How India’s civil-military divide is doing more harm than good
An Article in DailyO published in 2017. Mythology, metaphors and sentiments masquerade for critical and coherent thinking when it comes to national security.
OF Fashionable Discourses And Simplistic Narratives
Surgical strikes a fashionable phrase that has entered Indian public discourse has interesting origins. The Collins English dictionary defines it as ‘a military action designed to destroy a particular target without harming other people or damaging other buildings near it‘. The term was first used during the first Gulf War. The use of precision guided missiles to take out military targets avoiding civilian casualties. It … Read moreOF Fashionable Discourses And Simplistic Narratives
A Need For A Civil Discourse
The Rule Of The Road by Alfred George Gardiner is easily one of the most delightful essays I have read during my teens. Gardiner captures the essence of our social contract in the following paragraph that has resonated in my mind over decades. ‘I shall not permit any authority to say that my child must … Read moreA Need For A Civil Discourse
URI – Using Bollywood For Building A Bold New Narrative
The national narrative of the modern Indian republic has been a mixed bag mostly. On one hand is my childhood memory of watching Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi an epic historical drama of India’s freedom struggle in my home town of Thiruvananthapuram in the early eighties. The mood in the theatre was sombre and a heavy sense of tragedy and … Read moreURI – Using Bollywood For Building A Bold New Narrative
Consensus Finally In ARTECH 19 Delhi
My journey into the world of national policy making on information security coincided with the Snowden revelations. It was wholly by accident and never planned as these things go, a series of accidents and initiatives by wholly disconnected and eminent personalities who I was fortunate to bump into and joined in a common journey. But … Read moreConsensus Finally In ARTECH 19 Delhi
Disruptive Impact of Technology on Warfare
“The most decisive act of judgement which the Statesmen and General exercises is rightly to understand the War in which he engages.”
— Carl von Clausewitz
The Coming Election Wars – Mayhem in 2019
For the Information Warrior especially those that openly practice cynicism and question the scriptures of information security dogma, predictions and prophesy can be a high-risk past time. In spite of all this after sufficiently stirring the tea leaves this particular prophecy is tempting to make. The elections of 2019 in India are easily going to … Read moreThe Coming Election Wars – Mayhem in 2019
Power Flows From The Smartphones
The Chinese Communist leader Chairman Mao Zedong famously coined this phrase “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” This phrase is a limited explanation in the framework of the origins of political power as espoused by Mao Zedong. Chairman Mao was already the undisputed leader of the Communist revolution and the Peoples Liberation Army, an … Read morePower Flows From The Smartphones