INDIAN army chief general Manoj Pande was on a five day visit to Nepal, starting September 4. In continuation of the custom and tradition between the two armies, Gen Pande was conferred the title of honorary general of Nepal Army by the president of Nepal. However, besides parades, receptions, the focus of the visit was the discussions over continued recruitment of Gorkha soldiers under the newly constituted Agnipath scheme of the Indian government.

THE integration of the Global South has always worried the West. In the 1970s when the poor nations joined hands to demand a New International Economic Order (NIEO), the West got into action to divide the south-south solidarity. A three-way split was engineered – the oil producing third world countries in the middle east were clubbed together as relatively well-off nations and separated from the much larger third-world composed of developing and underdeveloped nations.

IT has been almost six months since the tragic death of India’s first chief of  defence staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, in a helicopter crash along with 13 others including his wife, his staff, protection party, and the aircrew. And the government is yet to appoint General Rawat’s successor for reasons best known to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

THE news of impending destruction and chaos in Kyiv is the new love of the global strategic community that relishes wars and is constantly on a lookout for hotspots where the US military can intervene and reiterate the American primacy. The western media has launched a propaganda blitzkrieg to tell the world that there is a massive Russian military build-up along Ukraine’s borders and President Vladimir Putin is on the verge of launching a large-scale invasion.

IF “loss of China” was the main worry of the American strategic community in the 1950s, then their current nightmare is the drifting of Russia towards China. Yet, the transatlantic alliance partners, led by the US, have done everything possible to push Russia away. On the other hand, Beijing has played its cards well by investing in Eurasian connectivity to woo Russia.