All roads lead to Rajpath
The US President is said to be the most powerful person on earth. When the present incumbent, Barack Obama, descends on New Delhi to be the guest of honour at India’s Republic Day celebrations, the first US President to do so, his presence will reenergise a nation which is already on a strong resurgent path under the dynamic leadership of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
All credit must go to the astute leadership and forward-thinking approach of Narendra Modi who has engaged the international leadership in ways no one has done so far. It is touted that the US President’s visit will trigger off further business partnerships and other positive engagements here in India. With Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign on course, such high-level visits have the potential to give the campaign a further momentum. The defence and internal security industry hopes that the visit will set off new partnerships.
General V.P. Malik (Retd) writes that Indo-US geopolitical and strategic relations have never been as upbeat and as promising as they stand today. There are several niggling issues that need to be ironed out between the two great democracies. One of them is the tangled issue of civil nuclear energy cooperation. The Prime Minister has assured to remove roadblocks and we believe he will do so.
General Malik mentions that the agenda on tackling counter terrorism has to take priority as the US is aware of cross border terrorism from Pakistan. The US, he avers, can switch off the tap and this is important if both India and US have agreed to collaborate on dismantling the safe havens and disrupting the financial networks of Pakistani terror outfits.
Similarly, Lt General P.C. Katoch (Retd) states that Obama’s visit is happening in the wake of increasing Chinese assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific region with aggressive territorial claims of regional land and maritime neighbours, analysts are talking about evolving triumvirate of India, US and Japan to counter Chinese designs.
We have a write-up from Air Marshal B.K. Pandey (Retd) on the Japanese budget which has been enhanced to counter the rise of the inimical neighbour and its growing military activity in the region. The budget enhancement is the largest ever in the last seven decades.
In this issue, we have excerpts from a lecture of the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, His Excellency N.N. Vohra, who has stated that India’s serious problems in recent years have emanated from Pakistan’s continuing proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir; jihadi terrorism; destructive activities which the left-wing extremist groups; serious unrest created by the still active insurgencies in the North East region; and incidents of serious communal violence which have been erupting in the various states from time to time. He has suggested, among other things, the setting up of a National Security Administrative Service to run the security management institutions in the country.
In his forthright viewpoint, Lt General Katoch mentions that the sacking of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief Avinash Chander may just be a warning to others and stop the ‘chalta hai’ attitude.
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