The defence acquisition council has approved acquisition of six submarines under Project-75India. While it is tempting to say too little too late, but given the state of Indian Navy’s submarine fleet, every boat, howsoever late it comes, counts. In this spirit, the cover story for this month is on submarines. Regarded, as a disruptor in traditional naval operations, submarines have emerged as the first weapon of choice for all naval forces in the Indian Ocean Region. In fact, naval analysts reckon that the Indian neighbourhood is crawling with this undersea weapon system.
The cover story looks at both diesel-electric and nuclear-powered submarines, as both have their place in operations. In any case, given that India is still at a nascent stage of developing nuclear-powered submarines, the necessity for conventional boats will remain for at least a few decades.
The other disruptive weapon system, which has earned the moniker of being unassailable is the cruise missile primarily because of the difficulty in timely detection of its launch. The special report on cruise missile traces its evolution over the years and how militaries across the world started to veer towards cruise missiles as opposed to ballistic missiles. The report also assesses India’s cruise missile capabilities vis a vis our two inimical neighbours, whose collaboration extends to nurturing of defence industrial base. A challenge we can ignore at our own peril.
The July issue also carries a commemorative piece on the Kargil conflict, where victory came at a huge cost. Unlike a usual narration of events, our tribute to the valour of the Indian soldier is a collection of memories of those who participated in the war. Hopefully, that would be the last time we went into a conflict riding only on the bravery of our soldiers.
After it’s successful run for a year, we have discontinued the India and the BRI column for some time. In its place, we have started India and the World, in which we will look at India’s defence-economic relationship with a chosen country. We start the section by putting the India-UK ties under the scanner.
The Books section continues to get traction, even though we have not been regular with the Reading List. To make it more interactive, we invite our readers to share their chosen books with the wider audience. Send us your recommended reading list.
This is just a sneak-peak into the July issue. Do dig in.