Chemical Weapons Convention: Past, Present and Future The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is an arms control treaty that outlaws the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons and their precursors. This convention came into force on 29 April 1997. This convention is the effort of some 20 years of negotiations at the Conference of Disarmament (CD). Ajey Lele , Natallia Khaniejo | | Occasional Papers
Future Warfare and Artificial Intelligence: Visible Path Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging as the most disruptive technology of the current era and is advancing exponentially. AI is growing around the concept of machines acquiring human like intelligence for problem solving. Though still in early evolutionary stage, it is already changing the ways the day to day thing are being done. Atul Pant | | Occasional Papers
National Unity Government in Sri Lanka: An Assessment At the close of two years, the National Unity Government (NUG) of Sri Lanka has failed to maintain the confidence and trust of the people it enjoyed during the first three months of its tenure. Having said that, political crisis or instability in Sri Lanka remains unlikely. The NUG is likely to complete its full term, but it will not be a cakewalk. Gulbin Sultana | | Occasional Papers
Hypersonic Weapons Hypersonic weapons are weapons that move at speeds of Mach 5 or more. Presently, hypersonic weapon technology is a work in progress and these weapons are yet to become fully operational for military deployment. Ajey Lele | | Occasional Papers
Enhancing Energy Security in Rural Tanzania: Examples of Decentralized Rural Energy Approaches from India This paper argues that decentralized electrification without local participation is unlikely to yield the desired nation-wide impact, especially for the rural communities. This suggests that the energy policy and institutional arrangements of Tanzania need to find more space for local community participation in rural electrification initiatives. Ian Sanghavi | | Occasional Papers
From Looks to Action: Thailand-India Strategic Convergence and Defence Cooperation After 67 years of diplomatic relations and two decades of collaboration in connecting India with Southeast Asia in January of 2012, Thailand and India finally signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Defence Cooperation. This effort to deepen defence and military ties between the two countries emerged relatively late when compared with those between India and most other Southeast Asian countries. Sasiwan Chingchit | | Occasional Papers
Maldives Revisited This Occasional Paper is a brief first-hand personal account of the Tevents, discussions, decisions and the action taken in November 1988 by the Government of India to provide help to the Government of Maldives to quell an attempted coup. Arun Kumar Banerjee | | Occasional Papers
India and Bhutan: The Strategic Imperative Prime Minister Narendra Modi seemed aware about the nuances Pthat underpin India's cultural and political obligations in Asia. By making Bhutan as his first visit abroad followed by a visit to Nepal, he has effectively invoked the deeper imperatives to revitalize India's national interests. P. Stobdan | | Occasional Papers
India’s Nuclear Triad: A Net Assessment This paper discusses such delivery mechanisms commonly known together as nuclear triad in the Indian context. The paper has four major parts. The first part attempts to set the context for the overall discussion. The second, third and fourth parts deals with the evaluation about missile forces, aerial platforms and submarine based platforms for nuclear weapon delivery on the targets. Ajey Lele , Parveen Bhardwaj | | Occasional Papers
Critical Assessment of China’s Vulnerabilities in Tibet The paper looks at the critical vulnerabilities of China in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Ever since China captured and annexed Tibet in 1950, it has been unable to integrate the Tibetan people with the mainland. The author looks at these criticalities from an Indian viewpoint and draws some key assessments for China watchers in India with regard to policy on Tibet. Mandip Singh | | Occasional Papers