Strategic Analysis

India’s Nuclear Energy Programme: Prospects and Challenges

India has announced ambitious plans to expand its nuclear energy programme nearly 15 fold in the next 20 years, from the current 4,500 MWe to about 62,000 MWe by 2032. By 2020, India's Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) plans to install 20,000 MWe of nuclear power generation capacity (the fifth largest in the world). The department has plans beyond 2030 too. According to these plans India will have the capacity to produce 275 GWe (Giga Watt of electricity) of nuclear power by the year 2052.

Pakistan: Crisis is Inherent

On March 23 every year a ritual is performed in Pakistan: observation of Pakistan Day. Forty-two years ago on this day, the Muslim League, which then was 34 years old, adopted a resolution in Lahore demanding separation of Muslims from India. The president of the League, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, expounded a theory that Hindus and Muslims were two different nations.

Living Weapons: Biological Warfare and International Security by Gregory D. Koblentz

Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2009, pp. 256, $35, ISBN 978-0-8014-4768-6

Makers of Modern India by Ramchandra Guha

Penguin Viking, New Delhi, 2010, Rs. 799, ISBN 9780670083855

India and China – Neighbours, Strangers by Ira Pande

(ed.), HarperCollins, India 2010, Rs. 699, ISBN 978-81-72223-960-2

The Frugal Superpower: America’s Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era by Michael Mandelbaum

PublicAffairs, New York, 2010, pp. 213, ISBN 978-1-58648-916-8

Confronting Terrorism by Maroof Raza

(ed.), Penguin Viking, India, 2009, pp. 201, Rs. 450, ISBN 9780670083695

Averting Armageddon

It is a little-known fact that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India had proposed a ‘standstill agreement’ to prohibit the further testing of nuclear weapons as early as 1953. In effect, it was an initial step toward a comprehensive ban on the testing of nuclear weapons with the aim of their eventual elimination. That goal, of course, has proven to be quite elusive. Despite the conclusion of a Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, pursuing a comprehensive test ban remained a chimera as new nuclear powers entered the global arena and a spate of nuclear tests ensued.

Kashmir: The Problem, and the Way Forward

There is an overwhelming sense of déjà vu in Kashmir today. This could have been deemed tiresome but for the grave implications it has for us as a nation, and as a people. We are now used to long cycles of violence interspersed by political ennui or tokenism and the ubiquitous ‘economic package’ which only serves to open up newer avenues for corruption in a state orphaned by history and politics for over six decades.

Empowering the Kashmiris

Insurgencies as well as popular unrests are generally rooted in political, social and economic deprivations, which in turn lead to the alienation and estrangement of a community. A popular sentiment seeking the empowerment of Muslim Kashmiris has been in existence for the past five centuries. History is replete with instances of the political deprivation and poverty of Kashmiri people during periods of their subjugation by the Mughals, the Pathans, the Sikhs and later the Dogras. Kashmiri alienation took firm roots during the Dogra rule (1846–1947).