P. K. Gautam

Shortage of officers, especially in junior ranks of the Indian Army, has been engaging the attention of policy planners, the public and the media. Armed forces reflect the society from which they are recruited and enrolled. With economic liberalisation and globalization, job opportunities for the educated youth have increased manifold. Traditional professions such as the civil service and the military do not seem to be very popular among the youth. Corporate India has now provided an environment for entrepreneurship.

• P. K. Gautam |
• January 25, 2008 |
• IDSA Comments

For the last one year regular installments of reports and analyses have appeared in the media on the challenges countries would face as a result of climate change and its mitigation and adaptation has been on the top of the agenda. The most recent one is the release of the Human Development Report 2007/2008, Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world or HDR.

• P. K. Gautam |
• December 05, 2007 |
• IDSA Comments

Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank and head of the British government's economic service, and his team submitted the report titled The Economics of Climate Change in October 2006. The report consolidates the research on the scientific evidence of climate change and concludes that evidence is now overwhelming: climate change is a serious global threat.

• P. K. Gautam |
• December 27, 2006 |
• IDSA Comments

Since the middle of the 20th century, the Arab-Israeli wars have thrown up a number of military lessons. The most spectacular was a textbook pre-emptive counter air strike in 1967 by the Israeli Air Force (IAF), which destroyed or made non-operational the entire Egyptian Air Force. This demonstrated the need for gaining mastery of the air as a prelude to spectacular ground operations. At sea, a Styx missile fired by an Egyptian missile boat on the Israeli destroyer Eliat validated the idea of anti-ship missiles.

• P. K. Gautam |
• August 19, 2006 |
• IDSA Comments

Threats to human, national and international security as a result of biological warfare and pandemics are inadequately discussed in the popular media. Non-state actors are expected to use innovative methods to execute acts of terrorism. It is often contended that a terrorist organisation may well get the best results using conventional high explosives. This trend is clearly discernible in the methods used by terrorists worldwide. Manufacturing terror-grade dirty radiological or biological bombs that can be delivered effectively is far more difficult than using conventional explosives.

• P. K. Gautam |
• December 20, 2005 |
• IDSA Comments