The Chinese air force is now a 400,000-person force that flies some 2,000 combat aircraft -- more than thrice the size of the Indian Air Force.
Ahead of his talks with the Emirati leadership, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the Gulf region is vital for India's economic, energy and security interests.
'We should build a military with the capability to fight today's war on priority -- balancing it with the requirements of the future,' says Lieutenant General Anil Chait, one of the Indian Army's most cerebral thinkers who recently retired as chief of the Integrated Defence Staff, in his agenda for the new defence minister.
Nearly two decades ago, then defence minister George Fernandes said: 'China has built roads up to the border, while there has been negligence on India's part.' Since Fernandes uttered these brave words, what has been done on the Indian side? The Modi Sarkar is apparently trying, but little has been achieved so far, says Claude Arpi.
Expect a more modest out-turn of around 5 per cent (if not less) because of the longer-term scarring effects of the Covid shock, the sharply slowing growth in the pre-Covid years and some scepticism about the growth-efficacy of some of recent official policy initiatives, explains Shankar Acharya, former chief economic advisor to the government.
'It is a constantly evolving situation and will require deft handling at the ground level and at the highest level of military, diplomatic and political leadership,' observes Colonel S Dinny (retd), who served as Commanding Officer of an infantry battalion deployed in the Pangong Tso area.
'One lesson to emerge out of the Modi-Putin summit is that India can be more self-confident that it possesses inherent strengths to leverage its interlocutors to influence Pakistani policies,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'China's growing nexus with Pakistan and the two countries' unresolved territorial disputes with India continue to pose a formidable national security threat to India,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'We have worked to create road blocks in the path of those who thought that there was space for conventional war despite Pakistan's nuclear weapons.' 'Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme is not open-ended and aligned with India only.' 'In this unstable regional environment, one nuclear power is trying to teach lessons to another nuclear power through the medium of small arms and mortar shells on the Line of Control, and bluster.' 'A historic opportunity of a lifetime beckons the leaderships of India and Pakistan to grasp, sit together and explore the possibilities of conflict resolution.'
A realistic assessment will tell us that not much has changed between India and Pakistan; the relationship remains as fraught as before with little prospect of reconciliation, notes Ajai Shukla.
Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday urged state IT ministers to move swiftly and promote electronics manufacturing through pro-investment initiatives, in a bid to tap a "great opportunity" that now beckons India. Prasad, who interacted with state IT ministers through video-conference against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, told reporters later that eased connectivity norms to facilitate work-from-home, which were to end on April 30, have now been extended till July 31.
'Institutional ownership, by December 2018, had increased 37.5% from approximately 22% in early 2009,' points out Amit Tandon.
National carrier Air India is running in losses and needs government's attention.
'Notwithstanding the realisation among the Indian leadership to build up its navy for the force's expanding role, the Indian Navy was allocated only 15% of the interim defence budget presented in Parliament in February 2019.' 'The outlay for the navy's capital acquisition is not even adequate to meet its committed liabilities,' points out Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
'Islamabad receives billions in aid from the US but continues to harbour terrorists,' he said.
World leaders said they were looking forward to working with Joe Biden, as they welcomed the 46th President of the United States with praise and took parting shots at his predecessor Donald Trump.
'The Panchsheel Agreement is unique in the annals of international relations as it stands out as a bizarre illustration of a prime minister trading his country's crucial national interests solely to buffer his personal international image,' feels R N Ravi.
'Indian diplomacy faltered amidst multiple failures of statecraft.' 'The functionaries responsible must be held to account for their abject failure,' asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Within the army, there is growing concern that New Delhi will allow the Chinese to retain the territory they have occupied in the last month.
'Until India fully absorbs the fundamentals of international relations, it will continue to get evil for good,' says Brahma Chellaney.
From Covid to climate change, Shankar Acharya's look at some of the trends and events that might shape 2022.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to New Delhi last week was to prepare ground for the next US-India Strategic Dialogue to be held in Washington, says Alok Bansal
Fencing the border between Myanmar and Nagaland is expected to adversely affect the Naga tribals. Gautam Sen, an expert on Nagaland, explains why the Indian government needs a more comprehensive and long-term perspective on this issue and why it must take local tribal sensitivities and customs into account.
'India-US defence pacts are seen by many analysts as a subtle move to jointly contain China's growing militarism, especially in the strategic Indian Ocean Region.'
Why did Pakistan sign a cease-fire without acquiring Kashmir, which was the sole purpose of the 1965 War, asks Ahmad Faruqui.
'If we don't want to be the poorest large economy even in 2030, we need to be doing very much more than is being attempted.'
Average global growth prospects for the next 12 months and the next three years are 35 per cent and 49 per cent, respectively.
Snooping is one of the oldest peccadilloes of man, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Little did those in India's strategic community realise that any wise adversary in China's place and circumstances would only take the land route to disturb and trouble India.' 'It is along the land border that all of India's post-Cold War allies would be of little or no political and diplomatic, and least of all, military help,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
New Delhi must indicate to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that it has a long-term strategy for his country. It should point out that Pakistan's present Afgan policy will destabilise Afghanistan and help Islamic State, says Gautam Sen.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that talks with India can happen only if New Delhi 'reverses' its decision.
The Left said there was no mention of this sort of security and defence partnership with the US in the section on 'defence' in the CMP.
'Our equations with China require engagement and not confrontation; its interfaces with Pakistan and with some other South Asian neighbours also add to the complexities,' says Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
'I can confidently say there will be another financial crisis soon enough, and probably more than one global crisis within the next century, given the increasingly integrated nature of the global economy.'
South Korean President Park Geun-hye's visit to India will enhance economic and military ties between the two countries and give the relationship a strategic dimension, says Jiye Kim.
One of the arrangements the Indian government is considering is a tie-up with a sovereign fund to finance the Embraer deal.
E-commerce companies that fall within the scope of the equalisation levy include Adobe, Uber, Udemy, Zoom.us, Expedia, Alibaba, Ikea, LinkedIn, Spotify, and eBay.
'The origins of the model of planned economic development adopted by independent India was a direct consequence of the war.' 'The war provided an opportunity for groups at the margins of Indian society to find new avenues for mobility.' 'The war also led to the emergence of India as a major Asian power and set the stage for it to play a wider role in international politics.'
Barack Obama has said that he had ruled out involving Pakistan in the raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout because it was an "open secret" that certain elements inside Pakistan's military, and especially its intelligence services, maintained links to the Taliban and perhaps even al-Qaeda, sometimes using them as strategic assets against Afghanistan and India.
'Whether it is the One Belt One Road project or building relationships in the Indian Ocean Region -- supposedly our area of concern -- the Chinese are seriously outpacing us,' points out Vice-Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
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