Sri Lankan Buddhists: Peace Messengers to Terror Monk[ger]

Vehemently opposing the Human Rights violation report submitted by the UN Human Rights Commissioner Navnanethem Pillay, the Sri Lankan (SL) government has recently rejected her call for establishing ‘an international inquiry mechanism to further investigate the alleged rights violations (both Human Rights and Humanitarian Law) and for monitoring any domestic accountability process in Sri Lanka.

South Asia Conflict Monitor, March 2014

Non-Lethal Weapons: A Viable Option for Crowd Control in India

NLWs: Steps India Should Consider:

  • A collective strategic vision, organizational coordination, synergy, and able political leadership will be vital for India’s futuristic NLWs deployment.
  • R&D is vital in order to develop technology that is in national interest.
  • Standardization and documentation of equipment validity is eminent to make sure they are safe.
  • Recording and documentation of events are important so that nature of the event and effect can be analyzed and used for research.
  • The legal framework needs to be developed to determine whether a new system is lawful and to ensure the legality of the use of NLWs at the time of deployment.
Parveen Bhardwaj
March 2014

Special Feature: Narendra Modi and Politics of National Defence

At a time when irregularities in defence procurement deals have hit headlines in the media and thereby raised issues of probity and transparency in recent times, one can not help but wonder as to how the political parties and their leaders look at larger issues of probity in and concepts of national defence and security.

DEBA R MOHANTY

Border Talks: What Does Future Hold for India and China?

The Year of Friendly Exchanges between India and the People’s Republic of China kicked off with the 17th Special Representatives’ Meeting on the Boundary Question in New Delhi on 10-11 February, 2014, to forge closer and stronger ties between the two neighbours. India’s National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon discussed the issue with the Chinese State Councillor Yang Jiechi to come up with viable means to settle face-offs in the disputed border territories of India and China.

 

CHAARVI MODI

Hizb-ut-Tahrir Bangladesh: Transnational Islamist Movement

Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) is a transnational Islamic religious-political organization which has presence over 20 countries across the world. HT was founded in Jerusalem in 1953 by Tokiuddin Al Nakhani. HT believes in Ummatic concept. Its website openly declares that: "It aims to revive the Islamic Ummah from the severe decline that it had reached, and to liberate it from the thoughts, systems and laws of Kufr, as well as the domination and influence of the Kufr states.

South Asia Conflict Monitor, January 2014

India: Is the CPI (Maoist) Losing Ground?

For the third year running, Maoists also known as Naxalites (Indian version of left-wing-extremism) related fatalities and incidents have come down in the affected provinces of India. The Maoist conflict review reports indicated that in the year 2013 a total 1,129 incidents took place as compared to 1,415 incidents in 2012. Similarly, the number of fatalities across the country came down to 394 in the review period from 415 in previous year.

South Asia Conflict Monitor, February 2014

Plague Outbreaks in India: Surat and Himachal Pradesh

Within a gap of eight years, the plague has struck twice in India. The outbreaks caused panic and necessitated an urgent assessment of our public health apparatus vis-a-vis our vulnerability towards infectious diseases. Generally speaking, the resurgence of epidemics and their effects on society demonstrated at least three vital national security issues. They are human mobility (cross-border and intra- border movements), transparency, and tensions between states, (which includes the threat of biological warfare).

ANIMESH ROUL
December 2003