For China, the Belt and Road initiative is a long-term strategy designed for it to assume a bigger role in global affairs through the business route. Various aerial and space-based platforms will play an important in making this strategy successful.

Hacker groups have turned their attention to stock markets not just to disrupt operations but also to trade and make financial gains.

India’s increasing investments in space for strategic purposes clearly indicates the rising relevance of space assets for the armed forces.

While the first watt of power from foreign-aided projects may take many years to come, the 10th anniversary coincides with major transformations in India’s indigenous nuclear energy programme.

While the Wassenaar Arrangement has instant recall in nuclear circles, it has only recently become a source of turmoil in cybersecurity, after the US Bureau of Industry and Security published rules that are applicable to cyber technologies.

While India has a reliable vehicle for launching less than 2 tonne satellites into LEO, it lacks the necessary infrastructure to obtain larger commercial benefits from this capability.

East and Southeast Asia are known to get affected by various diseases routinely. Particularly, various waterborne and other diseases likely malaria and dengue fever commonly affect the regions. There is a concern that global warming may translate into explosive growth of mosquito-borne diseases. In addition to this, growing number of natural disasters are found escalating the health related challenges. All this eventually poses a threat to health, economic and human security.

While the attack on the chemical warehouse in France and the accident in the Taiwanese park are not cases of chemical terrorism in a classical sense, they can be analysed against the backdrop of a ‘chemical incident’.

India’s ministerial presence at the Shangri La Dialogue could have helped India to articulate the new government’s strategic thought and expand from the realm of military diplomacy to defence diplomacy. So, is India’s defence establishment blind to probable benefits of participating in the Dialogue or are they thinking differently?