Shankar Roychowdhury

Apr 26, 2010
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Shankar Roychowdhury

Mutiny and the bounty

“Quem deus
vult perdere,
dementat prius”
(Those whom the gods would destroy they
first make mad)
— Ancient saying, generally attributed to the Greek playwright Euripides (480-406 BC)

Perilous ripples can come from Maldives

India has always considered the Indian Ocean as its region of special interest and is therefore naturally concerned with events there.

India: West Asia’s new game park?

India’s security perceptions have traditionally focused on terrorism by Pakistan-based jihadi agencies like Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and its other franchisees. “Murder with a borrowed sword” or Third Party terrorism is still comparatively novel in an Indian setting. The attempted assassination of an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi on February 13 by a car bomb placed by alleged Iranian surrogates with Indian connections would fall in this category, posing a type of security-cum-diplomatic challenge whose ramifications Indian security and counter-intelligence agencies may still not be fully conversant with. Indian security perceptions have traditionally focused on terrorism by Pakistan-based groups of Sunni jihadis whose virulently anti-Indian philosophy is anti-Shia and anti-Israel.

Rid NCTC of politics

Elections have just concluded in several states and with general elections to follow in 2014, almost every conceivable issue in the entire country has been emotionally and politically charged to very high voltages. Personalities on either side of the political divide are attempting to develop controversies on all possible issues to extract whatever mileage can be squeezed out of it. But what is new and disturbing this time around is that even matters pertaining to core issues of national security like the proposed National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) have come into the zone of political crossfire.

What a disaster!

The recent fire at the AMRI Hospital in Kolkata on December 8, 2011, claimed the lives of 98 patients. A similar incident at New Delhi’s Uphaar cinema on June 13, 1997, left 59 people dead and 103 injured. None of these were attributed to sabotage or terrorism.
The Mumbai attacks by Lashkar-e-Tayyaba on November 26, 2008, generally referred to as 26/11, claimed 166 lives and left 293 people injured.

The arming of the Mujahideen

Pakistan and the United States may appear to be on the same side in the “war on terror” in Afghanistan but they are by no means “natural allies”. Pakistan was never really serious about the alliance except for whatever it could extract in terms of military and economic aid from the US, even as it provided the Taliban a trans-border safe haven in its Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) region.

Do desperate times call for diversion?

The nationwide uproar created by chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, demanding withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from “certain areas” in his state has to be seen in its broader implications in an overall national context, rather than either as a narrowly military issue, or a political one concerning Jammu and Kashmir alone.
Mr Abdullah is under political siege by his opponents on issues of domestic governance. He is desperately seeking a diversionary measure to relieve the pressures on him and his party, in this case by raising the issue of AFSPA and its application in Jammu and Kashmir.

Cutting the thread of insurgency

Four alleged Naxalites from the People’s Liberation Army of Manipur were arrested from hideouts in faraway Goa in a joint operation involving the Goa and Manipur police and Army intel

For India, an uneasy road to Kabul

With the treaty with Afghanistan signed in New Delhi on October 4, India has introduced itself as a member of the top table, regardless of disapproving sniffs from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, or active (and often violent) opposition from Pakistan). The United States, the main player in Afghanistan, must have directly or indirectly indicated its acquiescence, without which this would not have been feasible.

Drawing a line in the water

Belatedly and hesitantly of course, but definitely there seems to be some kind of proactive movement in India’s approach to establish its geo-political presence in Southeast Asia and equations with the other countries there, in the strategic space overwhelmingly dominated by the People’s Republic of China.
In 2010, when China claimed the South and East China Seas as its area of “core interest”, it placed its maritime littoral regions along the Indian and Pacific oceans on par with Tibet and Xinjiang in terms of national priorities.

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