Strategic Analysis

Food Security in India: Evolution, Efforts and Problems

This article examines India’s efforts to achieve food security. It traces the problem, from the inadequate production of food grains during colonial times, to the challenges of procurement, storage and...

D. Padma Kumar Pillay , T.K. Manoj Kumar |
November 2018 |
Strategic Analysis

Security Challenges and the Management of the India–Myanmar Border

Being highly porous, poorly guarded and located along a remote, underdeveloped, insurgency-prone region and proximate to one of the world’s largest five opium producing areas, the India–Myanmar border is vulnerable...

Pushpita Das |
November 2018 |
Strategic Analysis

Transformation of Indo-Bangladesh Relations: From Insecurity to Cooperation in Northeast India

Bangladesh and India are enjoying increasingly close relations in the latter’s northeastern region. This represents a transformation in the two countries’ past relationship, which was characterised by suspicion, distrust and...

Building militaries in fragile states: challenges for the United States

Mara E. Karlin in her book, Building Militaries in Fragile States: Challenges for the United States, investigates when, why and under what circumstances, US efforts to build partner militaries for...

Zalmay Khalilzad, The envoy: from Kabul to the White House, my journey through a turbulent world

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has provided a most readable account of his upbringing, his stint in the US National Security Council and his ambassadorships to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations....

Jayant Prasad |
September 2018 |
Strategic Analysis

Balochistan: On The International Drugs Superhighway

Pakistan’s Balochistan province, which shares borders with Iran and Afghanistan, has quietly functioned as one of the main arteries through which Afghanistan’s massive opium crop reaches the outer world. Six...

Sandhya Jain |
September 2018 |
Strategic Analysis

Power Trading and National Security

Power trading across borders is not a new concept, even in the subcontinent. However, it has been sporadic and unstructured and often not in strict consonance with the requirements of...

The Current and Future State of India–Bangladesh Relations

At the outset, we must remind ourselves that Indo–Bangladesh cooperation began in the battlefield of 1971. As a freedom fighter diplomat, one recalls with deep appreciation and gratitude the whole-hearted...

India–Bangladesh Relations: An Indian Perspective

The people of India and Bangladesh share close and multi-faceted socio-cultural, religious and linguistic ties spanning centuries. The two countries share the same values of secularism, pluralism and democracy, and...

Explaining Public Policy Choices: A Case Study of the First Nuclear Power Plant in Bangladesh

This article employs the 3-i framework to explore the institutions, ideas, and interests that have shaped the Bangladesh government’s policy choices for implementing the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, the first...

A.S.M. Ali Ashraf , Md. Shafiqul Islam |
September 2018 |
Strategic Analysis

India’s ‘Act East’ Policy Towards the Two Koreas: Issues and Challenges

The Narendra Modi government after coming to power in May 2014 initiated the ‘Act East’ policy to further enhance New Delhi’s engagement with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. However,...

Look/Act East Policy, Roads and Market Infrastructure in North-East India

The socio-politico-economic scene in India’s North-east region has guided certain aspects of the country’s domestic and international policy. The Act East Policy (AEP) of the government of India aims to...

Energy Security: How Decision-Making Processes in India’s Energy Bureaucracy Shape India’s Energy Policy

Energy security has evolved to become strategically important for countries, such that the domestic availability of energy resources, coupled with the national energy demand, as well as import and export...

China’s contingencies and globalisation

China’s Contingencies and Globalisation was initially published as a special issue of the Third World Quarterly and consisted of papers presented at the Seventh Annual Global Studies Conference at Shanghai...

Analysing China’s soft power strategy and comparative Indian initiatives

Soft power has become a new currency of power in international relations. It assumes more significance with countries that are sovereign equals but vulnerable to dominance and hegemonic actions by...

Nexus of Global Jihad

The emergence of Al Qaeda on the global stage marked a shift, in more ways than one. Amongst these, it was perhaps the ability to run a corporatised terrorist organisation,...

Kautilya’s Arthashastra: an intellectual portrait: the classical roots of modern politics in India

The generalist reader, as also those interested in indigenous historical knowledge, owes a debt of gratitude to Professor Subrata K. Mitra and Dr. Michael Liebig for bringing out this remarkable...

Pashtun Nationalism in Search of Political Space and the State in Pakistan

Pakistan is undergoing political turmoil once again. Once again an elected prime minister was first removed in July 2017, and then barred from fighting elections for life on April 13,...

Qatar Crisis and the Deepening Regional Faultlines

In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar. They accused Qatar of supporting extremist and terror groups in the region, having close ties...

Whither Oil Prices? India’s Choices

President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal has sent oil prices soaring again. Even prior to the May 8, 2018 announcement, after falling to below $30 a...