ThePrint | Nijjar-Pannun saga is just a temptation to project a strong state. Arthashastra has answers

India’s alleged involvement in the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada and in the plot to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the US against the so-called ‘Khalistani’ threat throws open a question that Chanakya’s Arthashastra offers an answer to. Morality and legitimacy in the utilisation of violence in statecraft are often in mutual conflict. According to the Arthashastra, if morality is seen as pursuing a ‘just cause’ that would eventually lead to a more prosperous and secure state, then it is the guiding light for the use of violence and other coercive means. There is, however, a difference between the means employed to address internal and external enemies. For the external enemy, Bheda (logic or trickery) and Danda (force) can be employed, but for your own people (especially those in the core of the kingdom), all means except force can be used. In the former, the use of force is seen as moral. However, Matsya Nyaya (law of the jungle) in the internal realm can also be curbed through force. These principles provide the guidelines for the legitimate use of violence. Read the full article here.

Mint | A strong social capital is a prerequisite for cohesive climate action

I am likely to get into trouble with many of my friends for saying this, but I think the world is making extraordinary progress towards addressing climate change. It might not be fast enough to achieve emissions and temperature targets that follow from the IPCC’s studies, but in the past 15 years, we have seen first a scientific consensus and then a global political consensus on the problem definition, followed by convergence on approaches and firm international agreements on targets and timelines. Climate activists remain unsatisfied, but for students of international relations, this kind of progress is unprecedented, not least at a time when the world lacks a stable order, technological change is causing social upheavals everywhere and hundreds of millions of people around the world have entered the middle class. Regardless of how its outcomes are judged, the mere fact that CoP-28 is happening at all is remarkable. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | US & other nations will push for tripling nuclear power by 2050 during COP28. India must join in

The agenda for the United Nations’ upcoming 28th Climate Change Conference of the Parties promises more than the usual climate discussions. This time, the spotlight will also fall on nuclear energy, and India must take advantage. Scheduled from 30 November to 12 December in the United Arab Emirates, the COP28 to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is particularly important. It marks the conclusion of the first global stocktake, a five-year assessment of progress made toward Paris Agreement goals. Apart from the usual business, nuclear energy will be a central talking point during the summit. The US is reportedly set to lead the effort to advocate for significantly increasing nuclear power globally, with the aim of least tripling worldwide capacity by 2050. Read the full article here.

Moneycontrol | Reservation For Locals: Whither jobs, economic freedoms, and economic unity?

It is both easy and tempting to dismiss the entire saga of the reservation of jobs for the locals in Haryana as one of misplaced policy action duly corrected by the judiciary. It could even be tempting to celebrate the strength of the checks and balances present in the Indian Republic. Briefly, to set the context, the Haryana government, acting on the election promise of the current Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala, passed the Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Act, which came into effect in January 2022. The law mandates that all private employers in the state must reserve three-fourth of jobs paying less than Rs 30,000 a month for local residents. Read the full article here.

The Free Press Journal | Trump’s dangerous rhetoric as polls draw near

Donald Trump is putting American democratic institutions and processes under severe stress, more than what he did as President between 2017 and 2020 — be it the judiciary, law enforcement or the legislature. Just this past week, a lower court judge in the state of Colorado said that the former occupant of the White House engaged in the insurrection of January 6, 2021, but that he should remain on the ballot for 2024, a move Trump’s opponents say is unconstitutional. Trump is already at the centre of series of federal and state level lawsuits on serious charges under several laws that include, among others, one that is used to try underworld criminals and large-scale white-collar crimes. Read the full article here.

Firstpost | Propelled by shared security concerns, India-Australia defence partnership gains dynamic momentum

The India-Australia relationship has seen meteoric growth since the turn of the century, with defence and security cooperation increasing in concert with stronger ties in other areas. Their converging security interests — due to the rise of the Indo-Pacific as a strategic construct, shared concerns in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), and a shared threat perception with respect to China — have led to numerous domains in which India and Australia cooperate. Read the full article here.

The Diplomat | What’s in the New Amendments to China’s State Secrets Law?

At the sixth session of the Standing Committee of China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress, last month, a draft amendment to the State Secrets Law was submitted for review and deliberation. Given the pervasive securitization of information in China today, the submission is considered timely in expanding the purview of “secrecy work” — that is, the task of protecting state secrets — in China. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | India-Pakistan can become Israel-Hamas. Lesson is not to fight terrorism by force alone

The Hamas-Israel war has entered its fifth week and deaths of innocent civilians remain the hub of its politico-strategic landscape. The cycle of violence initiated by Hamas on 7 October resulted in nearly 1,200 deaths and the kidnapping of over 200 hostages including children. This invited the Israeli invasion of northern Gaza, which continues to progressively enlarge the boundaries of humanitarian tragedy in Palestine. This article aims to explore the action-reaction cycle in the framework of ‘just war’ tradition, which categorises the moral criteria guiding two types of judgements under the captions of jus ad bellum (right to war) and jus in bello (right in war). It also touches upon the relevance of the issue in the context of India’s approach to Pakistan’s use of terrorism as a foreign policy tool. Read the full article here.

Mint | Containing China's technology ecosystem will remain a US policy priority

The most significant achievement of last week’s meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping was that it took place. Xi agreed to crack down on fentanyl exports and resume military communication channels. There was some agreement on working together on managing risks from artificial intelligence. It took six months of ground work by cabinet-level officials and four hours of direct talks between the two leaders to agree on these limited points. Read the full article here.

Moneycontrol - Biden-Xi Summit: Challenge is to continue US-China engagements despite tensions

Leaders of the United States and China are expected to hold their first bilateral meeting in a year at the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in San Francisco today. The fact that this meeting is taking place is in itself a significant achievement for diplomats on both sides. It also underscores that despite the intense nature of Sino-US strategic competition and heated rhetoric, achieving some sort of stability is a shared interest. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi captured this in outlining the “Five Musts” for the two countries during his recent visit to the US. Read the full article here.

Times of India | Let’s not go crackers over bans every Diwali. Leave fireworks policy to states

The Supreme Court has done well to refuse a blanket ban on all firecrackers in India. Its recent order reminding states to prohibit the manufacture and sale of joined firecrackers and those containing barium is a prudent one. Yet in the absence of a sensible firecracker policy, it is likely that approaching the Supreme Court for a ban will become an annual pre-Diwali ritual. How should India govern firecrackers? Read the full article here.

Moneycontrol | Growing US-China chip rivalry presents India with its geopolitical moment

In the US-China geopolitical tussle, 2022 was a watershed moment. In August, Washington unveiled the CHIPS and Science Act and followed it up with chip export controls in October, setting the tone for an intense rivalry in emerging and critical technologies with semiconductors at the forefront. The CHIPS and Science Act had but one objective: reshoring chip manufacturing back in the US from East Asia, where 85 percent of the current global fabrication capacity is concentrated. The export controls aimed to restrict China's access to advanced semiconductors and keep Chinese chip manufacturing capabilities behind the US by at least a decade. The controls also imposed restrictions on foreign companies operating in China, which relied on technology and capital sourced from the US. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | Military is being politicised by selfie points, social work. But don’t dismiss Project Udbhav

For the first time in our history, an Indian Military Heritage Festival was held in New Delhi on 21 and 22 October 2023. It was organised under the auspices of India’s oldest Inter-Service organisation, the United Service Institution. It was supported by the Army Training Command. The festival was showcased as a flagship event to highlight India’s military heritage and traditions. Unsurprisingly, it has been perceived differently by members of the strategic community. The main point of the detractors is that such projects are part of several initiatives aimed to politicise the armed forces. Read the full article here.

Mint | The world cannot escape repercussions of the ongoing war in West Asia

The externalities of Hamas’s perverse terrorism and Israel’s massive military retaliation will haunt the whole world for at least another generation. The conflict is still in progress, but its course over the past month has already given us three terrible assessments. First, Hamas demonstrated that terrorism can succeed in advancing political objectives. In this, it has reversed the post-9/11 strategic consensus that terrorism is not only ineffective as a political strategy but can delegitimize the political cause it seeks to advance. The world had forgotten the Palestinian cause. A month ago, Israel was close to a rapprochement with Arab powers, while Western powers were focused on Russia, China and Iran, and Palestine was off the global agenda. Even before Hamas invaders were beaten back, the ‘two-state solution’—meaning the creation of a viable Palestinian state—was back in circulation. Read the full article here.

The Quad needs to work with other groups. ASEAN is the place to start

In recent years, the members of the Quad -- the U.S., Australia, Japan and India -- have each ramped up cooperation and relations with ASEAN countries. In September, Japan became the last of the quartet to upgrade its relationship with ASEAN to the level of a "comprehensive strategic partnership," and each of the four held a separate meeting with ASEAN leaders that month. Even India, which has had the weakest institutional connections with Southeast Asian governments, has markedly increased collaborative efforts in various areas under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Act East" policy. In May, New Delhi conducted joint maritime exercises with ASEAN in the South China Sea. Read the full article here.

Hindustan Times | India, China war of positions in Maldives

The Maldivian presidential election last month culminated in a victory for Mohamed Muizzu and a loss for incumbent president Ibrahim Solih. The election was keenly watched in New Delhi and Beijing. How India and China see each other in strategic spaces such as the Maldives determines the nature of their competition in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Read the full article here.

The Free Press Journal | 2024 Polls: AI Fake News Will Damage Democracy Forever

I am calling it now. In 2024, when several countries around the world — including India and the US — are scheduled to go to the polls, disinformation and fake news generated by artificial intelligence software will bring democratic systems to their knees. The damage is going to be so severe that, in the worst-case scenario, we will have reached a point of no return. Even if we somehow manage to halt the fake news juggernaut (unlikely, but let’s say we do), it will take decades to go back to any kind of normalcy. Read the full article here.

Deccan Herald | Unambiguous on terror, principled on Palestine

Within hours of the Hamas terror attack on Israel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, “Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour.” This was even as Israel itself was coming to terms with the attack, and before it began its retaliation. However, this statement was construed as a shift in India’s policy towards Israel and Palestine. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | India joined the information warfare on Gaza. Now it must prepare for tougher times

Information has the power to create, shift, or sustain already held  beliefs. Beliefs, in turn, influence and determine individual and collective behaviours and are often shaped by the narratives at play. In the ongoing Hamas-Israel war, the battle of narratives could play a crucial role in determining the course of events, including the cessation or continuation of hostilities. Hamas, the initial instigator in this round of conflict, has ravaged Israel by killing, wounding, taking hostages, and destroying property. Its methods involved breaching the border fence and launching attacks, primarily against civilians and some military targets, often accompanied by rocket fire aimed at cities and towns, including capital Tel Aviv. In response, Israel hit back primarily with air power, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Read the full article here.

Mint | The techno-optimist’s agenda must heed the consequences too

I believe technology is a unique human capacity that can continue to improve our well-being. Individual freedom, free markets and liberal democracy are remarkable conceptual innovations that have allowed our species to achieve extraordinary levels of well-being. And human ingenuity—often underrated in the face of the kind of daunting social and environmental challenges that confront us—can help us find ways out of the messy problems that it sometimes creates. That is why I am concerned about the “techno-optimist manifesto" that Marc Andreessen published last week, for it undermines the very cause it seeks to promote. Read the full article here.