Category Archives: Outreach Publications
Fighting Daesh: regional counter strategy
Daily Times, March 30, 2017
D. Suba Chandran is Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru.
Recent terrorist attacks in Kabul, Sehwan and Dhaka have been claimed by Daesh or more commonly known as the Islamic State (IS). The region cannot be a mute witness to the emergence of the IS in South Asia, for it would lead to its further consolidation and subsequent expansion. An early counter strategy is imperative with the region coming together and chalking out a strategy.
A Modi March
The Friday Times, March 17, 2017
D. Suba Chandran is Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru.
It is not easy to analyse election results of five different States (Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur) in different parts of India (North, Central, Western and Northeast). The election results (with a thumping majority for the Congress in Punjab, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and none having a majority in Goa and Manipur) are varied; it would be tough to weave a common narrative at the national level. Yet there are few trends, one could observe cutting across the electoral results from different parts of India.
Towards Mutual Benefit: Paradigm Shift in India’s Development Cooperation with Myanmar
Diplomatist Magazine, January 2017, Pg 15-17
M. Mayilvaganan, Associate Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies
With the rapid growth of economy, India has expanded its development assistance to other developing countries substantially. Indeed, development cooperation assistance is one of the effective tools of Indian foreign policy today that is employed for building relationship, solidarity, leveraging soft power and in furthering India’s strategic interest. The ethos behind India’s approach is to foster “development partnerships” that would contribute for the mutual benefit of both India and the beneficiary. At the moment India’s relationship and development partnership with Myanmar has gathered momentum. Thanks to New Delhi’s realisation that ideology oriented isolation policy and economic protectionism would not aid in fostering own geo-strategic and geo-economic interest. Notably, New Delhi extends its unstinting development partnership to Nay Pyi Daw on three fronts: connectivity infrastructure, training and capacity building, grants and line of credits. Nevertheless, to achieve desired goals India needs to work on gathering legitimacy through commitment, projection of India’s positive image, coordination among the various ministries, and successful completion of all the pending development projects that it has undertaken so far.
Discriminating Uranium and Copper mills using satellite imagery
Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, 20 January 2017, pp. 27-35
Lalitha Sundaresan, S.Chandrashekar, Bhupendra Jasani
Identifying uranium mills from high resolution commercial satellite images has assumed significance in recent years because of non-proliferation concerns. Studies have shown that it is difficult to identify Uranium mills through remote sensing methods that use only spectral signatures. In this communication we suggest an approach that relies only on spatial signatures of the equipment used in the extraction process as an alternative. Since the extraction of Uranium and Copper have many similar features especially where Copper is extracted from low grade ore or from copper tailings, there could be ambiguity in identifying a Uranium mill from high resolution commercial satellite images. In this paper we suggest some improvements to the methodology outlined by us in our earlier work. In addition to the other features used to separate Uranium and Copper mills we bring in the dimensions of common equipment used in both processes as an additional dimension to improve the robustness of our classification. This technique is applicable only where the extraction is done in a mill and not where Uranium is extracted by in situ leaching methods.
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Does Pakistan’s Ababeel Medium Range Ballistic Missile Really Have MIRV Capability?
Delhi Defence Review, February 03, 2017
Rajaram Nagappa, Professor and Dean of the ISSSP, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru.
Pakistan has carried out a missile test – it was not another training or pre-deployment test of Shaheen 2 or Shaheen 3, but the test of a new missile called Ababeel on 24 January 2017. The missile is claimed to have a range of 2200km and is said to be capable of carrying Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV).
Unlike the Shaheen 2, the new missile has three stages. The Ababeel thermal fairing (heat shield) has a large diameter than its core vehicle. The extra volume thus available is consistent with the requirements for MIRV capabilities. It must however, be noted that there are a number of technical constraints that have to be overcome before one can infer that Pakistan has succeeded in developing MIRV capability.
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India, Sri Lanka and Maldives: Shared Commonality yet Challenges to Sub-regional Cooperation
India, Sri Lanka and Maldives: Shared Commonality yet Challenges to Sub-regional Cooperation in Venugopal B. Menon and Joshy M. Paul, Eds., Sub-Regional Cooperation in South Asia – India, Sri Lanka and Maldives, Vij Book Publishers, 2016.
M. Mayilvaganan, Assistant Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies
Sri Lanka and Maldives are the closest neighbors of India in the south who share historical, cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic interaction with India. All the groups in these island nations in one or other way are linked with India in every sense, as the geographical proximity, cultural and religious linkages propose. Nonetheless, this proximity seems to have played a part in forcing them—Sri Lankan and Maldivians—to exhibit that they are ‘distinct’ in an effort to defend and promote their own ‘identity’ which is essential for their existence. And this ‘identity’ of being distinct has indeed contributed to distrust in their relations with India and which in turn challenges the sub regional cooperation in the region.
The chapter/paper discuss the challenges of sub regional cooperation in South Asia while highlighting the existence of clear cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic interaction of India with Sri Lanka and Maldives.
Nuclear Deterrence and Southern Asia
Journal of the United Services Institution of India, Vol. Issue No: CXLVI, No. 605, July-September 2016, pp. 336-343
Arun Vishwanathan, Assistant Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies
In the history of nuclear weapons and deterrence, Southern Asia is different because in the past, we have not had three nuclear armed countries sharing borders which continue to be disputed. The geographical contiguity in essence results in shorter flight times which translates into less time available to the countries’ command and control systems to plan a response and more importantly the certainty of radioactive fallout spreading across borders. Modi’s Trip to Tokyo: Takeaways for India-Japan Relations
The Diplomat, November 17, 2016
Prakash Panneerselvam, Post Doctoral Associate, ISSSP, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore
After six years of consultation, India and Japan inked a civil nuclear agreement on the sidelines of their annual summit, this year held in Tokyo. India is the first non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to have signed such a deal with Japan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, welcomed the agreement as a historic step forward to achieve a clean energy partnership.
While the nuclear deal stole headlines, the bilateral annual summit also undertook a detailed assessment of the “Special Strategic and Global Partnership” as outlined in the “India and Japan Vision 2025,” released at last year’s summit. After discussion on a wide range of bilateral and regional issues, a substantive joint statement was issued on November 11, 2016. The joint statement put in perspective areas in which India and Japan could work closely, which the statement clearly indicated could encompass not only bilateral concerns but also Indo-Pacific regional issues. The joint statement clearly represents the tectonic shift in India-Japan relationship in four areas: nuclear cooperation, counterterrorism, coordination on regional issues, and defense industry cooperation.
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India’s entry into the NSG: A Long-winded Process
Indian Foreign Affairs Journal, Vol. 11, No. 3, July-Sept 2016. pp. 217-223.
Arun Vishwanathan, Assistant Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies
India’s relationship with the above multilateral export control regimes has witnessed a remarkable turnaround in recent years. From being the rationale behind the establishment of the NSG and the MTCR, India has joined the MTCR as a member, and its application for membership into the NSG is under discussion amongst the group’s members. One of the drivers for this transformation has been the growing strategic partnership between the USA and India which, among other things, has resulted in the liberalisation of American export control regulations with respect to India. The extent of the policy shift towards India becomes apparent from the fact that, post 2009, only 0.3 percent of US exports to India require export licence from the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). This is a substantial reduction from the close to 25 percent of US exports which required export licences in the year 2000.
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10 Years of Fighting Pirates in Asia
The Diplomat, September 01, 2016
Prakash Panneerselvam, Post Doctoral Associate, ISSSP, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) Information Sharing Center (ISC) in Singapore. In those ten years, ReCAAP ISC has grown into a true multilateral organization comprising 20 nations across globe working toward the safety and security of the maritime commons. Information sharing and confidence building measures between law enforcement agencies have made a tangible contribution to anti-piracy efforts; ReCAAP ISC has achieved a great deal in reversing the rising trend in piracy incidents in the region.
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