The Defence Minister, Mr A K Antony, has repeatedly exhorted the armed forces to procure their weapons and equipment from indigenous sources in recent months. It is a well-established fact that no nation aspiring to great power status can expect...
The defence budget for 2013-2014 was passed in the Parliament without as much as a whisker of debate. The Parliament’s Standing Committee on Defence (SCD) as a statutory requirement did go through the demands for grants by the MOD but their...
In the context of the South China Sea rapidly emerging as a turbulent oceanic stretch with China questioning the claims of a number of Asian countries over this disputed water body, late last year Indian Navy Chief Admiral DK Joshi had driven...
The UN Arms Trade Treaty passed by the UN General Assembly in first week of April was long in coming which meant that it would be well thought out and a comprehensive document with the opposing views of all the concerned nations having been...
Does India have a strategic culture? If strategic culture is defined narrowly in the context of the nuclear age alone, then India, as a recent entrant to the nuclear club and still in the process of acquiring minimum nuclear deterrence, evidently...
Frequent eruption of scams and scandals surrounding India’s high profile defence acquisition programme, besides delivering a severe blow to the defence preparedness of the country, has brought into sharp focus the abysmal failure of the country,...
Ever since we became independent we seem to be lurching from one crisis to another in any matter which concerns a deal or a transaction in which we make purchases or where decisions are taken regarding business. One harks back to the scandal...
Allegations of corruption in the VVIP helicopter deal have once again brought to the fore the fragility of India’s defence acquisition process. Corruption appears to be endemic in defence procurement and a structural overhaul is now necessary....
It was only in early 1990’s that India realized that it was fast loosing strategic ground to China due to its lack of engagement with Myanmar. Not only security and stability in the border regions was crucial to India from internal security point...
Since the recent episodes on our side of the Line of Control in January 2013, there has been a spate of articles seeking to justify and somehow explain the Pakistani actions, even if many are prefaced with the pro-forma demurral that the...