Six new air strips in Arunachal Pradesh to be ready by 2015

[Double Edge]

MMS didn't have the guts or political capital to override Mamata.

Too constrained by coalition partners. There is a slight edge of mismanagement here too. Anyway, the arbitration case was five years in the making, it happened because govt knew the result and gave its ok.

Modi might.

he will have to use vajpayee for inspiration, who defined foriegn policy and fought fire to set relationships with pak, china & US. MMS continued it where he could. Modi will have to fight, NDA, BJP, RSS & whiny strategic analysts in Delhi. So far so good.

If BJP can make inroads in the assembly elections in WB, Mamata can be cut down to size and brought to heel.

I think Modi will try his charm, appears to have gone down well with others. Will be difficult.

[Double Edge]

It seems this road business is serious and has been in the making for some time. Pranab had this say when he visited AP last Nov..

Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and important part of the North East region of India and a core stakeholder in India’s Look East foreign policy. India has long standing civilizational bonds with its neighbours in South and South East Asia as well as East Asia. The north east of India provides a natural bridge between us and South East Asia. The essential philosophy of our Look East Policy, is that India must find its destiny by linking itself more and more with its Asian partners and the rest of the world. We seek to make our neighbours partners in our development. We believe that India's future and our own best economic interests are served by closer integration with Asia.


There is little time to be lost. Considering the huge pool of natural resources and the quality of its human resources, the North East of India has the potential of being an important investment destination and a centre for trade and business. We must harness the opportunities that are emerging from the rise of Asia and India’s growing economic integration of India with the region. No longer should this State be considered remote. The Centre and State Government should together rapidly build the infrastructure linkages and connectivity with the rest of India that is required and this Legislature and the people of Arunachal should extend every assistance possible to this venture.

What did it all mean ?

Early in its first term,the UPA government had discarded a long-standing policy of treating India’s frontier regions as “buffer zones” against external powers. India had to pay a big price for employing the strange logic of defending frontiers through a deliberate strategy of underdevelopment.

Since Arunachal Pradesh has common borders with three countries,” Mukherjee said,the development of these frontier regions is “vital and must receive our utmost attention”. With China vigorously asserting its territorial claims on Arunachal Pradesh and showcasing rapid economic development across the border in Tibet,Delhi has been under considerable pressure to get its act together in Arunachal.

Mukherjee emphasised the importance of connecting the region to the Indian heartland and across borders with South East Asia and China. Declaring that the Northeast “no longer be considered remote”,Mukherjee asked the centre and the state government to “rapidly build infrastructure linkages and connectivity with the rest of India”.

For one,the President’s remarks reinforced the UPA government’s newly positive approach to expanded over-land connectivity and cross-border cooperation with China and East Asia. He was responding to the growing aspirations in the Northeast for economic engagement with East Asia,including China.

More

It is one thing to assert formal sovereignty; it is entirely another to effectively integrate this remote border province through strong connectivity and rapid economic development. India’s under-perfomance in these areas has been accentuated by Chinese successes across the border in Tibet.

Beijing has transformed the transport infrastructure in Tibet and its investments there have made the region one of the fastest growing in China.

Recognizing the dangers of the widening developmental gap,the UPA government has announced a variety of packages for the state. Among the major projects under way is the construction of a nearly 1,800-km trans-Arunachal highway.

The strategic imperative of internal connectivity in Arunachal has not been matched by project implementation. The same is true of connectivity between Arunachal and the rest of India.

The question of trans-border connectivity for Arunachal is also gaining traction. Like other states in the Northeast,Arunachal too would like to gain access to East Asia.

Of particular interest to the state might be a decision during the recent visit of the PM to Beijing to explore the possibilities for overland connectivity between India and China.

While India is showing signs of new thinking on overland connectivity,China remains somewhat reluctant to open up Tibet for greater connectivity to India.

It seems now WE want to build a road to China but the Chinese are reluctant to open up Tibet. Talk about turning the tables !!

I wonder if there has been any change on the Chinese side in this regard since MMS's visit to Beijing.

Are you telling me that the InAF are building air strips where there no roads? They have to fly everything in and out?

Should be more clear now, they want to build a trans state highway spanning 1800kms. Something to learn from Canada.

[commander]

Too constrained by coalition partners. There is a slight edge of mismanagement here too. Anyway, the arbitration case was five years in the making, it happened because govt knew the result and gave its ok.

There is a slight difference, MMS was still controlled by Sonia and Rahul. So it is not just coalition partners that tied his hands.

[lemontree]

Also look at the geography and the geopolitics involved in it. There are many reasons why NE remained undeveloped and one of them is that Bangladesh was not a friendly country to India and NE is only attached to India by a slender strip of land.

The main reason why the NE has remained under-developed is the old policy of the British to avoid interfering in local tribal matters and letting them live their way of life. The NE was a forntier buffer zone created to protect the fertile Bengal region. Funnily the GOI followed the same after 1947.

Therefore, it is hard to develop a robust network of roads in the NE where the logistic requirements are not inherently and sufficiently developed.

The internal road network in the six of the seven NE states is fairly good, only Arunachal needs more due to the border deployment with China.

[Double Edge]

There is a slight difference, MMS was still controlled by Sonia and Rahul. So it is not just coalition partners that tied his hands.

What this did was create a diarchy. Some people with power and no responsibility and a person with responsibility and no power. A great way to subvert the westminster model we operate under. I recall Advani telling the RSS not to interfere in the workings or decisions of the BJP during the last NDA regime.

The cabinet has to owe their allegiance to the PM and no one else otherwise the PM loses authority. If the cabinet ministers do not tow the line of the PM neither will their bureaurcrats that serve under. Instead of working together we end up with infighting between ministries and the result is nothing gets done. This is not an ideological problem but a systemic one.

Modi has got to repair the damage caused by UPA2 to the PMO's office and restore its authority.

Why is Jaitley in charge of finance & defence ? it means these two ministries have issues with each other, they do not get along and one guy at the top of both helps to get things done otherwise he has to go through another interface.

[Double Edge]

here we see the first result of one man, two ministries.

Defence projects worth Rs 80k cr okayed | Oct 24 2014

The Centre on Saturday cleared several defence projects worth Rs 80,000 crore ($13 billion) , including building six submarines indigenously, purchasing over 8,000 Israeli anti-tank guided missiles and 12 upgraded Dornier surveillance aircraft.

On another note.

During the cold war years the most important relationship was the one between the US & the soviets. Basis of which the rest of the world either prospered or didn't. Now its G2 or US-China.

Which will it be in the future ? China is already very connected with the global economy and India is increasingly getting there. How important will china-india relationship ie how good or bad it is affect the world at large ?

Fact is today India & China do not know each other as well as they need to. Japan wants to get closer to India because of the Chinese and the Chinese would like better relations because of the US-Japanese.

Engaging without strategy? | DH (op-ed) | Oct 27 2014

Engaging without strategy?
By Zorawar Daulet Singh , Oct 27, 2014 :
India is China’s second largest neighbour; China is India’s largest neighbour. Yet, their policies vis-à-vis each other are limited and narrow.

On a recent visit to China after a year, I hoped to plug into recent strands of policy thinking on India. While China’s institutional and organisational processes of foreign policy-making regarding South Asia remain very opaque, a general line of Beijing’s perceptions does trickle down to the think tanks and universities.

In general, the Narendra Modi-Xi Jinping summit was viewed as a mixed bag. I sensed the Chinese are a little disappointed that they could not achieve a bigger breakthrough in bilateral relations given the high level diplomatic attention Beijing has been giving India since Xi took over.

On the border issue, two things stood out. First, I got a hint of possible cleavages between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the diplomats on the border dispute – the former represents a constituency that rejects any compromise on “Southern Tibet”, China’s official term for Arunachal Pradesh. Second, the political leadership in both countries is acquiring a level of authority and command over the domestic system that might be opening a window for a settlement around the present territorial status quo. One scholar remarked, “if Xi and Modi can’t solve this issue, then nobody can”! It is a positive sign that both leaderships appear to at least express the logic for an early settlement.

An interesting and contrarian insight I heard was from a young scholar who argued that China lacks a strategy for South Asia. Have India’s China watchers become accustomed to uncritically accepting the idea of a grand plan in Beijing for South Asia? The discrete nature of Chinese policy-making perhaps reinforces such perceptions. Nevertheless, one can discern a Chinese approach to South Asia, which is remarkable for its conservative consistency and the way Beijing defines its interests in the region. The approach has three pillars - maintain some sort of balance between India and Pakistan; ensure that India does not create trouble in Tibet; and develop bilateral ties with all South Asian states.

While in practice, India’s place has increased in this overall framework, especially since 1998, the overall Chinese approach is driven by counteracting any adverse spillover effects on Chinese security interests on its periphery rather than a dynamic and sophisticated strategy of crafting a wider political equation with India. It is this defensive and negative posture that is now in flux. The Xi regime appears to be adapting this overall approach, although its contours remain either hidden or still undefined. Perhaps, China is groping for a new strategy unsure of what it seeks out of India and the region. On the geopolitical impulse behind Beijing’s outreach to India, Chinese scholars note that China’s changing threat environment in the context of a more vigorous US-Japan alignment in East Asia is the primary reason for Beijing's more proactive diplomacy on its continental periphery including South Asia.

Chinese game plans

On their part, Chinese scholars argue that India has followed a policy of keeping China out, and, despite Modi’s proactive engagement, many opine that China will not be treated at parity (“national treatment”) with other states like Japan and the US when it comes to participating in India’s economy. For example, even a seemingly trivial issue like travel visas reinforces Chinese perceptions. Chinese scholars expressed deep frustration with India’s policy and the tepid pace of processing conference and business visas. One Chinese scholar said that the Modi government’s rhetoric and slogans were not yet matched by changes in the nuts and bolts of bilateral relations.

While the logic of a “developmental partnership” as a “core component” of bilateral relations (Modi-Xi joint statement) is welcomed, there is still a lack of clarity on the details of the FDI policy and the investment opportunities available for China. Clearly, if the Modi government is serious about attracting large scale Chinese investment capital then such perceptions need to be addressed. Overall, both countries are still not in sync with the other’s anxieties, aspirations, and, on the preferred pace of policy evolution. India is China’s second largest neighbour after Russia. China is India’s largest neighbour. Yet, it is extraordinary how limited and narrow their actual policies are vis-a-vis the other. Both sides have built relations on mostly a defensive posture, albeit embellished with grand rhetoric. One Chinese scholar observed that it is the experience of multilateral cooperation that has provided India and China with an image of common interests. But bilaterally , the two countries still inhabit different worlds that are now intersecting given the changes in global politics.

India and China cannot, however, just rely on geopolitical changes elsewhere to stabilise and advance their relationship. Both need to implement the agreed framework that began their normalisation path – frontally confront their border dispute, and simultaneously develop trust and economic interdependence. Operationally, separating politics from economics has proven difficult for India and China. This is in stark contrast to China’s high level of economic interdependence with Japan and the US, Beijing’s most difficult political relationships.

The Modi government recognises this and has elevated the profile of China and East Asia in India’s overall foreign policy. To translate the meta vision into tangible transactions and outcomes, much ground work remains to be done by Delhi and Beijing.

(The writer is a research scholar at King’s College, London)

[commander]

After clearing major funds for infrastructure along LAC now this,

12,000 ITBP personnel to be deployed along China border

NEW DELHI: Against the backdrop of over 300 transgressions by the Chinese army along the line of actual control till August this year, the government has given an in-principle approval for induction of nearly 12,000 personnel in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, a force which guards the 3,488km-long India-China border.

The 12 new battalions (12,000 personnel) will be recruited mainly for deployment at 54 new border outposts (BoPs) that will be set along LAC in Arunachal Pradesh, official sources said here.

The setting up of new posts, announced by home minister Rajnath Singh on Friday last, will bolster the presence of ITBP along the strategic frontier in Arunachal Pradesh which has witnessed incursion attempts from Chinese side because of large gaps between two border posts.

Terming the incursion as "transgression", the government had informed Rajya Sabha in August this year that Chinese army has transgressed the border 334 times this year and a total of 1,278 times between 2010-13.

Chinese army transgressed the border 334 times till August 4, this year. The number of such incidents stood at 411 in 2013, 426 in 2012 and 213 in 2011, Minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju had said on the floor of the House.

The sources now said an in-principle approval has been granted by the Union home ministry after the ITBP had submitted a detailed plan that it would require to raise additional 12 battalions to man these new locations.

The present strength of the ITBP is 62 battalions and 58 of them are deployed along the India-China border and remaining four in Naxalite-hit areas.

Home minister Rajnath Singh takes the salute from ITBP personnel during a march past on the 53rd Raising Day of the force, on October 24, 2014. (PTI photo)

"An in-principle approval has been made in this regard," a senior home ministry official said and added that after a final approval, large scale recruitment will be carried out in a phased manner over a period of five years.

Apart from setting up of 54 new border outposts, the home minister had also announced a Rs 175 crore package for beefing up infrastructure along the border in Arunachal Pradesh.

Source


Good to see some major shift in policy making and putting that into action. Hopefully the trend continues.