Australia Group In 1984, a report, of a special investigatory commission appointed by the United Nations Secretary General, pointed the finger at western countries for supplying chemical agents used in the Iran-Iraq… Continue reading Australia Group Rajiv Nayan | July-September 2008 | CBW Magazine
The July 7 Attack in Kabul and India’s Search for a Response The July 7 attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul which left 58 people dead including four Indians and more than 140 wounded was a highly provocative act. Those responsible for the attack are well known, and their objectives are also not a matter of speculation. It is understood that the Indian government should be taking far more stringent security measures to minimise the recurrence of such attacks on its embassy, consulates, and reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. Vishal Chandra | July 18, 2008 | IDSA Comments
Causes and consequences of Terrorism in Punjab: A Rationalist Perspective In many ways the story of Punjab is anomalous to the stylized facts of civil war literature. Empirical literature on civil wars points to a negative correlation between income and likelihood of conflict. There is also cross-country evidence to suggest that rough terrain contributes to greater possibility of violence. Both these facts did not hold in the case of Punjab. However, recent research on terrorism supports the view that terrorism is not correlated with poverty and lower education levels. Prakarsh Singh | July 18, 2008 | IDSA Comments
Private Sector Challenge to Ordnance Factories Ordnance Factories constitute a major segment of India’s defence industrial set- up, whose other constituents are the Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs), the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and varied Service-specific workshops, repair and maintenance establishments. The gross production of ordnance factories during the year 2005-06 was Rs. 8811.59 crores. Total sales including issues to armed forces and other agencies and civil trade in the same year was Rs. 6891.68 crores. This constitutes approximately 40 per cent of domestic supplies to the armed forces. N. Neihsial | July 17, 2008 | IDSA Comments
Nuclear Deal and the Future of Indo-US Ties Now that the IAEA Draft Agreement is on the World Wide Web and the Communists have withdrawn their support to the UPA, it is reasonable to assume that the next few steps will also follow in good time. The alacrity with which the Americans have drafted their letter to the 45 members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group is remarkable and shows that the Bush administration is indeed very keen to see the deal through before its term ends at the end of the year. What we are not so sure of, however, is the future of the UPA and the Congress. Ramesh Phadke | July 17, 2008 | IDSA Comments
The Growing Threat of WMD Terrorism Terrorism is both a subjective and a pejorative term. This being so, difficulties emerge in attempting to find a definition of terrorism that can be classified as universal. The key… Continue reading The Growing Threat of WMD Terrorism Harsh V. Pant | July-September 2008 | CBW Magazine
Should India Continue Its Present Course in Afghanistan? The July 7 gruesome attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul, which resulted in the loss of over 40 lives including those of two senior diplomats, is clearly a high value symbolic attack directed at coercing India into scaling down its growing presence in rebuilding war ravaged Afghanistan. It is a clear reminder, following as it does a series of low and small scale attacks on Indians in previous months and years, that the Indian presence is continuing to hamper the interests of Pakistan which is bent upon regaining its lost ‘strategic depth’ in that country. Shanthie Mariet D'Souza | July 09, 2008 | IDSA Comments
Should India Engage with NATO? On the face of it, India and NATO are poles apart. NATO is a military alliance. India is a non-aligned country with an independent foreign policy. Any engagement between India and NATO is, therefore, problematic. Arvind Gupta | July 08, 2008 | IDSA Comments
The French Quest for NATO France has taken over the half-yearly presidency of the European Union (EU) Council from Slovenia on July 1. The change of guard at the helm of the EU is a routine affair. However, the French presidency of the Union seems to point to a new impetus in EU affairs, as it is the first opportunity after Nicolas Sarkozy took the reins at The Élysée Palace. At present European affairs are more or less a rerun of the summer of 2005 when the French and Dutch electorates rejected the EU Constitution. This experience is again being enacted with Irish voters rejecting the Lisbon Treaty in June. Alok Rashmi Mukhopadhyay | July 07, 2008 | IDSA Comments
The Proliferation Security Initiative: Five years later, losing its sheen? On May 27, 2008, participants from 91 countries assembled in Washington to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) – a controversial counterproliferation initiative launched by President George W. Bush in Krakow, Poland on May 31, 2003, with a view to improve global coordination to intercept shipments of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and related materials by ‘rogue’ states and terrorist groups. A. Vinod Kumar | July 07, 2008 | IDSA Comments
