New Delhi: Defence analyst Commodore (retired) C Uday Bhaskar on Monday said that the bomb blast which took place near the Wagah border in Pakistan poses a very serious internal security challenge for Pakistan, adding that India would have to acquire the capacity for surveillance on both sides of the border.

"The suicide attack at the Wagah border is a very serious internal security challenge for Pakistan. The fact that the suicide bomber could enter the area despite the security calls for a certain degree of internal review by the Pakistani agencies," Commodore Bhaskar told ANI here.

Commodore Bhaskar further said that the activities of terrorist groups in Pakistan call for deep introspection, both within India and Pakistan.

"The internal security of Pakistan has been challenged by the Pakistani Taliban and its various support groups. This particular incident has many elements that should call for deep introspection both within Pakistan and India which is directly affected by any development that takes place near the Wagah border," he said.

He further said that since the incident took place close to the border, India must develop its surveillance capabilities to keep an eye on both sides of the border.

"For us the cause for concern is the fact that the incident took place so close to the Wagah border, which means that there is a probability that the same kind of attack can take place on the Indian side or along the border. India would have to acquire the capacity for surveillance not only on its side of the border but on the other side of the border as well," he said.

Earlier on Sunday, a reported 55 people, including three security personnel, were reportedly killed and nearly 200 injured when a suicide attacker detonated a powerful bomb at Wagah in Pakistan, just after the flag-lowering ceremony at the border crossing.

Source:  zeenews.india.com/

Ignoring resistance from the political leadership in Tamil Nadu, a contingent of elite special forces of the Indian Army landed in Colombo on Monday to share their expertise in handling counter-insurgency operations.

According to a Defence Ministry official, a contingent of 42 special forces troops landed in Lanka to launch the military training exercise ‘Mitra Shakti’ to be held at Uva-Kudaoyo Commando Regiment training school. In the three-week session, the Army will share military warfare expertise with its Lankan counterparts.

“The special forces troops will participate in a training programme on November 3-23 and carry out counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism training under the UN mandate,” said an official.

Sources claim that a similar military training exercise was deferred three times on earlier occasions, in the last three months, partly due to pressure from regional political parties and partly due to mutually consented availability of dates.

Mitra Shakti, an initiative designed largely by the Army, is the successful outcome of the ‘Annual Defence Dialogue’ that was co-chaired in Colombo earlier in October.

As many as 168 personnel from the Lankan Army special forces and Commando regiment and 32 from Lankan Navy and Air Force will take part.

Though the schedule for this joint exercise was fixed earlier, it coincides with the docking of two conventional submarines of the Chinese Navy in Colombo port three days ago, much to the consternation of the Indian establishment.

The modalities for the three-week long exercise were covered in a Memorandum of Understanding signed earlier.

Meanwhile, in view of the increasing influence of China and Pakistan in Sri Lanka, New Delhi is beefing up its military presence at its High Commission in Colombo.

For the first time, an Army officer has been recently appointed in the Indian High Commission in Lanka.

Recognising the threat of nuclear terrorism, India has called for effective international cooperation and responsible action by governments to strengthen nuclear security and prevent non-state actors from acquiring vulnerable atomic material. 

"There is widespread recognition that the threat of nuclear terrorism is one of the pressing challenges facing the international community. Responsible national action and effective international cooperation are therefore required for strengthening nuclear security to prevent vulnerable nuclear material falling into hands of non-state actors," First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations Abhishek Singh said. 

Singh, in a statement on the annual report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the UN General Assembly here yesterday, said India has consistently supported IAEA's important role in facilitating national efforts to strengthen nuclear security and in fostering effective international cooperation. 

He said as part of implementation of the arrangement with the IAEA concerning India's voluntary contribution to the Nuclear Security Fund, the services of Indian cost-free expert in information security are being provided to the Division of Nuclear Security of the IAEA. 

Singh noted that the universal adherence to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials (CPPNM) and early entry into force of its 2005 Amendment would go a long way in strengthening global efforts in the area of nuclear security. 

The amended Convention would make it legally binding for states parties to protect nuclear facilities and material in peaceful domestic use, storage as well as transport. 


Singh said India is party to the CPPNM and is amongst the countries which have ratified the 2005 amendment to the Convention. 

Singh emphasised that India's commitment to harnessing the benefits of nuclear energy for electricity production while according the highest priority to nuclear safety and security. 

"India will need to rapidly raise the energy production to meet its growing energy requirements to achieve its developmental goals. Nuclear energy is an essential component of our energy basket," he said. 

Underscoring India's commitment to implementing the highest standards for safety of its nuclear power plants and associated fuel cycle facilities, Singh said India will continue to participate and assist the IAEA Secretariat in its endeavour to enhance nuclear safety through the cluster of measures it has formulated in the IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety. 

Singh said the agency has an important role in allaying misapprehensions in the public and member states about the safety of nuclear power plants taking into account the current advances in relevant design and technology areas. 

As part of India's commitment to implement the highest standards for the safety of Indian nuclear power plants, several steps have been taken to organise peer reviews at national and international level, Singh said adding that a "follow up mission" of the IAEA Operational Safety Review Team (OSART) to India for Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS) units took place in February this year. 

Singh stressed the crucial role nuclear energy plays in achieving the objectives of India's sustainable economic growth. 


He said the country is at the same time extensively engaged in development of nuclear technologies in diverse fields extending beyond nuclear power, including isotope applications for improved crop varieties, crop protection and post-harvest technologies, radio-isotope applications for diagnostic and therapeutic uses in health care and technologies for safe drinking water. 

Singh noted the importance attached by India to IAEA's work in the fields of nuclear science. 

"We contribute to these activities through participation in the Technical Meetings and coordinated Research Projects and also support the IAEA's programme in nuclear fusion," he said. 

Singh said the agency's programme and achievements in relation to nuclear applications in food and agriculture, human health and nutrition, water resources management, protection of the environment and industry make a valuable contribution to meeting the needs of the developing countries. 
"India is highly appreciative of the IAEA's efforts in cancer management, and in particular the Programme on Action for Cancer Therapy (PACT). India would continue to support agency activities in these areas, including by offering service of experts and training fellows in reputable institutions in the country," he said. 

Singh told the UN General Assembly that the first unit of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, which achieved its first criticality in July last year, is now operating at close to its full rated power of 1000 MWe. 

The second unit is in an advanced stage of commissioning and construction of the 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) is nearing completion at Kalpakkam and is expected to achieve first criticality in the next six months, Singh said. 

Sparring over Kashmir at the UN general assembly, India and Pakistan have again exchanged verbal volleys over the issue with the Indian delegate dubbing the remarks of his Pakistani counterpart as 'unsolicited comments' that were 'factually incorrect'.

According to a summary on the UN website of a meeting in the general assembly's Third Committee that deals with social, humanitarian and cultural issues, Pakistani delegate Diyar Khan raised the issue of Kashmir by saying that he regretted that the people of Jammu and Kashmir had been "deprived of their right to self-determination." 

Participating in the session on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and right to self-determination, Khan said the right to self-determination must be exercised in an environment free from coercion or duress, as electoral processes held in situations of foreign occupation or alien domination did not reflect people's true wishes.

He said self-determination did not lapse with the passage of time and neither could it be "set aside" by charges of terrorism.



Indian delegate Mayank Joshi stressed that Pakistan's "unsolicited comments" pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir were "factually incorrect", according to the meeting's summary.

He said free, fair and open elections were regularly held in that territory at all levels.

Joshi said India was a multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society, fully committed to the goal of eliminating all forms of discrimination.

Exercising the Right of Reply, the Pakistani representative said that the Indian delegation had "alleged" that Jammu and Kashmir was part of India.

He refuted this assertion made by India saying that the UN Security Council had adopted several resolutions declaring Jammu and Kashmir as a "disputed territory".

Khan claimed that the elections in Jammu and Kashmir had been rejected by the United Nations and the Kashmiri people.

Resolutions had clarified that no electoral exercise conducted by the Indian authorities could be a substitute for a free plebiscite held by the United Nations, he said.

Speaking in the exercise of the right of reply, the Indian representative said the elections in Jammu and Kashmir had been held under the scrutiny of international media which had not faulted those elections.

Taking the floor for a second time, the representative of Pakistan said the elections held under foreign occupation could not be a substitute to impartial elections.

Joshi noted that the references of Pakistani delegation were out of context.

Source:  www.hindustantimes.com/

WAGAH BORDER (PAKISTAN): At least 52 Pakistani, including children and security personnel, were killed and about 200 others injured in a powerful suicide blast in Pakistan at Wagah today, minutes after the popular flag- lowering ceremony at the main Indo-Pak land border crossing. 

Officials said that it was suicide attack and at least 52 people had been killed and 200 had sustained injuries. 



"A large number of people were returning after watching Rangers flag ceremony at Wagah border when a suicide bomber blew himself up near one of the exit gates," Inspector General Police of Punjab Police Mushtaq Sukhera said. He said three Pakistan Rangers personnel were also among the dead. 

To a question about security arrangements, Sukhera said, "The Rangers had made stringent security measures but it was difficult to check suicide bomber". 

The al-Qaeda affiliated group Jandullah has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to a news report. 

Huge crowds gather every evening at the crossing, 22 kilometres from Lahore, to watch a "lowering of the flags" ceremony and witness the energetic display of military pageantry that accompanies the formal closing of the border post which soldiers from both countries have conducted for decades. 

Earlier reports had said it could be a cylinder blast. In the wake of Muharram, the police had made strict security measures. 



"We had reports that some banned outfits might target Shias, religious personalities, public processions and important buildings," Sukhera said. 

He said, "Our teams have confirmed that it was a suicide blast". The IG said that the suicide bomber was stopped at the gate of the parade ground at the border and detonated the bomb right when people gathered near the gate. 

"Up to five kilogrammes of explosive material was used in the blast," Sukhera said. 

"The bomb exploded outside a restaurant near a Pakistani paramilitary soldiers' checkpoint at Wagah border," he added. "People were returning after watching the parade at Wagah border when the blast took place. Ball bearings were found at the scene," another police official said. 

Indian side not affected by blast at border ::
The Indian side of the main border crossing between Pakistan and India was not affected by a suicide bomb that killed at least 50 people on the Pakistani side, border security authorities said. 

Ashok Kumar, inspector general of Border Security Force, said the blast took place 500 meters from the Wagah border at about 6:15 PM local time. 

"Our side is safe, we are alert, have increased our security, we are in constant touch with district officials and state police," Kumar said. 

Source:  economictimes.indiatimes.com/

India’s defence establishment will be fully responsible for a DRDO-developed critical propulsion system that will go into the last two of the six Scorpene submarines being built under technology transfer at Mazagon Dock, Mumbai, say the original makers of the submarine.

The system, called air-independent propulsion (AIP), enhances the underwater endurance of conventional (diesel-electric) submarines. Without it, they are forced to surface to periscope depth to recharge their batteries — a position where they are most susceptible to detection — at more frequent intervals.

The French defence shipbuilding major DCNS has put its own second-generation hydrogen fuel cell AIP system on the block. It maintains that the DRDO will be “fully responsible for the process” of the AIP it is developing for fitment on the submarines.

Refusing to entertain queries on the performance parameters and safety of the DRDO’s phosphoric acid fuel cell AIP, which sources told The Hindu would be ready for trials next February, Philippe Berger, former submariner and submarines operational marketing manager of DCNS, said while the company’s first-generation Mesma AIP, powering Pakistan’s Agosta 90B submarines, offered a dived endurance of two weeks, its advanced fuel cell AIP enhanced it to three weeks. 

“Without AIP, Scorpenes can stay underwater for four days,” he said. “Our scheme is limited to integrating safely the DRDO-developed AIP plug to the submarine. We are working on designing the hull section in detail for this,” Mr. Berger told Indian journalists at the DCNS facility, which houses the “fully tested operational-scale fuel cell AIP.”


Source:  www.thehindu.com/

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for public debate on Article 370 and not for it being struck down as such. A decision on this controversial issue should be taken through a democratic process.




We need to discuss the origin and history of Article 370. All the 555 Princely States in India and the seven in Pakistan joined their respective Dominion after Partition. They, word by word, signed the same Instrument of Accession drafted before Independence. Kashmir was the only state in which accession became conditional. The state’s accession was limited to only defence, foreign relations, communications and currency. The rulers of Princely States were required to decide to which Dominion their state would accede. 

The Indian Independence Act of 1947 did not stipulate for the people of the state to have any say in the matter. Muhammad Ali Jinnah supported this. His hidden agenda was to acquire Hyderabad, the richest and the largest Princely State of the size of France, and some other Princely States with Muslim rulers, like Bhopal. The Indian National Congress before Independence wanted the people of the state rather than the ruler to decide the future status of the state. Jinnah hoped Pakistan would get both Hyderabad and Kashmir, the former on legal grounds, and Kashmir, due to geographical compulsions, would fall like a ripe plum into his lap.

Maharaja Hari Singh had a Hobson’s choice. He realised that being a Hindu, he would have no future in Pakistan. He also realised that if he acceded to India, his future would be no different. He had detained Jawaharlal Nehru at the border, preventing him from entering the state to defend his friend, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, facing trial in a court of law. He vacillated and toyed with the idea of becoming an independent ruler. Impatient at the delay in the maharaja taking a decision, Jinnah ordered an invasion of Kashmir on October 22, 1947, led by Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan of the Pakistan Army. The invading force comprised thousands of tribal Lashkars and Pakistan Army personnel in civvies. Overcoming brave resistance of meagre state forces, the enemy reached Baramulla on October 25. Srinagar was now defenceless. 




Maharaja Hari Singh fled to Jammu. It was in these circumstances that the maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession, on the afternoon of October 26, 1947. He was like a drowning man needing immediate succour and in no position to lay down conditions for his accession of the state. No other ruler had signed the Instrument of Accession when he was in such a desperate position. Yet in his letter to Lord Mountbatten he stated that his accession would be confined to defence, foreign affairs, communications and currency only. He also stated that he would immediately hand over power to Sheikh Abdullah, his bitter opponent who had launched the Quit Kashmir movement against him. He knew that unless he did so Nehru would not accept his accession. As for making the accession conditional, he had no axe to grind.

During that critical period Sheikh Abdullah was staying with Nehru in Delhi. Possibly the Sheikh exploited his close friendship with a trusting, visionary and idealistic friend. Jawaharlal and the Congress had lost the war for secularism when undivided India was partitioned. Nehru now hoped to win the battle for secularism in Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah came out in his true colours in 1953 when he was found negotiating with the US ambassador in India to have an independent Kashmir. He had to be dismissed and held in detention for several years.

Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the principal drafter of our Constitution, refused to draft any special concessions for Kashmir without the latter fully reciprocating. He told Sheikh Abdullah, “I, as the law minister of India, will never do it.” Nehru then commissioned N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar to draft a special Article for Kashmir. He said there were ongoing military operations in Kashmir and the issue had been referred to the United Nations and, hence, special provisions were necessary for Kashmir. 

Accordingly Ayyangar drafted Article 370 and persuaded Ambedkar and Sardar Patel not to raise any objection. Sheikh Abdullah took full advantage of Article 370 to impose various conditions. Indians visiting Kashmir had to take a permit from their district magistrate. This was almost like getting a visa to go to a foreign country. The Indian national flag was not to be flown in Kashmir and no Indian could buy immovable property in Kashmir although Kashmiris could do so in the rest of India. Even the 30,000 Hindu and Sikh refugees coming out of West Pakistan to Jammu area were not given full citizenship. They cannot vote in state elections, acquire immovable property or get government service in the state or their children admission in state government technical colleges.

These erstwhile refugees have now become over one lakh and they are still virtually stateless citizens. On the other hand, Tibetan Muslim refugees, who came to Srinagar in 1950 when China occupied Tibet, were given full-fledged Indian citizenship. After the martyrdom of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee in mysterious circumstances in 1953, the pernicious permit system was revoked and the Indian national flag allowed to fly in the state along with the state flag. After Sheikh Abdullah was dismissed in 1953, his successor, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, agreed to several amendments to Article 370 following the prescribed procedure. The jurisdictions of the Supreme Court, the Election Commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General were extended to Kashmir. The Prime Minister of Kashmir was re-designated chief minister, as in other Indian states. The Sadr-e-Riyasat was also re-designated as governor to be appointed by the Central government.

Article 370 was a temporary measure included in our Constitution. It was something primarily concerning the people of Kashmir only. Today the secular brigade, through its policy of appeasement for vote-bank considerations, has made Article 370 a national issue of grave concern for all Indian Muslims.

Hitherto all discussion of the Kashmir problem has been focused both nationally and internationally on Kashmiri-speaking Muslims and ignoring other Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs. The separatists in the state are mostly Kashmiri-speaking Muslims. Very few non-Kashmiri-speaking Muslims have taken to terrorism or separatism. Gujjars, Bakharwals, Shia Muslims of Kargil and, of course, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists have nothing to do with these two maladies afflicting the state. Kashmiri-speaking Muslims constitute about 45 per cent of the population of the state residing in only 10 per cent of the land space in Indian-administered Kashmir. State Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir are being held in November 2014. The BJP seems to have got some foothold even in the Valley. If at any stage now or later the BJP attains its 44-plus target in the Assembly, Article 370 could be given a fitting burial by a suitable resolution passed by the state Assembly. 

This could happen in 2014-15 or after the next Assembly elections in the state, when the BJP has established its credentials in the Valley through good governance. That would be the best way of throwing Article 370 into the dustbin of history.

The writer, a retired lieutenant-general, was Vice-Chief of Army Staff and has served as governor of Assam and Jammu and Kashmir

Source:  www.asianage.com

The seven-decade rivalry between India and Pakistan is often portrayed as intractable – with good reason. The countries were birthed out of a bloody partition that encouraged each to define itself in opposition to the other, and they have fought four wars since.

Even during peacetime, tensions are high. This year, though, encouraging overtures by newly elected prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi led some observers to cautiously hope that the two countries would step up cooperation on trade, energy, humanitarian, and environmental issues.

Unfortunately, other actors, most notably the Pakistani defense establishment and its terrorist proxies, are derailing the process. There are two reasons. First, they see further cooperation and integration between India and Pakistan as putting off negotiations to settle the Kashmir issue. Second, from a broader perspective, closer relations between India and Pakistan would undermine the perception, held by a substantial portion of the Pakistani public, that India poses an existential threat to Pakistan. Both the military and terrorists would lose their raison d’être if this were to occur.

Thus, a destructive equilibrium has emerged, in which both cooperative overtures and displays of deterrence by the Indian government have the potential to lead to a further deterioration of Indian and Pakistani relations. However, a new and more cooperative equilibrium could be achieved if India and reconciliatory elements within Pakistan’s government were able to establish patterns of cooperation on non-securitized issues, and prevent those issues from becoming securitized.

How did India and Pakistan arrive at this equilibrium? The answer starts, of course, in Kashmir, which has always been the primary point of contention between the two countries. Unfortunately, the Kashmir question is unlikely to be answered soon. While territorial disputes between states are usually bitter and persistent – states usually perceive competition over territory as a winner take all, zero sum proposition – Kashmir presents a particularly difficult case.

For India, its claim to Kashmir rests on three main arguments. First, during Partition the ruler of Kashmir “choose” India over Pakistan (albeit in distress), giving India a legal claim to the territory. Second, retaining control over Kashmir is essential to India’s identity as a secular democracy, which can accommodate different ethnic and religious groups across a wide geographic area. And third, if India lost control of Kashmir, it would encourage separatist movements across the country.

Pakistan counters that India’s claim is illegitimate because, as a Muslim country established for Muslims, Pakistan should control a region like Kashmir that is predominantly Muslim and that culturally shares more with what is now Pakistan than it does with India. Moreover, Pakistan refutes India’s claim to Kashmir on the grounds that India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru promised Kashmir a UN administered plebiscite in 1956. This promise was not kept, denying Kashmir the right to self-determination.

Unfortunately for Pakistan, Kashmir isn’t going anywhere. India has 500,000 soldiers in the region, and withstood a brutal insurgency in the 80s and 90s to retain control. Pakistan also lacks the military prowess to coerce India into ceding Kashmir, as evidenced by the wars Pakistan (largely) fought and lost in a bid to coerce India into making any substantive concessions on the issue.

Unfortunately for everyone else, Pakistan is unwilling to accept this reality. One of the few issues that a majority of Pakistanis rally around is Kashmiri independence. Adopting an unyielding stance on Kashmir helps tap into this popular support. However, the real problem stems from the Pakistani defense and intelligence establishment, and their terrorist proxies, exemplified by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

In her recent book Fighting to the End (The Pakistan Army’s Way of War), C. Christine Fair of Georgetown argues that “The ‘strategic culture’ of the Pakistan army is essentially unremitting hostility against India. The Pakistan Army believes that it is locked into a permanent, existential, civilizational battle against India.”

The Pakistani defense establishment is split between those who believe India merely seeks to undermine Pakistan and its security at every turn, and those who believe India has nefarious designs to “reunify” the subcontinent. The conflict in Kashmir serves as a salient symbol of this civilizational struggle; Pakistan’s loss of Kashmir to India plays a crucial role in the narrative that casts India as a threatening, unjust, and unreliable “other.”





More importantly, since Kashmir is such a potent symbol of India’s menace, it enables the Pakistani army to justify the massive amounts of resources devoted to it, and the outsized role played by the defense establishment in Pakistani society. Terrorist organizations like the LeT, which was established (and generously patronized by the Pakistani establishment) to wage covert war against India in Kashmir, are even more dependent on the conflict in Kashmir to justify their existence. Thus, even though Pakistan will never possess Kashmir, the Pakistani defense establishment and Pakistani terrorist groups have strong psychological and material incentives to continue the conflict there.

With the elections of Modi and Sharif, it seemed that Indo-Pakistan relations might turn a corner. Sharif, who expressed his “earnest hope” in a “brighter future” between India and Pakistan made normalizing relations with India a “central plank” of his platform, and attended Modi’s inauguration. When India cancelled talks between the foreign secretaries in retaliation for Pakistani meetings with Kashmiri separatist organizations Sharif sent a box of the “choicest Pakistani mangoes” to Modi in a bid to patch things up.

Unfortunately, “mango diplomacy” could not block the Pakistani defense establishment, which had been empowered after protests forced Sharif to beg for the army’s help, which he got in return for handing it control over the country’s defense and foreign policy portfolios.

The flashpoint, of course, was Kashmir. Many analysts, including Farahnaz Ispahani, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a former member of Pakistan’s parliament, argue that “[Sharif’s] moves towards better ties between India and Pakistan” angered the military and “may have resulted in the renewed clashes on the Line of Control.”

For its part, India is pursuing a “tit-for-tat” strategy, in which it is willing to cooperate if Pakistan shows the willingness, but will respond to aggression with aggression. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s defense establishment has no interest in cooperation.




The military will also use political means to stymie cooperative arrangements. For instance, while Sharif promised to extend Most Favored Nation trading status to India without preconditions, the agreement remains un-ratified; the Pakistani government now holds that India must restart a comprehensive “composite dialogue,” which includes the issue of Kashmir, before Pakistan will consider ratifying the agreement.

While populist protectionist impulses and distrust of India are partially explain this backtracking, a “substantial part of the business community, in particular small and medium sized enterprises fear being overwhelmed by cheap Indian goods.” Notably, many former Pakistani soldiers and officers own or are employed by these enterprises. Thus, the military has an incentive “protect their own” by pressuring the civilian government against ratification.

External factors also militate against movement towards a cooperative equilibrium. The NATO drawdown in Afghanistan is creating a space for increased competition between India and Pakistan, which both view Afghanistan as strategically important. Analysts also fear that the drawdown in Afghanistan will result in an influx of militants into Kashmir, something the Pakistani defense establishment may encourage, to prevent them from coming to Pakistan instead.

The recent incursion by the Pakistani military into North Waziristan pushed a variety of terrorist organizations, including the Punjabi Taliban, into Afghanistan, undoubtedly worrying India, as these organizations will work with the Afghan Taliban in their insurgency against the Indian-supported government.

Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent and the Islamic State also threaten to exacerbate conflict. Both groups are recruiting in Kashmir, and AQIS has threatened to launch attacks in India. Undoubtedly, increased militant activity in Kashmir, or Islamist terrorist attacks in India would deteriorate the relationship between India and Pakistan.




Glimmers of Hope

Still, there are glimmers of hope. Pakistan and India have managed to cooperate on “non-securitized,” non-zero sum issues like disaster response and energy, and the countries have made good faith efforts to deepen trade ties. India pledged relief to Pakistan after the latter’s devastating 2010 earthquake, and Pakistan reciprocated after recent floods in Indian administered Kashmir. The two countries have also discussed a proposal to share information about the level of rivers that run between the two countries to form an early warning flood system.

India and Pakistan also inked a gas sharing agreement, which encourages efforts to bind South and Central Asia together through the proposed TAPI pipeline, which would run through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. The pipeline could help alleviate Pakistan’s chronic gas shortages, which cost the country 6 percent of its GDP a year.

These areas present opportunities for small clusters of Pakistani and Indian officials, businessmen, and think-tankers to cooperate on low-profile issues, and discuss the benefits of, and terms for, deeper cooperation on more substantive issues. Small wins in Track II diplomacy settings could spill over and push India and Pakistan towards a more cooperative equilibrium. A landmark study by David Axelrod of the University of Michigan found that the introduction of small clusters of individuals committed to establishing cooperative equilibriums, with a sufficiently high expectation of cooperating again in the future, can push large groups from non-cooperative equilibriums to more cooperative ones. Why? Over time, small cooperative clusters create broader institutional change, because those who employ them are ultimately more successful than those who employ uncooperative strategies.

While a full explanation of this phenomenon requires a background in game theory and a bit of math, an oversimplified “toy model” for this context would predict that cooperation between Indians and Pakistanis on non-securitized issues would heighten expectations that the two countries would cooperate on more issues, and more frequently in the future. This would give players more of an incentive to choose cooperative strategies when interacting with their counterparts. The higher the likelihood of future cooperation, the higher the incentive to pursue cooperative strategies in the present, since pursuing an uncooperative strategy in the present would place you at a disadvantage in future interactions.

However, the parties involved must prevent nascent clusters of cooperation from becoming “securitized.” Issues of national security are traditionally viewed as “zero-sum”: One party gains from the other party’s losses. Thus, if diplomats or technocrats allow the Indian or Pakistani defense establishments to securitize issues like water sharing or energy cooperation, compromises will become that much harder to reach, as any concession will be painted as possibly undermining national security. Thus, discussions over these issues should be kept quiet (and preferably held in Track II settings like think tank symposiums) and achievements should be publicized little, if at all.

The United States could help create an environment that is more conducive to cooperation by maintaining the largest possible military presence in Afghanistan that its agreement with Kabul allows until 2016, dissuading Pakistan and India from exacerbating their competition there (at least in the short run).

While this may not end the enduring rivalry between India and Pakistan, it’s imperative for the prosperity and stability of the region that opportunities for cooperation be pursued further. The most pressing issue is climate change, a transnational threat that requires transnational responses. For instance, Pakistan’s water supply is expected to shrink by 30 percent over the next 20 years, while its population is projected to nearly double by 2050. This could severely strain the vital Indus Water Treaty, which governs water sharing between the two countries. India also stands to gain through greater cooperation: Climate change threatens to wipe out 8.7 percent of India’s GDP through an increase in floods and droughts unless adaptation and mitigation measures are taken. India could become more resilient to floods by sharing river level information with Pakistan to form an early warning system, and by discussing best practices for making land and communities more resilient to climate change. The two countries could also jointly lobby major powers to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions further.

While traditional overtures between India and Pakistan may not help the relationship, discreet and adept diplomacy between NGOs and technocrats on non-securitized issues like energy, humanitarian operations, climate change, and trade could establish patterns of cooperation that steer Pakistan and India towards a less antagonistic, more cooperative, strategic equilibrium.

Source:thediplomat.com/

India in its dossier to Bangladesh on the Burdwan incident will make it clear that these terrorist groups, working under different names, had planned on establishing a Greater Bangladesh which merges Bangladesh with West Bengal. As a first step they intended setting up modules in West Bengal, Meghalaya and Assam in a bid to create several mini Bangladeshs' and then take the plan to next level.

Further India also speaks about two main training camps of the JMB based in Bandarban and Chittagong which are being used as launch pads to set up modules in India especially in West Bengal. These cadres land up in Madhyan Gram and then move to various parts of the state before they set up their modules, India's dossier states.

In the dossier while India would give the status report on the National Investigating Agency (NIA) probe, it would also point to the splinter groups within Bangladesh which are making the setting up of such modules a possibility within India. The dossier will be sent to Bangladesh by Monday, Nov 3. Following this the Intelligence Bureau (IB) chiefs will hold discussions on the Burdwan episode and plan measures on better intelligence sharing.


India has listed the names of several splinter groups which are working for Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh ::
India has listed the names of several splinter groups which are working for the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, the militant wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami. The Ansarulla Bangla, Jamayatul Muslimeen, Hepajat Islam and the Tanzim Tamiruddin are the splinter groups which are offering support to the Jamaat and this needs to be checked by the Bangladesh government.

Further the dossier also states that these groups are taking advantage of the political situation in Bangladesh and this has added to the problem and made these terror groups strong. Also Bangladesh will be told about the al-Qaeda in the Sub Continent which calls for the establishment of a caliphate with the help of Bangladesh militant groups specifically. Bangladesh will also be told about the landing of the Rohingya Muslims on their soil in a bid to set up a stronger network.



India's dossier has data abut terror camps in West Bengal :: 
The dossier further speaks about the camps in Bandarban and also in Chittagong and says that these camps need to be neutralized in order to clip the wings of these terror groups. People are trained here and sent to West Bengal, Meghalaya and Assam and in turn they are setting up modules. While these camps need to be decimated it is also needs for strong cooperation along the border areas to stop the infilration, the dossier would also state.

Terror groups using socio-economics, political conditions to infiltrate terrorists into India ::
The socio-economic-political situation is also being taken advantage of while carrying out the infiltration and joint efforts between the two Intelligence agencies and also the Border forces would be the need of the hour to prevent any further influx. Terror groups are using socio-economic and political conditions to infiltrate their members into India. During the questioning of the several operatives it has come to light that the political instability and the need to set up an Islamic state is what has prompted these modules to become more aggressive.

Further much better cooperation between the two nations on intelligence sharing is needed as the JMB has also been in talks with the al-Qaeda to establish a Greater Bangladesh. The meeting of some operatives of the JMB with the members of the al-Qaeda who have set up their sub continent wing headquarters in Pakistan also finds a mention in the document. The al-Qaeda has a better network in this part of the world and hence the JMB decided to join hands with the AQ to realise their cause for a Greater Bangladesh.

Source: www.oneindia.com/