India (Superthread)

[pbi]

This comment has nothing to do with technology, but rather the human side of  India's military strength.

In 1993 I served alongside a number of Indian Army officers as part of the UN mission in Mozambique. I was highly impressed by their professionalism, their friendliness and their free admission of the debt of heritage that the Indian Army owes the British Army. As one officer said as we had lunch served in a field mess tent of an Indian Army engineer unit (complete with waiters in white mess jackets, regimental silver, white linen, and scotch in a cut glass decanter) "This is a British Army, you know"

I was equally impressed by the engineer unit. Their heavy equipment looked like a bunch of old Russian stuff, but the unit lines were spick and span, just like something out of our Army in the pre-Unification days. The troops were well turned out and highly disciplined (although, I thought, a bit too frightened of officers...) 

I accompanied a detachment of the unit on a route recce task. They were very checked out and worked like clockwork. We stopped for lunch, which (much to my surprise) was served by the troops to the officers first, before any soldiers ate (the exact reverse of what we would be used to). That said, the unit seemed to be happy and functioned well.

An Army I would be proud to be associated with.

 

[a_majoor]

The Indian drug industry comes under scrutiny. While the story is alarming, the last two paragraphs are even more alarming: Chinese companies are also suspected of these practices, but refuse inspection, and China is now the only source of many of the ingredients of medicines sold in the United States. Anyone for an investment opportunity?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/world/asia/medicines-made-in-india-set-off-safety-worries.html?ref=health&_r=1

Medicines Made in India Set Off Safety Worries

NEW DELHI — India, the second-largest exporter of over-the-counter and prescription drugs to the United States, is coming under increased scrutiny by American regulators for safety lapses, falsified drug test results and selling fake medicines.

Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, the commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration, arrived in India this week to express her growing unease with the safety of Indian medicines because of “recent lapses in quality at a handful of pharmaceutical firms.”

India’s pharmaceutical industry supplies 40 percent of over-the-counter and generic prescription drugs consumed in the United States, so the increased scrutiny could have profound implications for American consumers.

F.D.A. investigators are blitzing Indian drug plants, financing the inspections with some of the roughly $300 million in annual fees from generic drug makers collected as part of a 2012 law requiring increased scrutiny of overseas plants. The agency inspected 160 Indian drug plants last year, three times as many as in 2009. The increased scrutiny has led to a flood of new penalties, including half of the warning letters the agency issued last year to drug makers.

Launch media viewer
Ranbaxy, one of India’s biggest drug manufacturers, pleaded guilty to felony charges and paid a $500 million fine last year. Adnan Abidi/Reuters
Dr. Hamburg was met by Indian officials and executives who, shocked by recent F.D.A. export bans of generic versions of popular medicines — like the acne drug Accutane, the pain drug Neurontin and the antibiotic Cipro — that the F.D.A. determined were adulterated, suspect that she is just protecting a domestic industry from cheaper imports.

“There are some people who take a very sinister view of the F.D.A. inspections,” Keshav Desiraju, India’s health secretary until this week, said in a recent interview.

The F.D.A.'s increased enforcement has already cost Indian companies dearly — Ranbaxy, one of India’s biggest drug manufacturers, pleaded guilty to felony charges and paid a $500 million fine last year, the largest ever levied against a generic company. And many worry that worse is in store.

“If I have to follow U.S. standards in inspecting facilities supplying to the Indian market,” G. N. Singh, India’s top drug regulator, said in a recent interview with an Indian newspaper, “we will have to shut almost all of those.”

The unease culminated Tuesday when a top executive at Ranbaxy — which has repeatedly been caught lying to the F.D.A. and found to have conditions such as flies “too numerous to count” in critical plant areas — pleaded with Dr. Hamburg at a private meeting with other drug executives to allow his products into the United States so that the company could more easily pay for fixes. She politely declined.

India’s drug industry is one of the country’s most important economic engines, exporting $15 billion in products annually, and some of its factories are world-class, virtually undistinguishable from their counterparts in the West. But others suffer from serious quality control problems. The World Health Organization estimated that one in five drugs made in India are fakes. A 2010 survey of New Delhi pharmacies found that 12 percent of sampled drugs were spurious.

In one recent example, counterfeit medicines at a pediatric hospital in Kashmir are now suspected of playing a role in hundreds of infant deaths there in recent years.

One widely used antibiotic was found to contain no active ingredient after being randomly tested in a government lab. The test was kept secret for nearly a year while 100,000 useless pills continued to be dispensed.

More tests of hospital medicines found dozens more that were substandard, including a crucial intravenous antibiotic used in sick infants.

“Some of the fake tablets were used by pregnant women in the post-surgical prevention of infections,” said Dr. M. Ishaq Geer, senior assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Kashmir. “That’s very serious.”

Investigations of the deaths are continuing, but convictions of drug counterfeiters in India are extremely rare.

Satish Reddy, president of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, said Indian drug manufacturers were better than the F.D.A. now contends. “More rigorous enforcement is needed, for sure, but this impression that India is overrun with counterfeits is unjustified,” Mr. Reddy said.

But Heather Bresch, chief executive of Mylan, which has plants in the United States and India, said regulatory scrutiny outside the United States was long overdue. “If there were no cops around, would everyone drive the speed limit?” Ms. Bresch asked. “You get careless, start taking risks. Our government has enabled this.”

Launch media viewer
Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, is in India this week to express her concerns. Associated Press
For Dr. Hamburg, the trip is part of a long-running effort to create a global network of drug and food regulators to help scrutinize the growing flood of products coming into the United States, including 80 percent of the seafood consumed in the United States, 50 percent of the fresh fruit, 20 percent of the vegetables and the vast majority of drugs.

She has gone to conclaves of regulators from Europe and elsewhere to coordinate policing, but Indian officials have so far not attended such meetings.

Many of India’s drug manufacturing facilities are of top quality. Cipla, one of the industry’s giants, has 40 plants across the country that together can produce more than 21 billion tablets and capsules annually, and one of its plants in Goa appeared just as sterile, automated and high tech on a recent tour as those in the United States.

Cipla follows F.D.A. guidelines at every plant and on every manufacturing line, and the company exports more than 55 percent of its production, said Yusuf Hamied, the company chairman.

But Benjamin Mwesige, a pharmacist at the Uganda Cancer Institute in Kampala, said in an interview in July that the institute had stopped buying cancer drugs from India in 2011 because it had received shipments of drugs that turned out to be counterfeit and inactive, with Cipla labels that Mr. Mwesige believed were forged.

He became suspicious when doctors began seeing chemotherapy patients whose cancer showed none of the expected responses to the drugs — and who also had none of the usual side effects. The drugs that had been prescribed were among the mainstays of cancer treatment — methotrexate, docetaxel and vincristine. Laboratory tests confirmed that the drugs were bogus, and Mr. Mwesige estimated that in 2011 20 percent of the drugs that the institute bought were counterfeit.

Enforcement of regulations over all is very weak, analysts say, and India’s government does a poor job policing many of its industries. Last month, the United States Federal Aviation Administration downgraded India’s aviation safety ranking because the country’s air safety regulator was understaffed, and a global safety group found that many of India’s best-selling small cars were unsafe.

India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, the country’s drug regulator, has a staff of 323, about 2 percent the size of the F.D.A.'s, and its authority is limited to new drugs. The making of medicines that have been on the market at least four years is overseen by state health departments, many of which are corrupt or lack the expertise to oversee a sophisticated industry. Despite the flood of counterfeit drugs, Mr. Singh, India’s top drug regulator, warned in meetings with the F.D.A. of the risk of overregulation.

This absence of oversight, however, is a central reason India’s pharmaceutical industry has been so profitable. Drug manufacturers estimate that routine F.D.A. inspections add 25 percent to overall costs. In the wake of the 2012 law that requires the F.D.A. for the first time to equalize oversight of domestic and foreign plants, India’s cost advantage could shrink significantly.

Some top manufacturers are already warning that they may leave, tough medicine for an already slowing economy.

“I’m a great nationalist, an Indian first and last,” Dr. Hamied said. “But companies like Cipla are looking to expand their businesses abroad and not in India.”

American businesses and F.D.A. officials are just as concerned about the quality of drugs coming out of China, but the F.D.A.'s efforts to increase inspections there have so far been frustrated by the Chinese government.

“China is the source of some of the largest counterfeit manufacturing operations that we find globally,” said John P. Clark, Pfizer’s chief security officer, who added that Chinese authorities were cooperative.

Using its new revenues, the F.D.A. tried to bolster its staff in China in February 2012. But the Chinese government has so far failed to provide the necessary visas despite an announced agreement in December 2013 during a visit by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said Erica Jefferson, an F.D.A. spokeswoman.

The United States has become so dependent on Chinese imports, however, that the F.D.A. may not be able to do much about the Chinese refusal. The crucial ingredients for nearly all antibiotics, steroids and many other lifesaving drugs are now made exclusively in China.

Denise Grady contributed reporting from Kampala, Uganda, and Hari Kumar from Srinagar, Kashmir.

 

[a_majoor]

Hopefully the prediction in this article from Bloomberg will be mostly correct. Economic growth will b e very important to creat the wealth India needs to deal with her domestic issues, as well as to continue both as part of the Anglosphere and as a regional power in being an actor rather than a passive recipient in world affairs:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-07/india-predicts-climb-from-decade-low-gdp-growth-as-risks-remain.html

India Predicts Climb From Decade-Low GDP Growth Amid Risks
By Unni Krishnan  Feb 8, 2014 3:15 AM ET  10 Comments  Email  Print

India forecast a faster acceleration in economic growth than analysts had estimated, a prediction facing risks from interest-rate increases to quell inflation and expenditure curbs by the government.

Gross domestic product will rise 4.9 percent in the 12 months through March 31, compared with the decade-low 4.5 percent in the previous fiscal year, the Statistics Ministry said in New Delhi yesterday. The median of 24 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey had been 4.7 percent. The projection may be revised upward later and the final growth rate is unlikely to be less than 5 percent, Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in a statement e-mailed today.

India last month joined nations from Brazil to Turkey in raising interest rates, striving to stem the fastest inflation in Asia and shield the rupee from a reduction in U.S. monetary stimulus that’s hurt emerging-market assets. Opinion polls signaling that the general election due by May could lead to an unstable coalition government are adding to risks.

“Fiscal consolidation efforts will continue to remain a focus area for the new government as well,” said Devendra Pant, chief economist at India Ratings & Research Pvt., the local unit of Fitch Ratings. “There is no scope for across the board stimulus.”

The rupee, down about 15 percent versus the dollar in the past year, strengthened 0.2 percent to 62.29 per dollar in Mumbai yesterday, before the data’s release. The S&P BSE Sensex index rose 0.3 percent. The yield on the government bond due November 2023 rose to 8.74 percent from 8.72 percent on Feb. 6.

‘Significant Improvement’

“This estimate of 4.9 per cent for the whole year will in all likelihood be revised upward in the first, second and final revisions in the next two years,” Chidambaram said in the statement. “I am confident that the final estimate will be not less than 5 per cent for the whole year. Growth in 2014-15 will show a significant improvement over 2013-14.”

Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan unexpectedly raised the repurchase rate by a quarter-point to 8 percent on Jan. 28, the third increase since September.

A central bank panel has suggested India should reduce consumer-price inflation to 8 percent within one year and 6 percent by 2016, and that the RBI should then adopt a 4 percent target with a band of plus or minus two percentage points.

Consumer-price inflation slowed to 9.87 percent in December, while remaining the fastest in a basket of 18 Asia-Pacific economies tracked by Bloomberg.

Growth, Inflation

Chidambaram said Jan. 23 that the monetary authority also has a duty to support growth. Further tightening isn’t anticipated in the near term if consumer-price inflation slows to 8 percent by early 2015, the RBI said Jan. 28.

Inflation is a politically sensitive issue in India, where elections have been lost as prices quickened. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said his government could have done better at curbing price gains.

The administration is curbing expenditure to narrow the fiscal deficit to about 4.8 percent of gross domestic product this fiscal year, a six-year low. Other economic headwinds stem from an investment logjam, with red tape stalling about $100 billion of projects.

In a sign of budget constraints, the government said this past week it has put off a final agreement to buy 126 Rafale combat planes worth more than $11 billion from Dassault Aviation SA to the next fiscal year.

Manufacturing output will shrink 0.2 percent in the fiscal year ending March 31, and mining output will contract 1.9 percent, according to yesterday’s release. Farm output is set to expand 4.6 percent. Financing, insurance and real estate services will expand 11.2 percent.

Election Outlook

The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party is set to win 188 seats in the 545-member lower house, surpassing the 182 seats it won in 1999, according to a C-Voter poll for India Today published Jan. 23.

The ruling Congress party may get as few as 91 seats versus 210 now, dropping to its lowest tally on record, the poll indicated. A separate survey on Jan. 24 showed the BJP with as many as 210 seats, and 108 for Congress.

Standard & Poor’s has warned India’s credit rating may be cut to junk unless the election leads to a government capable of reviving growth. If inflation slows, Asia’s third-biggest economy can grow between 5 percent and 6 percent in the next fiscal year ending March 2015, according to the RBI.

“The larger traction for growth will come in the second half” of the next fiscal year, presuming a stable government emerges, said Shubhada Rao, chief economist at Yes Bank Ltd. in Mumbai.

To contact the reporter on this story: Unni Krishnan in New Delhi at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at [email protected]

 

[CougarKing]

India developing its own ABM system:

Defense News

India Test-Fires Anti-Ballistic Missile
Apr. 27, 2014 - 12:06PM  |  By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

NEW DELHI — India successfully test-fired a new anti-ballistic missile on Sunday in a step towards developing a missile defense system which only an elite club of countries has built.

India, which shares borders with arch-rival Pakistan and giant China, both of whom are nuclear-armed, is developing the system that aims to shield it against a ballistic missile attack.

The test was conducted off the east coast on Sunday morning, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) told the Press Trust of India news agency.

“The trial was conducted successfully and all the mission objectives were met,” said DRDO spokesman Ravi Kumar Gupta.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

There is concern in Pakistan, China and the West as Modi wins the Indian election: Modi has no foreign policy experience though some experts say that some firebrand rhetoric against Pakistan should not be an indicator of how he will actually rule.

Globe and Mail

India's right-wing BJP wins in landslide
IAIN MARLOW
The Globe and Mail

(...EDITED)

But even though Mr. Modi had long been considered the front-runner, the scale of his apparent victory is simply breathtaking: He has not only led his party to its best-ever electoral result, but in the process he has almost single-handedly wiped out the ruling Congress party across the subcontinent – a dramatic political upheaval that will redefine modern India and set the world’s second most populous nation on a strikingly new path.

Mr. Modi’s epochal accomplishment has also wrenched the country from the grasp of India’s dynastic Nehru-Gandhi family, which has ruled Congress – and the country – almost uninterrupted since independence from Great Britain.

With a note of triumph, Mr. Modi tweeted: ‘India has won!’ on Friday, as television channels aired footage of an emotional Mr. Modi meeting his mother and touching her feet, a traditional gesture when Hindus seek the blessings of an older relative. His mother then marked his forehead with vermilion and fed him sweets.

Mr. Modi and his party appeared set to win more than enough seats to form a majority government in the world’s largest democracy, ending a decade of rule by the center-left Congress party.

As results flooded in on Friday, senior Congress leaders conceded defeat. Party president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, the party vice-president who led the party into the elections, accepted both defeat and blame for the almost unbelievable scale of their organization’s defeat.

(...EDITED)

 

[a_majoor]

From the American Interest, an analysis of what we may expect from India's new Prime Minister and government. As Canadians, we should be both interested and as helpful as possible, since India represents a huge market and opportunity for us, and as the largest Anglosphere partner, will become increasingly important in the Anglosphere, among the Maritime powers and the world in general:

Part 1

http://www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2014/07/02/narendra-modis-path-forward/

INDIA ASCENDANT?
Narendra Modi’s Path Forward
C. RAJA MOHAN

If Narendra Modi’s landslide victory was in large measure due to the failure of the preceding Singh government, he now faces a big challenge and a huge opportunity. Here’s how he might proceed on both the economic and foreign policy fronts.

Published on July 2, 2014
In the few weeks he has been at India’s helm, after an unexpected landslide victory in the general elections, Narendra Modi has raised hopes around the world, including the United States and China, that Delhi is ready for a productive engagement with its external partners. These expectations are rooted in the nature of the mandate that Modi won, his reputation for economic pragmatism as the chief minister of Gujarat province, which he ran for more than a decade, and the structural opportunities that have long presented themselves to India on the international stage.

Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh, was widely liked and respected abroad as a wise elder statesman. Singh, who had no prior foreign policy experience, instinctively understood the extraordinary opportunities that awaited India after a period of sustained high growth rates from the early 1990s, when he had launched reforms as the finance minister of the nation. His first year as Prime Minister saw the unveiling of a historic civil nuclear initiative and a new framework for defense cooperation with the United States in 2005. Equally significant were an agreement on the principles to settle a boundary dispute with China and a opening up of a back channel negotiation with Pakistan to resolve the intractable problem of Kashmir. In 2005 India joined the newly formed East Asia Summit and began to engage fully with the geopolitics of Asia, from which it had excluded itself for decades.

Singh presided over unprecedented growth rates of close to 9 percent in the middle of the past decade; the rare prospect of improving relations with both China and the United States; the resolution of India’s longstanding territorial disputes; and the reclamation of its role as a major power in Asia. There was a worldwide perception that India’s long-awaited rise was inevitable, and most major nations vied with each other to deepen ties with India.

Tragically, this rare moment in India’s international relations evaporated over the next nine years of Singh’s decade-long tenure as Prime Minister. The lack of economic reforms and the drift toward populism in the earlier years of UPA rule were compounded by the global economic crisis. India’s growth rate soon plunged to five percent and below. The political drift within the government left it unable to advance bilateral relations with major powers, including the United States. Regional initiatives toward Pakistan and China sputtered, and hopes that India would play a larger role in Asia were dampened.

If Modi’s landslide victory was in large measure due to the failure of the Singh government, he now faces a big challenge and a huge opportunity. It is indeed impossible for any leader of a large and diverse country like India to fulfil all the demands that are being made on Modi. On the other hand, the drift under Singh has left much low-hanging fruit for Modi to pluck. Even small steps that restore a sense of political purposefulness in Delhi could significantly improve India’s image and generate much space for the new government to operate on the international stage. Modi’s success in securing an absolute majority for his party after a gap of thirty years has the potential to end the prolonged rule of weak governments in Delhi. If the compulsions of coalition politics limited Delhi’s ability to make bold economic reforms and significant foreign policy initiatives, Modi has the mandate to do both.


On the economic front, Modi appears prepared to bite the bullet. The depth of Modi’s commitment to reform will be visible after his government presents the budget for the year in mid-July. Those in the West looking for wholesale privatisation or dramatic expansion of market access, however, might be disappointed. He will rather attempt to craft a reform agenda that is sustainable in the complex Indian political environment. That agenda will emphasize shoring up India’s economic fundamentals and creating the right environment for investment by domestic and foreign capital.

Modi is perhaps the most business-friendly Prime Minister India has ever had. Yet he will have to fend off the long-entrenched suspicion of the private sector within the political class, including his own party, which is full of nativists and economic populists. Even modest success on the economic front is bound to generate greater space for Modi to improve relations with India’s immediate neighbours, narrow the growing strategic gap with China, and make Delhi an important player in shaping the balance of power in Asia, the Indian Ocean, and beyond.

Modi’s unabashed celebration of India’s cultural nationalism and his reputation as a Hindu nationalist and Pakistan-basher, however, had raised concerns at home and abroad, especially in the West, that he might adopt a tough and muscular approach toward Islamabad and precipitate a military crisis. In power, though, Modi took a very different tack. He invited the leaders of the seven South Asian neighbors, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to participate in his swearing-in ceremony. That all of them accepted and came on very short notice underlined the fact that India’s neighbours have long been waiting for a credible interlocutor in Delhi. Although the talks between Modi and Sharif were positive and the two sides have agreed to resume their dialogue, few expect a breakthrough. Many agreements have been negotiated but not implemented under the UPA government. These include pacts on normalization of trade relations and visa liberalization. Among other possibilities discussed were the export of electricity and diesel from India to Pakistan. If there is no major terror incident in India emanating from across the border in Pakistan, and if Sharif’s powerful army allows him to move forward, a positive phase in bilateral relations might be at hand. But these are big “ifs.”

Beyond Pakistan, Modi appears to be keen to reclaim India’s primacy in the Subcontinent. China’s emergence as the principal external player in the Subcontinent has raised concerns in the Indian strategic community. This in turn demands that India resolve disputes with its neighbors and deepen economic integration under the aegis of Delhi. There is some recognition of the latter in the Modi government’s emphasis on strengthening the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation, the main regional forum. Modi has also underlined the emphasis on neighborhood diplomacy by making tiny Bhutan his first foreign destination. His Foreign Minister, Sushma Swaraj, chose Bangladesh for her first trip abroad. Delhi’s effort to deepen ties with the neighbours over the past few years was stymied in part by opposition from provinces, such as those bordering Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The strategic community in Delhi has agonized over the federalization of Indian foreign policy, and Modi’s strong mandate promises to reverse this unfortunate tendency. While affirming Delhi’s prerogative to conduct foreign policy, Modi has promised to expand consultations with the state chief ministers and make them partners in crafting national policies. While creating more political space at home for dealing with the neighbors, Modi is expected to press them hard to show greater respect for India’s regional interests. In any case, a vigorous South Asian policy has become central to the principal strategic challenge that India faces—the rise of its giant neighbour to the North.

 

[a_majoor]

Part 2

http://www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2014/07/02/narendra-modis-path-forward/

China’s emergence as a great power has also presented an opportunity for India in East and South East Asia. China’s growing assertiveness in its Asian territorial disputes has led many of Beijing’s neighbours to seek stronger strategic partnerships with India as part of an effort to maintain an effective balance of power in the region. One of the first foreign destinations for Modi outside of the Subcontinent will be Tokyo, where Shinzo Abe is enthusiastic about building a stronger economic and strategic partnership with Delhi. Many ASEAN nations that have been disappointed by Delhi’s inability to carve out a larger role in Asia would be pleased if Modi pursued a more vigorous diplomatic and security engagement with the region. Already, he explicitly has underlined the importance of stronger defense ties with the smaller countries of Asia and the Indian Ocean. Given his party’s strong commitment to national defense, Modi is expected to raise India’s defense spending, which had fallen below 2 percent of GDP; accelerate weapons procurement, which had stalled under the previous government; facilitate foreign direct investment in the expansion of India’s domestic defense industrial base; and step up arms exports.

China also emerges as an important factor in India’s relations with the United States as Washington copes with the rapidly changing balance of power in Asia. China, locked in a confrontation in East Asia, has been sending positive signals to India. Well before the West had taken notice of Modi, China found him a valuable economic partner in Gujarat; it laid out the red carpet for him when he travelled to Beijing some years ago. At the same time, Modi would not downplay the security threats from China. During the election campaign, Modi visited the northeastern frontier claimed by China and denounced Beijing’s “expansionist mindset.”

In power, then, Modi is outlining a twin track policy toward China. He has proclaimed a strong interest in expanding economic cooperation with China; he has agreed, for example, to set up industrial parks for Chinese investments, which would also hopefully address the problem of the expanding trade deficit with Beijing. On the security front, he is actively clearing the way for long-delayed projects to modernize the Indian military and to improve Delhi’s defenses on the disputed frontier with China. He is also reminding Beijing that he has the requisite domestic political strength to negotiate a boundary settlement with China.

As a realist, too, Modi is quite conscious of the fact that India needs a strong partnership with the United States to successfully pursue India’s economic and foreign policy interests, including the challenge of balancing China. Given that he has been denied a U.S. visa since 2005, under unproven charges that he did not do enough to stop the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat during 2002, there is much discomfort between Modi and Washington. During the campaign, Modi had repeatedly stated that his personal issues with Washington would not be allowed to affect India’s important relationship with the United States. Overruling the widespread sentiment within his party and the strategic community that he should not travel to Washington without a formal apology from the United States on the visa issue, Modi quickly accepted an invitation from the Obama Administration for a White House meeting in September.

For his part, Modi is eager to put the past behind him and seek a productive relationship with the United States. But the Obama Administration has much work to do. For one, Washington must demonstrate genuine political warmth to Modi and assuage the deep, personal hurt on the visa issue. For another, Washington will have to recognize that India is on the cusp of significant internal change and must be prepared to make the best of it.

Modi’s arrival allows the two states to make a fresh start, to overcome the accumulated frustrations of the last few years and lay out a bold agenda for bilateral cooperation. The premises of 2005, when India and the United States took big steps toward a strategic partnership, continue to hold. A strong India makes it easier for Washington to sustain a balance of power in Asia that is favorable for America. Delhi, on the other hand, needs the full support of the United States to emerge as a great power on the world stage. A decade later, thanks to the relative weakening of both United States and India in relation to China, Washington and Delhi need each other more than ever before.

C. Raja Mohan is a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi and the foreign affairs columnist for the Indian Express. He is a non-resident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a visiting professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. He is on the editorial board of The American Interest.

 

[CougarKing]

Hopefully there won't be problems with these new subs compared to the recent submarine accidents the Indian Navy has had with 2 Kilo class subs in recent years.

Defense News

Indian Navy Wants To Fast-Track Purchase of Russian Subs
Aug. 2, 2014 - 03:45AM  |  By VIVEK RAGHUVANSHI

NEW DELHI — The Indian Defence Ministry’s delay in floating a tender for six conventional submarines appears to be helping Russia, as the Indian Navy is now asking the MoD to buy two Russian-built Amur-class subs to help restock the shrinking force.

The $12 billion global tender would cover the purchase of six conventional submarines with air independent propulsion (AIP) technology under the Indian Navy’s Project 75-I.

A high-level team from Rosoboronexport was in New Delhi two weeks ago to negotiate the sale or lease of two Amur-class subs, said a source in MoD who gave no details of the deliberations.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

A response to Chinese troops crossing the Indian border a few days ago?

Times of India

With eye on China, India deploys Akash missiles in northeast

NEW DELHI: After basing its most potent Sukhoi-30MKI fighters at Tezpur and Chabua, India has now begun deploying six Akash surface-to-air missile (SAM) squadrons in the northeast to deter Chinese jets, helicopters and drones against any misadventure in the region.

Defence ministry sources on Thursday said IAF has started getting deliveries of the six Akash missile squadrons, which can "neutralize" multiple targets at 25-km interception range in all-weather conditions, earmarked for the eastern theatre.

"IAF has deployed the first two Akash squadrons at the Mirage-2000 base in Gwalior and Sukhoi base in Pune. The next six squadrons, as approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security, are to guard against any threat from the northern borders," said a source.

This long-delayed but finally successful induction of the Akash systems, developed by DRDO and manufactured by defence PSU Bharat Dynamics, has also led to scrapping of the protracted discussions to develop the 'Maitri' short-range SAMs with France at a cost of around Rs 30,000 crore.

The Akash deployment in the northeast is in tune with the overall plan to progressively achieve "meaningful and credible deterrence" against China along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC).

(...EDITED)

 

[a_majoor]

The Economist weighs in on India's future prospects. There is a great deal of potential that can be tapped, and I would certainly want to see Canada getting far more involved since India as a member of the Anglosphere is a more natural "fit" than many other nations of the world. Still, until India addresses many of the issues identified in the article, there will be a great deal of wasted potential:

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21614139-asia-will-gain-india-finally-taking-foreign-policy-seriously-eastern-promises?frsc=dg|d

Eastern promises

Asia will gain from India finally taking foreign policy seriously
Aug 30th 2014 | From the print edition
Timekeeper

AT THEIR nearest points, India and Indonesia are barely 160 kilometres (100 miles) apart across the Malacca Strait. Yet almost nobody thinks of these two big countries as neighbours. One reason has been India’s historic isolation. Distracted by Pakistan, India long fretted over its western border. Under Nehru, its leader after independence, a principled policy of non-alignment led to moralising that was of little relevance to the rest of Asia. Under his protectionist daughter, Indira Gandhi, India looked to the Soviet Union and closed itself to foreign capital and trade, spurning the policies that made East Asia rich. As long as India’s economic and military muscle atrophied at home, it wielded little influence abroad.

There have been steps forward. Back in 1991, a reformist prime minister, Narasimha Rao, started to open the economy and laid down a policy of “looking east”. In 2009 India signed a free-trade deal in goods with the Association of South-East Asian Nations, which has helped lift trade with those countries to a handy $80 billion a year, potentially rising to $280 billion in a decade. Two-way trade with China is up from $7 billion ten years ago to $65 billion. India now hosts regional joint maritime exercises every two years in the Indian Ocean; in February navies from 17 countries took part. And India’s ties with Japan have gradually grown, as Asia’s two “middle powers” have both watched the rise of China.

Foreign policy
So it would be unfair to say that Narendra Modi is starting Indian foreign policy afresh. But the country’s new prime minister is making more of a noise than his predecessors. On August 30th he heads off on a five-day trip to Japan. It is the first salvo in an intense few weeks that will see visits from China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and Tony Abbott, Australia’s leader. Meanwhile India’s foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj, visited Hanoi this week as part of a South-East Asian tour. India’s president, Pranab Mukherjee, follows in September—a sign of how India’s defence co-operation with South-East Asia is growing.

A fresh broom
Good. Tighter relations with Japan are important for security (see article). With Australia, India is likely to sign a deal to buy uranium. It is welcome that the world’s most populous democracy should make its influence felt in its region. But India will not realise its true promise so long as it is held back by three legacies that still linger from the days of Nehru.

First, it has differences with two of its neighbours, which are at best a distraction and at worst an obstacle. Given how much it has to gain from peace with Pakistan, India should strive to launch talks that were recently put off because it objected to contacts between Pakistani diplomats and Kashmiri separatists. For Mr Modi, a Hindu nationalist who is feared by many Indian Muslims, a settlement with Pakistan should be a special priority. But Mr Modi also has a disputed border with China in the Himalayas. That too is a flashpoint for conflict, which he needs to discuss with Mr Xi—if only because India’s relations with China will count for more commercially and strategically than its relations with any other Asian country.

Second, to promote India as a trading nation, Mr Modi should ditch protectionism. He blundered in July when he rescinded India’s agreement to a World Trade Organisation deal to ease trade, opting instead to protect food and farm subsidies at home. Since India plays no part in many other regional trade forums, such as the Trans Pacific Partnership, it risks falling behind others who will set higher standards.

Last of all, he needs a government service that can support his diplomacy. India’s foreign service is roughly the size of New Zealand’s. The country’s defence-procurement system is rotten and dependent on second-rate state-owned firms. Newly eased restrictions on foreigners investing in defence could help. And India’s armed forces need skilled employees, modern equipment, more outside scrutiny and better co-operation between commands. For India to become influential abroad, Mr Modi has to do some tightening up at home.

 

[CougarKing]

While the rest of the world is focused on ISIS in Iraq and Syria, as well as Putin's aggression in the Ukraine...

Military.com

Al-Qaida Leader Says It Has Expanded into India

Ayman al-Zawahri
Associated Press | Sep 04, 2014 | by Tim Sullivan

NEW DELHI — Al-Qaida has expanded into India, the leader of the terror group said in a video released Thursday, vowing that its militants would bring Islamic law to the entire subcontinent and "wage jihad against its enemies."

At least three Indian states with large Muslim populations have been put on alert in the wake of the video's release, local TV stations reported, though there was no indication of an increased security presence.

The new group "is the fruit of a blessed effort of more than two years to gather the mujahedeen in the Indian subcontinent into a single entity," al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri said in the video, which was seen online by the SITE monitoring group.

While his comments raised concerns in India, al-Zawahri's message seemed largely directed at his own rivals in the international jihad movement, and with raising al-Qaida's profile in the wake of repeated successes by the Islamic State militant group.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

Beijing and New Delhi increasing trade links despite a recent border dispute when Chinese troops entered Indian territory a few weeks ago, IIRC.

BBC

China's Xi Jinping signs landmark deals on India visit


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Under the investment plans, China pledged to:

Help bring India's ageing railway system railway system up-to-date with high-speed links and upgraded railway stations.
Set up industrial parks in Gujarat and Maharashtra.
Give more market access to India to products, including pharmaceuticals and farm products.
Both sides also focussed on increasing co-operation in trade, space exploration and civil nuclear energy.

Mr Modi called for an early settlement on the disputed common border between the two countries and said the "true potential of our relations" would be realised when there was "peace in our relations and in the borders".

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

Seems that India beat China in being the first Asian nation to successfully send a probe to Mars:

Reuters

India triumphs in maiden Mars mission
NEW DELHI Wed Sep 24, 2014 1:06am EDT

(Reuters) - India's low-cost mission to Mars successfully entered the red planet's orbit on Wednesday, crowning India as the first country to complete the trip at its maiden attempt.

The success of the Mars Orbiter Mission, lauded for its low price tag of $74 million, will boost India's five-decade-old space program that newly-elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi aims to expand with better infrastructure and technology.

With a spacecraft around Mars, India joins a small group of nations - the United States, Russia and Europe - that have successfully sent probes to orbit or land on Mars. Others, however, failed several times initially.

(...EDITED)

 

[a_majoor]

Many of the issues in India are actually recreated on a smaller scale here (There may not be physical checkpoints between provinces, but there are bureaucratic roadblocks to interprovincial trade, labour mobility and capital movement). At least there is some movement to reduce these blockages:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/10/india-has-some-low-hanging-fruit-for.html

India has some low hanging fruit for higher GDP growth









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The World Bank has an India development update (31 pages)

Implementing GST and dismantling inter-state check posts are the most critical reforms needed for Indian manufacturing.

The potential gains of more efficient and reliable supply chains are enormous. Simply halving the delays due to road blocks, tolls and other stoppages could cut freight times by some 20-30 percent, and logistics costs by even more, as much as 30-40 percent. This would be tantamount to a gain in competitiveness of some 3-4 percent of net sales for key manufacturing sectors, helping India return to a path of high growth and enabling large-scale job creation.

According to the Update, a twice yearly report on the Indian economy and its prospects, India’s economic growth is expected to rise to 5.6 percent in FY15, followed by further acceleration to 6.4 percent and 7.0 percent in FY 2016 and FY 2017.

According to the Update, India’s longer term growth potential remains high due to favorable demographics, relatively high savings, recent policies and efforts to improve skills and education, and domestic market integration. Improved growth prospects in the US will support India’s merchandise and services exports, while stronger remittance inflows and declining oil prices are expected to support domestic demand.

Potential GDP growth is at 10%, so India is expected to be significantly underperforming relative to what India could be doing.






The projections could, however, face risks from external shocks, including financial market disruptions arising out of changes in monetary policy in high income countries, slower global growth, higher oil prices, and adverse investor sentiment arising out of geo-political tensions in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

Domestically, the risks include challenges to energy supply and fiscal pressures from weak revenue collection in the short term, the Update said. However, risks could be mitigated to a large extent by focusing on reforms that help the manufacturing sector.

 

[CougarKing]

Rattled by Chinese submarines, India joins other nations in rebuilding fleet

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India is speeding up a navy modernization program and leaning on its neighbors to curb Chinese submarine activity in the Indian Ocean, as nations in the region become increasingly jittery over Beijing's growing undersea prowess.

Just months after a stand-off along the disputed border dividing India and China in the Himalayas, Chinese submarines have shown up in Sri Lanka, the island nation off India's southern coast. China has also strengthened ties with the Maldives, the Indian Ocean archipelago.

(...SNIPPED)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has ordered an accelerated tendering process to build six conventional diesel-electric submarines at an estimated cost of 500 billion rupees ($8.1 billion), in addition to six similar submarines that French firm DCNS is assembling in Mumbai port to replace a nearly 30-year-old fleet hit by a run of accidents.

The country's first indigenously built nuclear submarine - loaded with nuclear-tipped missiles and headed for sea trials this month - joins the fleet in late 2016. In the meantime, India is in talks with Russia to lease a second nuclear-propelled submarine, navy officials told Reuters.

India's navy currently has only 13 ageing diesel-electric submarines, only half of which are operational at any given time due to refits. Last year, one of its submarines sank after explosions and a fire while it was docked in Mumbai.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[CougarKing]

India's "Cold Start" nuke weapons policy seems to be quite a contrast to China's "no first strike" nukes policy.

Macleans

The new nuclear threat

India and Pakistan are building up their arsenals, and one terror attack could ignite an all-out war

Maclean's

By Adnan R. Khan

(...SNIPPED)

Pakistan, concerned by the fact that it cannot compete in conventional military terms against a much richer India, has responded by developing its nuclear capability to include tactical warheads, giving it the ability to strike back with precision nuclear weapons targeting advancing Indian troops, without resorting to all-out nuclear war. “India’s strategy has created a lot of consternation in Pakistan,” says Ladwig, who has written extensively on the evolution of India’s military. “The U.S. has put pressure on India to back away from the Cold Start strategy.”

While Indian authorities have disavowed the Cold Start name, the strategy itself remains intact, Ladwig adds, but will take many years to reach operational levels. The Indian army, he says, is still too outdated to achieve the desired goals of a Cold Start offensive at the moment, but, 10 or 15 years down the road, things could change dramatically.

If that happens, which appears likely, considering India’s current rate of weapons procurement, it would push the nuclear Armageddon clock forward significantly, warn experts such as Ladwig and the authors of the Council on Foreign Relations report. The chain of events that could lead to a nuclear confrontation are relatively straightforward: In the event of a large-scale terrorist attack in India blamed on Pakistan-based militants, Indian authorities would demand action (as they did following the Mumbai attack). Pakistan would almost certainly deny involvement. Under Cold Start, India would (unlike after Mumbai) launch a military strike inside Pakistan. The goal would be to disorient the Pakistanis and, before they could recover, control a buffer zone inside Pakistan 10 to 15 km wide—providing it a strong position for any negotiations.

But, as Ladwig points out, “an operational Cold Start capability could lead Pakistan to lower its nuclear red line, put its nuclear weapons on a higher state of readiness, develop tactical nuclear weapons or undertake some equally destabilizing course of action.” For Pakistani generals, Cold Start might not look like a limited operation, but rather a prelude to a wider invasion or a tactic to subjugate Pakistan to India’s will. Neither side would want to use its nuclear weapons, but the trigger could be as simple as an overzealous Pakistani artillery commander armed with a tactical nuke, or a miscommunication on the Indian side.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[CougarKing]

An Indian sea-based nuclear deterrent?

US Naval Institute

New Indian Boomer Starts Sea Trials

By: Sam LaGrone
Published: December 16, 2014 2:01 PM • Updated: December 16, 2014 2:01 PM

India’s first domestically built nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) started sea trials on Monday, according to local press reports.

The 6,500-ton Arihant left the harbor at Visakhapatnam, on India’s eastern shore, following a year and a half of tests closer to shore and is a first for the Indian shipbuilding base in developing a domestic ability to construct nuclear submarine.

However, the submarine maybe more a test and development platform than an operational boomer.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[CougarKing]

New Delhi's diplomatic countermoves against Beijing.

Reuters

As Obama visits, signs that India is pushing back against China

By Frank Jack Daniel

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - When Sri Lanka unexpectedly turfed out President Mahinda Rajapaksa in an election this month, it was the biggest setback in decades for China's expansion into South Asia - and a remarkable diplomatic victory for India.

Despite New Delhi's protestations, diplomats and politicians in the region say India played a role in organizing the opposition against pro-China Rajapaksa.

His successor, President Maithripala Sirisena, has said India is the "first, main concern" of his foreign policy and that he will review all projects awarded to Chinese firms, including a sea reclamation development in Colombo that would give Beijing a strategic toehold on India's doorstep.

India has pushed back against China elsewhere in the region since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in May, improving ties with Japan and Vietnam, both locked in territorial disputes with Beijing, and contesting a port project in Bangladesh that could otherwise have been a cakewalk for China.

The new robust diplomacy, which Modi calls "Act East", has delighted Washington, which has been nudging India for years to dovetail with the U.S. strategic pivot toward the region.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[CougarKing]

Obama connecting with the new Indian leadership:

Reuters

Unlikely buddies Obama and Modi aim high on India trip

By Frank Jack Daniel

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - In a fresh bid to make India an enduring strategic partner, U.S. President Barack Obama lands in New Delhi on Sunday for a highly symbolic parade and to nurture friendship with a prime minister who until last year was persona non grata in Washington.

Obama will be the first U.S. president to attend India's Republic Day parade, a show of military might long associated with the anti-Americanism of the Cold War, and will host a radio show with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

His presence at Monday's procession at Modi's personal invitation is the latest revival in a roller-coaster relationship between the two largest democracies that just a year ago was in tatters.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[CougarKing]

One result of the recent state visit of Obama to India:

Reminds me of a thread a couple of years ago that discussed the possibility of selling the then-serving USS Kitty Hawk to India:

DoD Buzz

U.S. to Aid India in Building Aircraft Carriers

Tucked away in a new defense deal with India was an agreement for the U.S. to aid India in fielding aircraft carriers that China views as a threat.

As part of a Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) signed by President Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, the U.S. agreed to “form a working group to explore aircraft carrier technology sharing and design.”

Under the agreement, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that “we will begin to realize the enormous potential of the U.S.-India defense industrial partnership. We have further strengthened this partnership with an agreement that will allow us to continue science and technology collaboration for the next 15 years.”

(...SNIPPED)

The Times of India reported that the U.S. has agreed to aid India in developing electro-magnetic launch systems for the Vikrant’s aircraft.

India was also planning to construct a much larger carrier of 65,000 tons to be called the Vishal, which could be nuclear powered, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.