Reading this weekend: Ram Setu, Participatory Notes, Armed Forces..

This is what I am hoping to read this weekend…(Update: Excerpts added)

Ramasetu: Protecting heritage and coastline (A ppt presentation, 31 March 2012) by Dr Kalyanaramam

Who’s Responsible for Meeting the Cyber Threat? by Alan Woodward

So what have governments done in response to this situation? Well, they have acted in remarkably different ways.
For example, you might imagine the all-out attack on Estonia in 2007 would have led to an aggressive response. Instead it led to the formation of the Co-operative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCD COE). The purpose of CCD COE is to understand the cyber threat as it develops and thence to prevent those attacks. This is an approach which has received the full backing of NATO. Meanwhile, the EU has created the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) to act as a hub for the exchange of information, best practices and knowledge in the field of information security.

Other governments have adopted a more militaristic approach. In May 2010, the United States Cyber Command, part of the US Strategic Command, became operational. Cyber Command is not just there for the operations and defence of specified Department of Defense information networks but also to carry out “full spectrum military cyberspace operations”. Similarly, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced in May 2011 that the country would set up a cyber-defence task force to defend Israel’s vital infrastructure from cyber-attacks.

…Even if it were just a commercial issue, cyber security (and certainly the perception of it) can dramatically affect a nation’s fortune in the modern world. The fact that someone can potentially turn off the water, lights and stop the trains makes people think quite differently about what is a “stable” country, and will certainly influence anyone trying to decide whether to base their business in a country.

Time to restructure the Indian armed forces by Nitin Pai

…India is facing the strategic environment of the twenty-first century with its armed forces structured largely as they were during the Second World War. The reduced likelihood of a big conventional war—thanks to nuclear deterrence—means that our complacency in not restructuring the armed forces is unlikely to punished in the battlefields that easily. What is more likely is that the outdated structure will eat our armed forces inside out, through corruption, cronyism, indiscipline and inefficiency. Ossified structures seldom reward initiative, risk taking and integrity.

…What is fathomable is that despite setting aside a defence budget to make India the world’s biggest arms importer, the army chief has complained of shortages in the most basic of warfighting material.

..Obviously, restructuring the armed forces is not a miracle cure to the problems that plague our defence policy. However, it is the first step. The rest will follow

Why Participatory Notes are dangerous by Prof R Vaidyanathan

Participatory Notes (PN) — a general name used for the investment by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) through Offshore Derivative Instruments (ODIs) such as Participatory Notes, Equity-Linked Notes, Capped Return Notes and Participating Return Notes — have created a storm in the stock market, with SEBI coming out with a draft for discussion to regulate them, the RBI suggesting that they be phased out, and the Finance Minister assuring that the Government is not going to phase them out.

First things first. Let us clearly understand the fundamental issues. The PNs are a slap on the face of every citizen who is an investor. For a person to invest even in one share, several KYC (know your customer) forms have to be filled up, and PAN numbers and proof of address, etc., provided. For the PN investor the system is totally silent on even elementary information. The FIIs issue PNs to funds/companies whose identity is not known to the Indian authorities.

Hence, the PN system is blatantly discriminatory and seems to favour ghost investors. Any self-respecting market, if it discriminates at all, does so against outsiders. But we have done the unthinkable.

National Interest: Ministry of Indefensible by Shekhar Gupta

You might ask, and with good reason, why are we saying all this now? Who, ever doubted the quality and commitment of our forces, their imagination as well as their jugaad?

You need to raise these questions because the time has come for well-meaning, patriotic Indians to stand up and speak the truth. That, despite all the controversies, and amid this constant talk of decline in values, the quality of the officer core and so on, if the armed forces have continued to give such a good account of themselves, not everything can be rotten. You want more facts, you can check the officer-to-other-rank casualty ratio in our recent campaigns, Kargil, even Jaffna. Our armies are led by very, very honourable people.

There are black sheep, and we must catch them. And when we do, we must hand out exemplary, and quick punishment to them. But let us now, collectively, get over that post-Bofors mindset of seeing every defence acquisition as a scandal. Nobody is benefiting more from this than arms dealers. Because the moment one is losing the deal, it orchestrates anonymous, vague complaints against the front-runner. We have rent-a-signature MPs to forward these factional rivalries in the forces and an utterly spineless civilian administration whose first response is to put the deal on hold and call in the CBI. As a consequence, our defence acquisitions have nearly come to a standstill. And even if they picked up last year, we are already showing signs of returning to “normal”.

India now needs a leadership, civilian and military, that stands by the process it has established, and takes responsibility for what is bought, at what price and in how timely a manner.

…the fourth largest army in the world cannot be run by the CBI and motivated leaks from all sides. But that is where UPA’s spineless leadership of India’s higher security has brought us to. Their first instinct seems to be freeze at the first whiff of a controversy, and stop everything. A bit like preventing the spread of HIV by putting everybody in a chastity belt and throwing the keys in the Yamuna. That is why India’s higher defence crisis today is a crisis of leadership and confidence at the top. But given UPA 2’s record, where do you even begin telling that story?

Past Weekend Readings are here..