Arvind Gupta |
• June 16, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is attending a slew of Russian hosted high profile meetings including those of the SCO and BRIC in Yekaterinburg which would be viewed keenly by most international watchers. The SCO, keenly nurtured by Russia and China as an exclusive nucleus, had hitherto excluded those with observer status from its core deliberations. The forum became popular as an embryonic counterpoise to the United States after 2005 when it bluntly issued a quit notice to the US from Central Asia and decided to salvage an assortment of autocrats being ostracized by the West.

• P. Stobdan |
• June 16, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

The European Union (EU) is going to have its first-ever summit with Pakistan on June 17 in Brussels. In Asia the EU has only three strategic partners, namely China, India and Japan, with whom it holds standard annual and occasionally half-yearly summits. Britain is the only country in Europe that holds annual summits with Pakistan. However, even these purportedly annual summits are irregular and have often been mired in controversy whenever a terrorist attack takes place in the UK or terrorist plots are unraveled and foiled by British agencies.

• Alok Rashmi Mukhopadhyay |
• June 12, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Following the arrest of one of the most wanted insurgent leaders of Assam, the state government must immediately act tough against other insurgent groups operating in the hill districts of the state.

• M. Amarjeet Singh |
• June 12, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Sri Lanka has achieved military victory over Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). This fight against the LTTE has had different connotations for both India and China. In the current scenario India had to be neutral as this definitely would have had repercussions on Indian soil. The involvement of Tamil’s had put to test the Indian internal security. And thus the Indian government had to decide not to supply arms and ammunitions to the Sri Lankan government in its fight against the LTTE.

• Gunjan Singh |
• June 08, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments