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.

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.

The Taliban is doubtless a menace and requires to be combated. Towards this end the Global War on Terror, recently rechristened ‘Overseas Contingency Operations’, has been underway for the better part of this decade. The Taliban, however, only appears to be growing in strength and in the spread of its reach. Therefore, the Obama administration is simultaneously pursuing a policy of reaching out to the ‘moderate’ Taliban. It hopes to whittle down the Taliban, permitting an early exit of the US from the region.

Environmental degradation, climate change and ozone depletion are complex challenges which need to be addressed by society. The equipment intensive military with high budgets, fossil fuel consumption, and extensive use of chemicals also owns prime real estate such as military stations and cantonments.