India-China Border: Tactics, Talks, and Transgressions
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the Takshashila Dispatch.
In this edition, we bring to you our position paper on the India-China border issues and trends and work on China’s two-front conundrum, global somatic gene editing governance, the need for improving cyber security capacity in India, the successes and failures of the Panchayati Raj system, and internet shutdowns in India.
India-China Border: Tactics, Talks, and Transgressions
The latest Takshasila Position Paper on India-China Border by Anushka Saxena & Amit Kumar offers a comprehensive analysis of the recent developments along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the positions of both sides, and the ongoing economic and multilateral consequences of the dispute.
They argue that the:
People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) objectives behind assertion along the LAC extend beyond mere territorial claims. Using sustained military pressure under a certain threshold, the PRC is seeking to coerce Indian policymakers into strategic acquiescence, as it seeks to craft a unipolar Asian order. Consequently, tensions and volatility along the LAC are likely to persist for the foreseeable future.
China’s Two-Front Conundrum
In an Occasional Paper published by Amit Kumar for the Observer Research Foundation, he analyses China’s actions along the LAC with India through the prism of a two-front conundrum - “security challenge that arises when a country faces threats from adversaries from two sides”:
The paper finds a correlation between China’s insecurity around a two-front threat and a rise in the tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). It concludes that Beijing has indeed used instability along the LAC as a tool to manage its two-front threat.
Somatic Gene Editing Governance
Shambhavi Naik, Head of Research at Takshashila, was part of an international group working on gene editing governance and regulatory approaches in different countries, at the request of the Royal Society. The findings from the study were presented at the Third Human Gene Editing Summit.
Amidst India’s Digitisation, Cyber Security is a Casualty
Vulnerability in cyber security is a national security concern; however, the speed and scale of digitisation in recent years leave our cyber security capabilities lacking. In his column for ThePrint, Lt. Gen. Prakash Menon writes on the issue:
A National Cyber Security Strategy should have quickly followed the 2013 National Cyber Security Policy to convert the ‘what’s to be done’ to ‘how to be done’. This could have been achieved by distilling policy-derived goals, identifying objectives and evolving a strategy informed by available resources. However, it took seven years to formulate a draft strategy document, which was then circulated among stakeholders for comments. Yet, more than two years later, a government-approved strategy is still awaited. Some insiders claim that important elements of the draft strategy are being followed. However, considering the multiplicity and diversity of the stakeholders involved, an integrated vision expected to shape the coordinated implementation of a cybersecurity strategy has turned out to be the main casualty.
Re-examine the Panchayati Raj Model
In April, India would have completed 3 decades of the establishment of the Panchayati Raj institutions. How has the idea of de-centralisation and local governance fared so far? Nitin Pai, in his column for Live Mint, offers a critical stance:
First, as Ambedkar argued, there is an absence of fraternity at all levels of Indian society. People of an Indian village or town do not have a shared sense of civic community. There is, instead, an intense inter-group competition for resources, status, power and opportunities. Politics is primarily devoted to pursuing and managing this competition and, as a consequence, is poorly equipped to manage common resources or delivering quality public services. Can panchayati raj create the fraternity that is essential to its success? The empirical evidence suggests it does not: on the contrary, to the extent that caste and community identities are poles around which political mobilization takes place, it has perhaps created the opposite.
Can India Afford Internet Shutdowns?
Why do internet shutdowns happen in a democracy like India? What is the economic, social, and academic fallout of such shutdowns? What is the legal recourse for Indian citizens?
In Friday’s All Things Policy episode, Apar Gupta, executive director of Internet Freedom Foundation chats with Takshashila Institution's Sachin Kalbag on these pressing questions.
You can also now listen to All Things Policy on IVM Podcasts’ Youtube channel:
Takshashila Organised a 3-Day Evolutionary Biology Workshop
We organised a 3-day intensive Evolutionary Biology Workshop from March 10-12, in collaboration with the Indian Society of Evolutionary Biologists. The objective of the workshop was to identify insights from evolutionary biology for application in building public policy frameworks.
Apply for the NASP Fellowship
The NASP Fellowship aims to create high-quality scholarship & knowledge of Pakistan by nurturing new generations of analysts in academia, think tanks, media & industry.
NASP invites applications from researchers from any background, including from universities, research institutes, media, government services, and industry, who are enthusiastic about undertaking new research on Pakistan.
Prospective fellows must either be working or studying in India, have at least an undergraduate degree, and be proficient in English.
NASP fellows will undertake research in one or more of the following areas: economy; defence, geopolitics; environment; education; technology; society; and sub-national politics.
That’s all from us this week. Take care!