The Centre focuses on issues that challenge India’s internal security. Secessionist movements based on ethnic identities in the Northeast and Jammu & Kashmir have been contesting the Indian state through violent means for decades. The Left Wing Extremism movement based on Marxist-Leninist ideology is engaged in a struggle to overthrow the democratic structure of the Indian state. Intermittent terrorist attacks perpetrated by foreign and home grown terrorist groups have been disrupting peace and political order in the country. Infiltration, illegal migration, and trafficking of arms and narcotics are not only breaching the country’s international borders but are also aggravating its security situation. The research efforts of the Centre are focused on analysing the trends, patterns, causes, and implications of these threats and challenges, and suggesting policy alternatives. The Centre’s research agenda includes: left wing extremism, insurgencies in the Northeast India, cross border terrorism and militancy in Jammu and Kashmir, global and national trends in terrorism, management of India’s international borders and security of its coasts.
The Centre also undertakes various projects entrusted by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the National Security Council Secretariat on matters internal security. The Centre has a mix of civilian scholars and officers deputed from the armed forces and central armed police forces.
The Centre has a bilateral agreement to collaborate with the Border Security Forces’ Institute for Border Management and Strategic Studies.
Maritime security has increasingly been studied from the standpoint of the complexities of the ocean—where the ‘game’ has been played since ancient days. In recent years, however, the concept has undergone a sea change.
The Volume provides an insight into certain select documents that have shaped North East India in a variety of ways, the perusal of which would aid scholarship that is appropriately beginning to study the enchanted frontiers. The book would be useful to research scholars, policy makers and readers having an interest in the region.
This book is an attempt to bring together documents and reports published by the government on border management. The aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of the problems India faces in managing its borders and its approach towards the challenge.
The growing interest of nations in the ocean-realm has become discernable in recent years, leading to an increased significance of maritime security. This is particularly relevant to India, whose vital stakes are expanding beyond its terrestrial confines. How has this increased the responsibility of Indian maritime forces? Can we expect these forces to satiate national-security interests beyond maritime affairs? What approach and capabilities are needed for this? As an attempt to answer these questions, this book is intended for a 'wide-spectrum' readership; ranging from a layman but a keen observer of national/ global events that affect him, and who seeks an association with India's growing eminence; to the academics and Indian policy makers.
This book is an attempt to suggest a way towards peace and development in the North East. The authors, mostly belonging to the region, have provided valuable insights on the issues of insurgency, development and security and have also suggested concrete measures to tackle the myriad problems afflicting the region.
Publishers: IDSA and Shipra
ISBN: 81-7541-187-2
Rs 350
US $ 35
Publishers: IDSA and Sage
ISBN: 0-7619-9785-7
Rs 380
Publisher: IDSA and Knowledge World
ISBN: 81-86019-22-7
The article is an attempt to study the history of the Tedim Road, a 265 km transborder road connecting Imphal (the capital of Manipur in India) with Tedim in the Chin Hills (Chin State) in western Burma (Myanmar). It was constructed by the British solely for the purpose of facilitating military movements along the India–Burma frontier during the Second World War.
The objective of this article is to critically analyse the discourse within the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) or known as UCPN (Maoist) since its evolution and find out whether the Maoists have adapted themselves to the democratic process well by using democracy as a tool to achieve their own revolutionary political objectives. The article argues that the internal Maoist discourse reflects that there is no change in the UCPN (Maoist) strategy or political goals. They have only changed their tactics to suit the situation.
Naxals of the Communist Party of India (CPI) (Maoist), better known as Maoists, characterised more than once by the Indian prime minister as the gravest threat to our internal security, have been continuously fine-tuning their strategies and tactics in order to maintain their relevance. On the other hand, the state too has been making concerted efforts by taking ‘security and development’ measures to diminish, if not altogether defeat, the challenge posed by the rebels to the Indian state.
This article looks at the status quo of Indian counterterrorism policy—which largely favours ‘physical’ or ‘hard’ measures—and proposes that the government adopt a more holistic strategy. Termed ‘Countering Violent Extremism’, this would involve measures geared towards long-term prevention, with greater attention paid to the reasons for which people commit terrorism and to the impact of counterterrorism on communities.
In one of the most well-written and extensively researched books on the subject, Anuradha Chenoy and Kamal Mitra Chenoy attempt to holistically examine the state of armed conflicts in India. In their own words, the book has the modest aim of understanding the roots, the nature and the impact of the armed conflicts in India. However, the title gives the reader the erroneous impression that the Maoist conflict will be the central theme while other conflicts will be peripheral.
The granting of scheduled tribe status to the Kuki-Chin people eroded their allegiance to clan and linguistic/dialectal identities. While they do not have any problem with a pan-ethnic identity, their primary loyalty is to their own clans and communities. Invocation of kinship ties by different groups does not necessarily translate into a common political agenda. There are at least 15 armed groups among them that have combined into two larger groups—the United People's Front (UPF) and the Kuki National Organisation (KNO)—and signed a peace agreement with the state and central governments.
Most nation-states in Asia and Africa that gained independence from colonial rulers during the middle of the 20th century are diverse in their ethnic composition. The national governments make efforts to politically integrate their constituent units in the face of the continuing resistance of several ethnic groups. India adopted various means to integrate the more than 600 princely states and other loosely administered areas.
India has been grappling with the problem of devising an efficient border management strategy that would prevent the entry of dangerous elements while at the same time allowing the legitimate flow of goods, services and people. Given that it has always been vulnerable to cross-border threats and challenges such as illegal migration, drug and human trafficking, gunrunning, smuggling of commodities and cross-border terrorism, India has taken a largely unilateral approach towards border management whereby security of the borders is accorded primacy over the free movement of people and goods.
The Chinese territorial claim on the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh has negatively affected India–China relations for many decades now. In recent years, China has become visibly aggressive with regard to its territorial claim by denying visas to Indians from Arunachal Pradesh travelling to China, claiming that they are Chinese citizens and hence do not require visas. China also tried to block ADB aid sought by India for the state.
The Andaman and Nicobar islands are of immense strategic significance for India. The geographical configuration and the location of the island chain in the Bay of Bengal safeguards India's eastern seaboard as well the approaches to the Indian Ocean from the east. Its proximity to the Southeast Asian region enables India to forge friendly relations with its Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) neighbours. The physical isolation and remoteness of the archipelago, however, make it vulnerable to conventional and non-conventional threats.
Increased collaboration among countries of the Indian Ocean Region on atmospheric and ocean studies is essential to tackle the challenge of climate change-induced vulnerabilities.
India is developing reliable deep-sea mining technologies and platforms to tap ocean resources to address its need for rare earth minerals that increasingly power renewable energy sources.
With increasing North Korean nuclear and missile threats, and Chinese nuclear force modernisation, the prospects of indigenous nuclear weapons acquisition by Japan and South Korea cannot be ruled out.
The inaction of countries like Canada to rein in the Khalistani separatists have been straining their relations with India.
Effective, inclusive and transparent governance is the need of the hour in violence-hit Manipur.
India and Japan as Chairs of the G20 and G7 respectively can play a key role in ensuring that global nuclear instability is effectively managed.
The proposed amendments to the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 will allow for speedy completion of infrastructure projects in the border areas.
Jammu and Kashmir needs a robust early warning system to mitigate the impact of natural disasters.
Militancy in Jammu and Kashmir has continued to remain communal, even as ‘secular’ justifications for acts of terror are being professed in the information domain.
The recent neutralisation of hardcore Maoists, including one of its top leaders, in Gadchiroli District serves as a major setback for CPI (Maoist)’s expansion in the Maharashtra–Madhya Pradesh–Chhattisgarh tri-junction region. A judicious mix of security and developmental interventions would go a long way in tackling Maoist threat.
