Strategic Analysis

IBSA at 10: South–South development assistance and the challenge to build international legitimacy in a changing global order

This commentary engages with the IBSA model of South–South development assistance. It focuses on the IBSA Trust Fund to demonstrate the growing political relevance of the partnership in development assistance initiatives. This is followed by an analysis of Brazil's increasing participation in South–South development assistance in many developing countries around the world.

Twenty-First Century Sea Power: Cooperation and Conflict at Sea by Peter Dutton, Robert S. Ross and Oystein Tunsjo (eds.)

The volume under review is part of the CASS Series on Naval Policy and History edited by the acclaimed maritime affairs expert Professor Geoffrey Till, and is also the 50th book in the series. Maritime and naval scholarship is a niche area in security and strategic studies and the Cass series is a welcome initiative to address the prevailing sea-blindness and related ignorance in the policy-making circles of the world.

IBSA: Avoiding Being BRICked Up

In his opening address at the 2011 India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) summit held in Pretoria/Tshwane, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa said the essence of the grouping was ‘Back to Basics: When Democracy and Development Work Together for a Better Life’.

Sri Lanka and the Defeat of the LTTE by K.M. de Silva

The story of post-colonial Sri Lanka is, in large part, the story of how two groups have interlaced and, in the process, engaged in a 30-year war which saw its end in 2009. In Sri Lanka and the Defeat of the LTTE, K.M. de Silva addresses the history of ethnic tension in Sri Lanka, and presents a case study of the emergence, maturation and eventual collapse of the terrorist organisation the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Return of a King by William Dalrymple

Imperialism never gives on its own will. The all-season historian, William Dalrymple, echoes this message throughout Return of a King. In comparison to his unwavering research on India, which is submerged in the thickness of the complex historiography, this new book is a rattling good read. The theme of the book gives the average reader a valid reason to come across the parts of ‘research and reference’, which are supported by historical facts rather than facts interwoven with fiction.

India: A Sacred Geography by Diana L. Eck : Harmony, Random House, New York, 2012, 559 pp., Rs 599, ISBN 978-0-385-34708-2

India: A Sacred Geography by Diana L. Eck is an important contribution to the literature on the processes that have contributed to imagining India long before the age of the nation state. Eck traces the ‘prehistory’ of the idea of India, locating it in the geographical nature of Hindu spiritual practice and pilgrimage.

Partition of History in Textbooks in Pakistan: Implications of Selective Memory and Forgetting

This article seeks to study the post-partition and especially post-1971 experimentation with history writing in Pakistan and focuses on how the revisiting of the partition has led to a reinvention of history by the selective contraction, misinterpretation and even omission of certain periods believed to be detrimental to the process of nation building in Pakistan. The article seeks to selectively apply the Hegelian approach and make a case for a common history, which it is hoped will facilitate better relations and greater mutual understanding between the nations of the sub-continent.

Impact of West Bengal Politics on India–Bangladesh Relations

It was expected that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Dhaka in September 2011 would transform India–Bangladesh relations. However, this did not happen as India could not sign the Teesta water sharing agreement, the biggest deliverable of the visit. It also made some people brand West Bengal (Paschimbanga) Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as a spoiler.

Strategic Importance of Radio Kashmir in Countering Pakistan’s War of Words against India

Like any other government-owned media institution, Radio Kashmir has historically been entrusted with a mission to safeguard the territorial integrity of India and help in guarding its vital strategic interests. It acts as an agency that bridges the gap between the government and the people and creates a favourable opinion of India as a strong, modern and secular democracy in a region where fundamentalism and military ambitions have created rogue states.

Internal Conflicts: Military Perspectives by V.R. Raghavan (ed.)Vij Books, New Delhi, 2012, 324 pp. Internal Conflicts: Military Perspectives by V.R. Raghavan (ed.)

India's tryst with destiny began on 15 August 1947. It did not take long for both conventional and sub-conventional challenges to manifest in the onward journey of the nascent country thereafter. While a number of accounts have since been written of state and region-specific insurgencies as a subset of sub-conventional threats, this edited volume attempts to analyse the conflicts from a military perspective.