PM Modi likely to maintain current national security leadership
PTC News Desk: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to choose continuity in the top national security establishment by maintaining his Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in his third term. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is scheduled to accompany Modi to the G-7 conference in Italy on June 13. We are awaiting the directives for Dr. P. K. Mishra, Principal Secretary to the PM, and the NSA, to continue.
The decision about the new Army chief must be made by PM Modi, but it's also time to choose Tapan Deka, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau, who has performed admirably in gathering internal intelligence on Islamists and Maoists in the nation. On June 30, Deka, a renowned expert in counterterrorism, is expected to finish his two-year assignment.
The PM can choose to appoint Lt General Upendra Dwivedi, the senior most Army Commander, who has served as Northern Army Commander for two years and has first-hand knowledge of Indian adversaries to the north and west, as Army Chief Gen. Manoj Pande is set to reach superannuation on June 30th after a stellar innings.
In addition, General Dwivedi has firsthand knowledge of the cross-border terrorism that occurs in the Rajouri-Poonch area; the most recent event, the firing in Reasi, claimed the lives of ten Hindu pilgrims. Although there are alternative choices available to the PM and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, drastic measures are not anticipated to manage a ship the size of the Indian Army.
Modi 3.0 will see Bharat's aspirations to become a global power, but in addition to self-proclaimed adversaries like the UK, Canada, Germany, and Turkey, India will also need to strengthen its domain awareness with respect to China and Pakistan. To put it plainly, India must enhance its own resources if it hopes to stay competitive and cannot rely on pooled external intelligence.
Just as anti-India forces must be properly neutralized, so too must the role played by the Chinese, Western, and Pakistani media in especially during the 2024 election against Prime Minister Modi be effectively addressed. In the run-up to the 2024 elections, PM Modi conducted no fewer than 83 interviews with media, so he now knows firsthand what to anticipate from the western media during his third term.
India's greatest threat, meanwhile, will come from the maritime sphere, where the Chinese PLA Navy is fast growing in the Indo-Pacific and the once-dominant US Navy is unsure about competing against Beijing, as evidenced by the Biden administration's ambiguous signals. With the littoral governments giving in to pressure from the powerful Communist state, the Chinese Navy is anticipated to launch long-range incursions into the Indian Ocean region. As things are, the Indian neighborhood is heavily indebted to China under the guise of the Belt Road Initiative, and that in and of itself will provide the Xi Jinping government a great deal of pressure.
To properly control the Chinese threat in this setting, the Modi government must expand its island possessions as part of the marine security architecture. As of yesterday, India needed platforms like the Rafale Maritime Fighters to strengthen the INS Vikrant aircraft carrier and provide security advantages in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep. National security doctrines need to be adjusted to address future concerns because India needs to be ready to handle the PLA Navy challenge in the Indo-Pacific on its own, just as the west did not speak up when China transgressed in Ladakh in May 2020.
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- With inputs from agencies
