India's Focus Shift From SAARC to BIMSTEC Is Strategic, but Underused

While India has tactfully used the platform to diplomatically isolate Pakistan, it must also tap into BIMSTEC's immense potential for development, connectivity and trade in the region.

Leaders of the BIMSTEC countries attended Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony last Thursday. This is an opportunity for India to leverage the grouping for better regional economic integration, rather than merely as a diplomatic tool to isolate Pakistan.BIMSTEC comprises India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. In other words, it is SAARC minus Pakistan and Afghanistan, plus Thailand and Myanmar. In 2014, Modi had invited leaders of the SAARC countries for his swearing-in ceremony.However, since then, tensions between India and Pakistan have led to New Delhi shifting focus from SAARC to BIMSTEC. Since its formation in 1997, we have only witnessed BIMSTEC coming to life during periods of tensions between India and Pakistan. During Modi’s first term, India began focusing on BIMSTEC after a series of terrorist attacks on Indian defence establishments in Uri and Pathankot.

This article was originally published in the Wire. Click to read the full article

Biological Weapons: The Impact of New Technologies

In June 2018, German police arrested a Tunisian man in Cologne for trying to build a biological weapon using the deadly toxin, ricin.1   In October 2018, researchers flagged a US agricultural program funded by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) as a potential mask for a bioweapons project.2 At the same time, Russia also claimed that the US had tested biological weapons in Georgia killing over 70 people.3 Further, suspect packages were sent to select targets in the United States in October 2018;4 these packages in addition to being mail bombs also carried a white powder reprising concerns of the anthrax attacks from 2001 which led to the death of 5 people.There has been no incident of biological agents being used as a weapon of mass destruction in the recent past. Yet as the above examples show, there have been attempts to explore and create technologies that could be weaponised by both state and non-state actors. The threat was made apparent by James Clapper, US Director of National Intelligence, who added gene editing in their annual worldwide threat assessment report in 2016.5 Since then, there has been a wider recognition that the advances in technologies and improved access to science have lowered the barriers to creating designer bioweapons. [Read more]

Time India Lay’s eyes on Pepsi potato case

A multinational giant using all its might to crush four small farmers for an alleged patent infringement: this is how PepsiCo’s decision to sue a group of Gujarat farmers for Rs 1 crore each played out in the media early this month. The US-based snack and beverage maker was accused of coercion for taking the farmers to court for growing FC5 potato variety, which it exclusively developed for its Lay’s chips.It was the money — Rs 1 crore — that caught attention: how can a poor farmer pay such a huge amount? And instinctively, you side with the farmer. But is that instinct correct? Who is right: the farmers or the drinks major they are up against? [Read more]

Misguided Talks With the Taliban Won’t Bring Peace to Afghanistan

Dark, bizarre, surreal: we are short of adjectives to accurately capture the current political situation in Afghanistan. On May 8, even as they were in talks with the US, the Taliban attacked the Kabul office of a US aid NGO, killing nine. On May 5, the Taliban mounted attacks on armed forces outposts in northern Afghanistan, killing more than a dozen servicemen.Earlier in March, the Taliban’s shadow police subjected women to public lashings evoking comparisons to their brutal medieval-era style rule between 1996 and 2001. This is to say nothing of the 75,000 plus Afghan civilians who have been killed in heinous acts of terrorism since 2001. And despite all this, the US seems determined to strike a deal with the Taliban through negotiations which erode the authority of the Afghan national unity government, a government midwifed by them and one that couldn’t have survived this long without them. On May 9, the US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad tweeted that slow but steady progress was made on the framework to end the Afghan war and the Doha round of talks were now getting into the ‘nitty-gritty’.If we are to believe Khalilzad, the US remains hopeful of forming an interim government involving the Taliban on the basis of this quid pro quo: the US will scale down its presence in Afghanistan in return for security guarantees by the Taliban. Though the details are yet to be worked out, there appears to be an in-principle agreement on this broad arrangement between the US, the Taliban, and the Taliban’s minders – the ISI. If it works out, President Trump will appeal to the voters in the 2020 presidential elections that he has brought soldiers back from Afghanistan – from a war he now refers to as “ridiculous”.

This article first appeared in The Wire

Demoting India’s engagement with Pakistan from PM level to foreign secretary-level will be a good start

A response to The Print's TalkPoint question for 20th May: With Lok Sabha elections over, how can India and Pakistan now repair fractured ties?Pakistan is not one geopolitical entity, but two. The first is a putative state; represented by civilian governments and a civilian de-facto head of state. The competing entity is a dynamic syndicate of military, militant, radical Islamist and political-economic structures. It pursues a set of domestic and foreign policies to ensure its own survival and relative dominance: the military-jihadi complex (MJC). This latter entity is an irreconcilable adversary and must be delegitimised, contained and dismantled.Any Indian action towards Pakistan is met with a response by both these entities. For example, every Indian PM has sought to make a grand gesture that will “solve” the Pakistan problem, only to be stalled by the next terrorist attack orchestrated by the MJC. So, demoting the engagement with Pakistan from the prime ministerial level to the foreign secretary and national security adviser-levels will be a good start. This will allow India to calibrate its response towards Pakistan without having to risk huge political capital. India is better off putting a grand rapprochement on the back burner, while expending available political capital to launch economic reforms and get the country on the train to prosperity.

Equity sans reservations: Imagining alternate ways for affirmative action

Affirmative action aimed at ending discrimination has a long and complex history in India. A new chapter was added to this story on May 10 when the Supreme Court upheld a Karnataka law, saying quotas for promotion of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe candidates in public employment was constitutional and did not require demonstrating ‘backwardness’ of the community.Even groups opposed to quotas want the same benefit extended to them. For long, this has been the only solution to address inequity in India. So these recent developments provide a good opportunity to reflect on the question: can we imagine better ways to achieve social equity goals?Consider this thought experiment. There are no predetermined quotas for any posts. Positions are filled only based on a composite score of all applicants. The composite score is a combination of two measures. The first is an inequity score — calculated to compensate for the relative disadvantage faced by an applicant.The second measure strictly represents an applicant’s ability to be effective for the position they are applying for. Selection is on the basis of the composite score. No seats are reserved and yet the score allows for addressing multidimensional inequity much better than current methods.Read the full article on FirstPost here. 

Can our water, power woes hit data localisation plans?

One of the key challenges the new government will have to face after the Lok Sabha elections, be it a BJP or a Congress-led alliance or a federal front coalition, is data localisation and assuring foreign investors and states about the disruption associated with it.

RBI’s notification, Justice B.N. Srikrishna-led committee’s report, and the draft e-commerce policy have all called for data localisation without explaining how such a step will benefit India.

For a move that could define the future of domestic and international data in India, a cost-benefit analysis would be much appreciated by the industry, academia as well as civil society.

Cost, resources and security are fundamental to localisation. Its impact on ease of doing business and the start-up ecosystem as well as the geopolitical implications of other countries following India’s lead are yet to be understood in full. India needs to work out a comprehensive cost benefit model so that people can get a holistic picture of data localisation.

Going forward, data and where it should be kept are set to be the most important issues in India’s technology policy.

The questions to ask are – why does it matter where data is stored and is data localisation a wise choice?

The article was first published on The Print

Neighbourhood RWAs face greater scrutiny than political parties in democratic India

The manner in which the Supreme Court has handled the allegation of sexual harassment against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi is unedifying. Given the nature of the case, the Supreme Court ought to have handled the case in an exemplary manner to protect its own credibility — and thus faith in the Indian Republic — in the eyes of the public.

Unfortunately, it has merely taken a procedurally correct approach.

Read more

Kra and caution: Business Standard

This article appeared in Business StandardFive years ago, Wang Jing, a tycoon with close links to the Chinese government and Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s president announced a $50 billion plan to cut a 278-km long canal in the Central American isthmus. Despite the scale of environmental damage it would cause, Ortega’s government quickly cleared the decks for the project, and counted on China’s reputation for rapid execution of big infrastructure projects to have the canal ready by 2020. Well, not a single shovel of Nicaraguan sand has been dug out of the ground. On the other hand, Wang’s infrastructure company quietly moved out of its glamorous office in Hong Kong’s tallest skyscraper last year, without even leaving a forwarding address. Ortega’s government ran out of money in 2017 after a political crisis in Venezuela, its long time benefactor, closed the tap. He cut social security payments to Nicaraguans, triggering nationwide protests. A brutal crackdown put down the “Tropical Spring”, but Nicaragua now finds in the doghouse after the United States imposed sanctions on the Ortega regime. Ironically, the only respite came from Taiwan — in the form of a $100 million loan and port call by a Taiwanese warship — because Nicaragua is among the few countries that still recognise it as the real China.The Nicaraguan canal project is dead. In the meantime, China and Panama are getting along famously after the latter ditched Taiwan for Beijing. An unspecified amount of “non-reimbursible aid” was announced during Xi Jinping’s visit in December 2018, and Chinese firms are now building a port, a bridges and a convention centre in Panama. Like many other Caribbean and Central American countries, Panama has found Chinese presence and assistance a useful hedge against US dominance.Was the Nicaraguan canal project a stratagem to win Panama over? It is hard to be sure. Note that Wang’s venture with Ortega was shrouded in mystery. He is now in financial trouble, but certainly has connections to the Chinese government. In recent years, he has tried to buy a port in Crimea, an satellite company in Israel and a key manufacturer of aircraft engines in the Ukraine. Beijing, however, can plausibly claim that he was a private entrepreneur and his projects are his own. The prospect of a China-supported competitor in Nicaragua would certainly have weighed on the minds of the Panamanian authorities, contributing to their decision to switch to Beijing’s side.The question closer to home is whether a similar game is afoot in Thailand, where there is renewed interest in building a canal across the Isthmus of Kra, creating a direct passage between the Andaman Sea and the South China Sea. Like the Nicaraguan canal, the Thai canal is an alternative to an existing route that is both congested and not politically under Chinese influence. The economic case for the Thai canal is at best marginal — for the largest ships on long haul voyages, if fuel prices are high, if transit fees are low and if the Straits of Malacca are congested, then the canal route makes sense. The Thai proponents like it because the canal project will be accompanied by special economic zones that will boost the local economy. Like in the case of Nicaragua, the Chinese investor is a private company, that will invest over $28 billion over ten years and bring in 30,000 Chinese workers.While such a canal would have dealt a severe blow to the Singapore economy even five decades ago, it will at worst merely shave off some of its market share in ports and maritime sector today. Malaysia’s ports might lose a bigger share, but the Thai canal is no longer an existential threat for the two economies. Indeed, if the sovereign wealth funds of the two countries acquire stakes in the Thai Canal, they will be able to offset some of the losses from the lost marine traffic. Yet, to the extent that Singapore and Malaysia would want to avoid the competition they, like Panama, will be ready to please China. Beijing can squeeze concessions from Singapore and Malaysia instead of building the canal.What would a Thai Canal mean for India? From an economic perspective, having an alternate route — even one managed by Chinese operators — to the Pacific Ocean is a good thing.Concerns arise from the strategic perspective. Chinese firms will have a vantage point in the Bay of Bengal and the PLA Navy will have a faster, friendlier route into the Indian Ocean. Yet India is also suitably placed, literally, to manage them by making appropriate investments in the Andamans. Given the convergence of interests, Singapore and even Malaysia will be even more interested in engaging us. Similarly, the United States, Japan and Australia will have stronger reasons to co-operate with us in the Bay of Bengal region.No canal project can move forward until Thai politics gains stability. And after observing what happened to Ortega and Nicaragua, Thailand’s political leaders are bound to be more careful than enthusiastic.So, should we be worried? Only to the extent that we are unable to make use of the opportunities that the Thai Canal presents.

Are Pakistan’s Battlefield Nuclear Weapons a Mirage?

In April 2011, Pakistan conducted the first test of its short-range Hatf-IX or Nasr rocket. The test was interpreted as marking a shift in Pakistan’s nuclear posture to “full-spectrum deterrence,” which envisages a complete range of “strategic, operational and tactical” nuclear weapons that would give India “no place to hide.” More specifically, Pakistan claimed the Nasr was intended to “pour cold water over Cold Start,” the name given to the Indian Army’s doctrine, which involves the rapid mobilization of division-sized integrated battle groups making shallow incursions into Pakistani territory.Read More

RAW thinks espionage can be taught in 6-month crash course—it clearly needs training reforms

There is no doubt that inadequacies exist within India’s intelligence community, especially in the RAW. Instead of letting them fester and risk national security, the focus should be on reforms that focus on the people that constitute the institution.Read more

This Lok Sabha election, don’t fall for these seven deadly myths

If you are reading this, chances are that you get most of your political information online, on television or on your smartphone. Many myths are floating around these media, and given the echo-chambers and the tribal battlefields that we inhabit, some of the myths are left so unchallenged that they are accepted as truths. Let me debunk some of the most prominent ones.1. Nobody has a monopoly on nationalism. Just because the BJP’s leaders and supporters throw the term “anti-national” at anyone they disagree with, it does not follow that nationalism is the sole preserve of one party. It may be that other parties don’t proclaim nationalism as their main proposition, but it does not follow that they are any less sensitive to national interest.Also, nationalism and patriotism are two different things — like Rabindranath Tagore, you can be a patriot (a person who loves his country) without being a nationalist (a person who believes in the superiority of the national identity).Read more

RAW needs to become more like CIA, and move away from IAS & IPS

Immediately after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, the rules for deputation to the RAW also came under the scanner. While the rules continue to be debated, it is clear that the benefits of separating the civil services from external intelligence outnumber the benefits brought by an amalgamation of the two. There are better-suited solutions that should not be dismissed without exploration.Read more

We need more tourists but not an insurge that overwhelms us

There is a company in Gujarat that is pioneering election tourism in India. It currently offers foreign tourists 15 packages, with names as delightful as “Hustings in Himachal", “Republic of Rajasthan", “Grassroot Democracy of Kerala" and so on.The couple of thousand tourists who have signed up to witness political rallies and follow campaign trails constitute a curious footnote to India’s multi-billion dollar election economy, but the enterprise is still a promising sign as far as the tourism industry is concerned.Read more

Focus on Voting Security Instead of Just EVM Security

Unlike those of other countries, India’s machines are offline, inaccessible via the internet. In India, what started out as genuine concerns have transformed into a thinly veiled excuse each time parties lose elections — no matter that the Election Commission of India (ECI), recognised across major democracies for its independence, has taken steps to address the worries.EVMs have made “booth capturing” — where supporters of a party physically capture a remote polling station and stuff the ballot box to influence the total count — a thing of the past. Make no mistake, India’s electoral process has flaws — fraudulent voter IDs, difficulties eligible voters face in registering and fake news. It’s these challenges India needs to focus on — when votes are counted on May 23, the EVMs can be trusted.Read the full article on ozy. 

Advanced gene editing may mutate into WMDs

Last June, German police arrested a man planning a terror attack by releasing large quantities of the biological toxin ricin, said to be 6,000 times more poisonous than cyanide. The raids on a block of flats in Cologne blew the lid off our worst fears: non-state actors laying their hands on bioweapons.Technology has always changed war and its arsenal. Scientists, security experts and diplomats are increasingly talking about biological weapons when they discuss strategies to prevent proliferation of conventional and nuclear weapons. While biological attacks have been rare since the end of World War II, isolated incidents have been reported. The ‘anthrax letters’, which killed five people in the US following 9/11, is one such incident.Read Entire Article Here

The folly of breaking up Big Tech

Further, breaking up these companies would significantly reduce the value consumers get due to the high interconnectedness of the products. A lot of the value that Google has seen in the Maps platform, for instance, comes from all the data that they have from Search. Customers also receive a lot of value from other Google products that are cross-subsidised from revenue earned in other products. YouTube, for instance, is widely believed to be non-profitable but is supported by revenues earned by other products.We would also have to stop and wonder how is it that one of the most integral parts of our lives — Google Search — is provided free of cost. Google can give the service for free because it can monetise it with advertising. If Google is broken up, this would no longer be possible. Breaking up any one of these services would give us substantially less valuable services.Breaking up these technology companies would also have a severe impact on innovation in the sector. As an article in Politico points out, “The top five spenders in research and development in 2017 were all tech companies. Amazon alone spent more than $22 billion. The development of autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and voice recognition wouldn’t be nearly as advanced as they are now if it weren’t for the work of Google and Amazon”. Investing in R&D and finally introducing them into the market is an expensive ordeal. However, big tech companies can afford to do so because of the nature of interconnectedness that exist within their products...Read the entire article 

After Mission Shakti, declare a ‘No First Use’ policy in space as well

Becoming a responsible space power should be India’s natural inclination. It should focus on building only relevant deterrence capability and follow a ‘No First Use’ doctrine as well work towards its global adoption.Read more

Modi govt’s data war: Economists & accountants are fighting for political power like rivals

The recent public intervention by a group of economists over data published under the Narendra Modi government and a rejoinder to them by a bigger group of chartered accountants makes it appear as if public policy is a numbers game. And as if economics and accountancy are two rival ideologies contending for political power. Both these impressions are wrong, dangerous for public policy and corrosive for democracy. Here’s why.At a time when India needs greater expertise in public policy, the oversimplified “economists vs chartered accountants” framing seems to suggest that the two disciplines are substitutes, and in doing so, devalues the role of any expertise in public policy.Just as it would be very unwise to approach an economist to help you with corporate structuring or tax planning, it would be wrong to rely on chartered accountants for recommendations on monetary policy, welfare schemes or public finance.Read More

Lokpal Is the Latest Miracle ‘Weight-Loss Pill’ We Have Bought

Many newspaper editorials, activists and citizens are elated that the Modi government has finally appointed the first chairperson of the Lokpal. Since seven more members remain to be selected and appointed, and the entire organisation has to be staffed according to government rules, it’ll be some time before the institution begins to function. We are still years away from a properly staffed, adequately resourced, and well-functioning anti-corruption ombudsman.Read more