The area, in which Franco-Indian ties have made the most progress however, remains that of defence cooperation, moving from the short term tactical relations of the Cold War, to the more long term and genuinely strategic. France has now become one of India’s most trusted Western defence partners, and Franco-Indian defence cooperation has been described by French officials as ‘discreet but wide-ranging and efficient’, both countries regularly trading information on terrorism, security in Asia and the Middle-East, and maritime piracy, amongst a host of other issues.

On the 14th of July, a contingent comprised of more than 400 Indian troops, drawn from the Army, Navy and Air Force marched down from the Arc de Triomphe monument during the Bastille Day military parade on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris. The event took place in the presence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. It, undoubtedly, heralds a new chapter in Franco-Indian ties and the participation of Indian troops in the parade is indicative of a more profound trend which has been steadily growing over the past decade or so.

For India’s military, the Taliban is a threat looming large on the horizon. The perception of the Taliban making inroads to India has increased since December 2008, when Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mahsud vowed to fight alongside the Pakistan army if a conflict broke out between India and Pakistan. The verbal threat has since been underlined by the Taliban’s eastward movement inside Pakistan, from its bases in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) to the city of Lahore, close to the Indian border in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

During the present world turmoil, the Australian government has announced an aggressive defence policy. The White Paper on defence titled ‘Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030’ envisages a considerable increase in its defence expenditure and a significant military acquisition programme for the Australian Defence Forces (ADF).

The India-Japan partnership is one of the important thrust areas of Japan’s new foreign policy. In the recent past, except Mori, Koizumi and Abe, other prime ministers have shown little enthusiasm for the improvement of relationship with India. However, that trend seems to be changing.

In spite of the seemingly difficult terrain in generating and implementing confidence-building measures in South Asia, all are not doom and gloom. It is thus plausible to make the following conclusions based on existing regional and sub-regional arrangements in South Asia.

India and Pakistan, as the two new de facto nuclear weapon states in the nuclear club since 1998, have embarked upon some meaningful nuclear risk reduction measures through a series of bilateral agreements.

Analyze this: A week long protest, riot and looting in Haiti due to spiraling food prices led to the ouster of the Prime Minister and announcement of $10 million feeding program by the World Bank during an emergency meeting in Washington in April. The 9000 strong UN peace keeping force is still in dilemma to face the ‘hungry mob’ in Haiti. Approximately 10,000 workers clashed with police near the capital in Bangladesh over the rising food price. At least dozens of people, including 20 police officials, were injured in the violence in Dhaka. In Egypt, the revolt over food is mounting.

The defence budget outlays for 2008-09 (at Rs.1,05,600 crores) has witnessed an increase of ten percent at current prices and a 14.1 percent jump vis-à-vis last year’s revised estimates at Rs. 92,500 crores. Provisions for larger defence efforts, normally not included in the defence budget (for example, outlays for civil defence, coast guard, etc.) could put the figure at Rs. 1, 25,000 crore or possibly more.

Northeast India has earned a dubious distinction of being home to Asia's longest running insurgency. Geo-strategic locations of the region surrounded by Bhutan and China (Tibet) in north, Myanmar in east and south and Bangladesh in south and west and approximately 4000 square kilometres of porous international borders further accentuating the security threat. For the last two months, the intensification of insurgency incidents has put a question mark on the various security efforts in Northeast region.

For the Indian climate crusaders the year 2007 has become more important for three reasons. First the entry of climate change as an agenda item to United Nations Security Council on April 18. Now, the Nobel award for Peace to the scientific community - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former US Vice-President Al Gore for making people aware of climate change. It’s argued that after the prestigious award, the issue would become everybody’s business to know, manage and resolve it.