avinash.godbole

from ChinaDaily Building Sustainable Peace; An Agenda for India China Military Dialogue With the visit of a high level Indian defence delegation to Beijing, India and China are set to resume their military dialogue. This is a confidence building step expected to be followed by the fourth level of their bilateral defence dialogue since it began in 2007. Lot of anxious watchers are following this development closely, from all around the world and from all quarters of the society, since this round of dialogue is taking place at an extremely critical juncture. Despite the three dialogues before, and notwithstanding multiple meetings between the leadership of the two countries, the 2011 defence dialogue will take place under the shadow of recent history. Therefore, it would be a first success of the 2011 dialogue if the two sides agree to avoid recurrence of the kind of instances that took the bilateral relations to their lowest level in the last decade. It will ensure that the future...

C for China? Not Always India’s defence and strategic requirement have gone up manifold in the last one decade. These requirements have increased as a consequence of India’s economic rise and its implications on India’s positioning in the strategic space. In addition, India’s economic rise has obviously increased the stakes in securitising the agents of change. For example, a decade ago, no one could have imagined the role of CISF in providing security to the IT giants of the Indian industry. This is the manner in which India’s security requirements are going to increase in the future. India will have to increase its defence budget and focus on modernisation of its armed forces simply because there would be too much at stake if India did not pay adequate attention to the country’s security. For example, a hostage situation because of terrorist activity in the economic capital of the country tends to paralyse the entire security apparatus. And as 26/11 has shown, with rising power, Indi...