COMMENTARIES
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Arunachal Pradesh’s Border Roads
Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman · 29 Jul, 2009 · #2924 · Commentary
The state of Arunachal Pradesh in India’s northeastern frontier has been appearing quite regularly in the Indian national security and strategic imagination for some years now. Strident Chinese territorial claims, particularly over the Tawan...
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Tibetan Waters: Coming Conflict?
Kimberley Layton · 29 Jul, 2009 · #2923 · Commentary
On 24 July the Indian Agriculture Minister announced a contingency plan to tackle the water crisis affecting India’s north. Well-below average monsoon rainfall has led several states to declare drought and more states look likely to follow s...
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India’s Manned Space Flight: Scope and Significance
Radhakrishna Rao · 29 Jul, 2009 · #2922 · Commentary
Not withstanding a snag affecting the performance of India’s maiden lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 launched in October 2008, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is going ahead with India’s first manned mission slated for launch ...
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Rohingyas: Systemic Abuse in Myanmar and No Respite in Thailand
Harnit Kaur Kang · 27 Jul, 2009 · #2921 · Commentary
Myanmarese refugees can hardly be blamed for wanting to escape the brutality and poverty inflicted upon them by their military rulers. Freedom from fear and want are highlighted in the Preamble of Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the upper...
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Indo-Pak Dialogue at the NAM Summit: Real Progress?
Kate Swanson · 27 Jul, 2009 · #2920 · Commentary
On 16 July at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt during the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani met for the second time after the Mumbai terrorist attacks. The informal yet impo...
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Taking China Seriously
Bhartendu Kumar Singh · 27 Jul, 2009 · #2919 · Commentary
The recent publication of the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) Annual Report 2008-09 has a welcome note - unlike previous reports, when military and strategic developments in China were either ignored or marginally treated, the latest report elabo...
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Mapping the Afghan Elections
Raghav Sharma · 25 Jul, 2009 · #2918 · Commentary
“If I say a [fully free and fair] election is possible at this time it is merely a lie. If I say it is impossible I block the only way forward.” This observation made by a provincial councilor of the insurgency-ridden Ghazni province v...
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G-8 Declaration and India: Be Cautious not Paranoid
Yogesh Joshi · 25 Jul, 2009 · #2917 · Commentary
The 8 July G-8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy and the agreement among the G-8 members on restrictions over transfers of sensitive technologies like enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) to non-NPT members has created much hullabaloo in New Delhi. The...
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Enhancing the Credibility of CRPF
M Shamsur Rabb Khan · 25 Jul, 2009 · #2916 · Commentary
In a crucial move to reform the security apparatus in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, who visited the state after the Shopian rape case, announced a roadmap, giving greater responsibility to the J&K police f...
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Kargil: Ten Years On
Firdaus Ahmed · 25 Jul, 2009 · #2915 · Commentary
While crises under the nuclear overhang have punctuated South Asian security, Kargil was the first after the two states went overtly nuclear. It has since been followed by standoffs in 2001-02 and 2008. This has ignited a debate between nuclear op...
