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New Indian Express
16 hours ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Who's Actually Behind Ukraine's Drone Attack on Russia?
This week, we turn to one of the most audacious attacks on Russia by any country in recent history. Ukraine's Operation Spider Web. On June 1st. Sunday's devastating explosive -laden drone attack by Ukraine –caught Russia napping. This is Russia. India's most reliable ally. Satellite imagery shows Ukraine inflicted punishing damage on Russia's strategic bomber fleet. At five separate airfields in Siberia and the Arctic – where Russia had moved its Black Sea fleet from its base in occupied Crimea after Ukraine had attacked the Crimean base with naval and aerial drones. Ukraine claims it damaged 41 airplanes at Belaya and Olenya and Dyagilevo, and Ivanovo airbases. On June 1, with over a hundred Quadcopters, which are small drones, fitted with bombs. One of the targets was reportedly an A-50, which provides airborne early warning of incoming threats. Among the 41 aircraft that were taken out were Russian Tupolevs TU–95, Tu-22, M3 and TU–160. UKRAINE TRIED IT AGAIN ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT. This time, Russia claims it shot down all 29 drones that Ukraine sent, across three regions. And is now bent on targeting Kyiv. What is the actual military situation on the ground? What is Ukraine's endgame? What is Russian President Vladimir Putin's endgame? Global Express's Neena Gopal examines these issues with Air Commodore (Dr.) Ashminder Singh Bahal, an expert in Aerospace & Air Power Dynamics; Bharath Gopalaswamy, a defence contractor; and Amit Kumar, a research analyst with Takshashila Institution
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First Post
09-05-2025
- Politics
- First Post
Operation Sindoor: India to maintain escalation dominance, de-escalation rests on Pakistan
Under Operation Sindoor that is now in its third day, India will keep the escalation dominance and maintain that de-escalation rests on Pakistan. India will ensure that the cost imposed on Pakistan will be greater than whatever cost Pakistan would try to impose on India. read more Pakistan's senior military and civil officials, along with residents, attend the funeral of a person killed in Indian airstrike on a terrorist site in Punjab province's Muridke on May 7, 2025. (Photo: AFP) Under Operation Sindoor that is now in its third day, India will keep the escalation dominance and maintain that de-escalation rests on Pakistan. After Pakistan attacked northern and western India with drones and missiles on Thursday, India responded forcefully and the two sides exchanged fire throughout the night. The Pakistani barrage had come after India struck Pakistani air defence systems earlier in the day in response to Pakistani attempted attacks on 15 Indian cities the previous night. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD While India started Operation Sindoor with restraint, India has turned up the heat gradually as Pakistan has refused to mend its way. While India targeted only terrorist sites in the early hours of Wednesday, Pakistan sought to attack Indian military and civilian targets on Wednesday night — including the holy city of Amritsar. It appears that Pakistan assessed that India would go for a muted response and opt for de-escalation. That turned out to be a gross miscalculation. In the morning, India responded by hammering Lahore and destroying the Pakistani Army's coveted air defence system in the beating heart of Pakistan's political power — after all Pakistan is Punjab and Punjab is Pakistan. India's message is clear that India will keep turning the heat up, offer Pakistan no off-ramp, and force it to de-escalate, says Yusuf Unjhawala, a scholar of geopolitics at the Takshashila Institution. 'From its end, India will not de-escalate. The ball to de-escalate is in Pakistan's court as it is the country's actions that have led India to initiate Operation Sindoor. The ideal choice for Pakistan would be to de-escalate after last night's losses. If Pakistan chooses to respond, India would undo the restraint quicker than expected,' says Unjhawala. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar made it clear with his remarks. After a call with his Italian counterpart, Antonio Tajani, he said that India has had a 'targeted and measured response' so far but 'any escalation will see a strong response'. India to keep heat on, ball to in Pakistan Among the many uncertainties of ongoing hostilities, one thing is certain: India will not stand down. It is understood that India will not just keep the heat on with continued escalation dominance, India will also set the case for the nature of escalation — if escalation is forced by Pakistan's continued misadventures. It is understood that one of the fundamental ideas driving the Indian thinking in the ongoing conflict is that the costs that India imposes on Pakistan will be greater than whatever cost Pakistan would try to impose on India. For an unsuccessful strike on Amritsar, India struck Lahore — the seat of Pakistan's political power. For unsuccessful strikes on Indian military stations, India destroyed Pakistan's prized China-made HQ-9 air defence system. As Pakistan's perpetual war on India is driven by a self-consuming jihadist national ideology, the only way to reduce the frequency of its jihadist misadventures is to impose costs such that misadventures are minimised. To be sure, for an artificial nation created from scratch with the sole idea of opposing India, 100 per cent deterrence is not possible, but imposing severe costs will minimise misadventures and ensure yearslong deterrence. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD ALSO READ: Operation Sindoor: 'As jihad drives Pakistan, India can only impose costs — deterrence is impossible' Unjhawala, the geopolitics scholar at Takshashila, tells Firstpost that it's incorrect that the Balakot airstrike did not bring any deterrence. 'The Balakot airstrike ensured that Pakistan did not do anything like that for six years when many thought it would attempt something spectacular after Article 370's abrogation. India is looking to put in place years of deterrence with the current episode as well. India should tell Pakistan that such strikes would be a norm even if five or ten people are killed. India should set a new normal,' says Unjhawala. The way India struck Pakistan yesterday speaks for itself and should deter its leaders, says Unjhawala. 'If striking Lahore, the heart of the country; Islamabad, the capital; and Rawalpindi, the seat of the almighty military; would not prove to be enough, and Pakistan would still attempt something, Indian response would be a notch higher. India will likely bring the navy into action. So far, India has controlled the escalation ladder and there is no indication that India intends to de-escalate or offer Pakistan a face-saving off-ramp and rightly so,' says Unjhawala. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD India gains insights into China's weapons The hammering of Pakistan also brings India into Chinese weapons and military systems. With the destruction of Pakistan's China-made air defence systems and interception of Chinese missiles and fighter planes, India has also gained insights into Chinese air defence systems and missiles that Pakistan uses. Insights into Chinese systems will improve India's position regarding China as well. 'With the reports of India taking out air defences, and reportedly its HQ-9 system which is a long-range surface-to-air missile system of China, China will be very concerned that India was able to strike it down because similar missile systems have been deployed on the northern border with us. Also, in today's press conference, they said that they took out an air defence system in last night's action. That will be the Chinese system,' says Unjhawala.
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First Post
06-05-2025
- Politics
- First Post
Pakistan wargamed response to Pahalgam attack, counts on China to save the day
Two weeks have elapsed since the Pahalgam massacre of tourists and it's now becoming clear that Pakistan had wargamed the response to the terror attack well in advance. Now, amid rising tensions with India, Pakistan is counting on China to save the day but it depends on whether Beijing sanctioned the attack or not. read more Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif react after unveiling a plaque to mark the completion of the New Gwadar International Airport, during a ceremony at the Prime Minister's House in Islamabad, Pakistan October 14, 2024. (Photo: Reuters) Since the Pahalgam attack, Pakistan has conducted missile tests, naval and aerial drills, emptied terrorist facilities in bordering areas, ramped up nuclear weapons' rhetoric, and mounted a disinformation campaign. The missile tests and naval drills kept any Indian naval operation at bay. The constant rhetoric of an 'imminent' attack ensured that no Indian attack took place — India would not attack in the time chosen by Pakistan. Pakistan's actions suggest that the military-intelligence establishment had wargamed the response to the Pahalgam attack well in advance and preparations for the response must have started right after the India-Pakistan confrontation in 2019 after the Pulwama attack, says Yusuf Unjhawala, a scholar of geopolitics at the Takshashila Institution. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD ALSO READ: As India vows response to Pahalgam, why is Pakistan itching for war? While drivers for the Pahalgam attack, which could not have taken place without the go-ahead from Pakistani Army chief General Asim Munir, are entirely domestic, such as restoring the primacy of the Pakistani military, there is an external element that could be the decisive factor in any India-Pakistan confrontation. That is China. Pakistan wargamed response to Pahalgam attack well in advance Everything that Pakistan has done so far after the Pahalgam attack is part of a calculated, pre-decided plan that had been years in the making. For instance, daily cross-border firing is not merely military aggression that is a result of Pakistan's decision to up the ante with India, but it is an effort to prevent any cross-border action from India, such as the one in 2016 in response to the Uri attack. 'If the entire border is lit up, as it is since the Pahalgam attack, a cross-border action would be highly unlikely. Similarly, Pakistan's military drills that extended almost to the edge of India's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) put a check on Indian naval activities,' says Unjhawala. Moreover, Indian intelligence has assessed that Pakistan has emptied camps and launchpads in Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK) in an apparent effort to prevent India from carrying out any targeted strikes at these locations. While it is natural for countries to hold military drills and demonstrations in times of tensions, the kind of drills that Pakistan is holding are intended to deter an attack from India and convey preparedness for any confrontation. The Hatf-II missile has a range of 450 kilometres and the test-launch was conducted in the east-west direction, telling India that the mainland is within reach. The Fatah missile has a range of 120 kms. Pakistan has also unveiled the long-range ground surveillance radar AM-3505, which is supposed to monitor Indian military activity on land and in the air. It is aimed at monitoring Indian military activity across land and air up to 350 kms away on ground and 60,000 feet in the sky. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD This handout photograph released by the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) on February 15, 2013, shows a Pakistani short range surface to surface Ballistic Missile Hatf II (Abdali) launched from an undisclosed location. File Photo/AFP Unjhawala tells Firstpost, 'Everything that we have seen so far suggests that, after the Pulwama-Balakot episode, Pakistan had wargamed how it would respond the next time a large-scale terrorist attack would be carried out inside India. Pakistan is now following that plan to deter or at least delay an Indian response and internationalise the issue in an attempt to blunt any Indian response.' Will China come to Pakistan's aid? For years, India has been preparing for what has been called a 'two-front' situation in which India faces confrontations with Pakistan and China at the same time. Pakistan would want China to get involved in the conflict, but that is not certain despite the two countries being iron brothers. 'Pakistan would want China to get involved, but China's involvement would depend on the fact whether it approved or sanctioned the Pahalgam attack,' says Unjhawala. It is understood that India does not wish to enter into a full-scale war with Pakistan because of the possibility of China indirectly entering the war on Pakistan's side. While military planners have long been concerned about scenarios in which India's borders with both Pakistan and China might see simultaneous battles, China may not need to open a second front at all. China may rather fight India via Pakistan. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'China would fight India to the last Pakistani. Nothing would suit China more than an India-Pakistan war. China would bankroll Pakistan's war on India if it concludes that the war would harm India substantially — and it will harm India substantially. China's principal aim with India is to bog down the country and subdue it. China wants to prevent India from emerging as a power in the region. The India-Pakistan war would provide the best opportunity. That's why India has to avoid a full-scale war,' says Unjhawala. ALSO READ: How Modi govt avoided China's strategic ambush by delaying kinetic action against Pakistan For China, the stakes are much higher than Pakistan. For years, India and others had been chipping away at manufacturing concentrated in China. India's production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes have ramped up manufacturing in some sectors like mobile phones. Recently, plans of Apple to shift manufacturing of iPhones for the United States to India from China had surfaced. Along with like-minded countries, India had also been tackling Chinese hegemonic designs in the Indo-Pacific and checking its influence in the Global South. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With a war-ravaged economy, however, India would neither be able to attract investments for manufacturing nor check Chinese advances in the world. For China, an India-Pakistan war would be a chance it would not want to miss. But Pakistan didn't wargame one thing While Pakistan appears to have planned how to manage India after the Pahalgam attack, it appears that the wargame skipped one element: the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. Even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the world in an extremely rare speech in English that India would pursue terrorists and their backers 'to the ends of the Earth', Pakistan's rhetoric barely mentioned it. What really rattled Pakistan was the suspension of the Indus treaty — Pakistan called it 'an act of war'. Pakistan has valid reasons to be rattled. Around four-fifths of the nation's agriculture and one-third of its hydropower depend on the Indus river system. Moreover, agriculture accounts for one-fourths of its economy. While India cannot stop the Indus river system's waters from flowing into Pakistan, it can tamper with the flow that can affect the availability of water for agriculture, hydropower generation, and other purposes at times of high requirement, such as in summers, according to Prof Medha Bisht, a scholar of water governance and transboundary issues in the subcontinent at the South Asia University, Delhi. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Baglihar Dam in Jammu and Kashmir's Ramban after India cut the flow of water through the dam on the Chenab river following suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. PTI Now that the Indus treaty is in abeyance, India is no longer obliged to share information related to the release or restriction of waters and that gives India the ability to induce water-scarcity or floods in Pakistan with sudden release of water or reduction in the flow of water without notice, as per Bisht. ALSO READ: With Indus Waters Treaty's suspension, India is playing long game to corner Pakistan The effect is already being felt. India has started to maximise the retention of waters in Chenab, one of the Indus system's rivers. Pakistan's Indus River System Authority (IRSA) has said that the kharif crop season could face a 21 per cent water shortage if India continues to withhold Chenab's waters. What are India's options? As the India-Pakistan border is hot almost consistently, a cross-border ground operation in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) is unlikely. It would not make much sense anyway as most of the terrorists have been withdrawn from the area. Moreover, India has to strike decisively enough to enforce deterrence, but has to plan escalation in a way that does not lead to a full-scale war. The strikes would also have to set a new normal in the India-Pakistan relationship — the kind of new normal that the response to the Pulwama attack established. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Unjhawala, the geopolitical expert at Takshashila, says that India should go for some demonstrable hits like strikes at the headquarters of terrorist organisations, such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba's in Punjab's Muridke and Jaish-e-Mohammed's in Punjab's Bahawalpur. 'Even if these headquarters and other seminaries have been emptied, India should hit them with missiles, perhaps with a dozen Brahmos missiles. That would demonstrate the ability to strike inside Pakistan as well as leave room for de-escalation as that would allow Pakistan to claim no damage has been done and seek an off-ramp if it so desires,' says Unjhawala. However, Unjhawala does not expect any imminent Indian attack despite whatever Pakistani leaders might say. It is understood that Indian military action would take place before the election cycle kicks in later this year. First, the government has committed to an action so it would face backlash if nothing happens. Second, the government would want to avoid criticism by timing the attack, and possibly a long-drawn conflict, around the time of elections that could potentially derail the exercise. A lot also depends on how Pakistan's domestic situation evolves — particularly in the wake of the Indus treaty's suspension. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The best case for India would be a pre-emptive Pakistani attack that would allow India more justification and liberty to respond and make it harder for China to come to Pakistan's side strongly, says Unjhawala. 'Pakistan may be forced into launching a pre-emptive attack if summer crops die from the water crisis caused by the Indus Waters Treaty's suspension. After Imran Khan's campaign, the Army's reputation is already in tatters. There is already unrest in Sindh. Dead crops in Punjab and Sindh may be the last draw for these two areas. If these two areas rise up in a movement, then Pakistan may be forced into making a pre-emptive strike," says Unjhawala.
Scroll.in
03-05-2025
- Business
- Scroll.in
Low investment, several years too late: Why India lags far behind China in tech innovation
This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology's impact outside the West. China's DeepSeek moment has triggered unease for the Indian government and tech industry. Earlier this month, India's commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, rebuked the country's entrepreneurs for their lack of innovation. 'We are focused on food delivery apps, turning unemployed youth into cheap labour so that the rich can get their meals without moving out of their house. And against that, what does a Chinese startup do? Work on developing electric mobility battery technologies, and with that, they today dominate the electric mobility ecosystem,' Goyal said at an industry event. Goyal's comments sparked a backlash from Indian startup founders and investors, who pointed to bureaucratic red tape and import regulations on computing equipment as major barriers to innovation. While explanations vary for why India – where startup funding is among the highest in the world — has fallen behind in advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence, experts believe the gap dates back to the 1980s, when the two nations diverged economically: China invested heavily in manufacturing, while India leaned into services. Today, China commands 30% of global manufacturing output, while India lags at 3%. India's services-led mindset and decades of underinvestment in innovation have left the country scrambling to catch up in the global tech race, according to industry analysts, government stakeholders, and academics. 'China's ecosystem is different. They already have the manufacturing prowess, which they built over time. So, for them to make a product which can be put into the market is not that difficult,' Pranay Kotasthane, chair of the High-Tech Geopolitics Programme at Takshashila Institution, a Bengaluru-based think tank, told Rest of World. India remains a 'service-focused' tech ecosystem – a space where the country beats China 'hands down,' he said. The government is counting on the private sector for high-tech innovation, Abhishek Singh, a top-ranking bureaucrat and CEO of IndiaAI Mission, a state-led initiative to drive AI adoption, told Rest of World. 'The government can only enable the ecosystem. The actual work is done by the industry, startups and researchers.' India has not innovated like China due to 'a lack of conviction at scale,' Anant Mani, founder and CEO of a Chennai-based artificial intelligence startup, Randomwalk AI, told Rest of World. 'India's AI startup ecosystem is alive, but not yet formidable. We have sparks – Sarvam AI, Niramai, Krutrim AI, etc – but not yet a sustained fire.' India has over 200 generative AI startups, which raised $560 million in funding in 2024. Yet, India is a net exporter of top AI talent, while China, despite producing nearly half as many high-quality researchers, retains most of them within its domestic ecosystem, according to a global AI talent tracker by Chicago-based think tank MacroPolo. Despite losing much of its top AI talent to the US and Europe, India is still home to over 20% of the world's semiconductor design engineers, Kotasthane said. The leading 25 semiconductor companies in India with centers dedicated to design and research and development include global giants like Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm, according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based science and technology think tank. But India's investment in innovation is meagre, undermining its ambition to take on China. India spends 0.64% of its GDP on research and development, far below China's 2.4% or the US's 3.5%. 'The Indian mindset is that Silicon Valley is an extension of ours,' Payal Arora, a digital anthropologist and professor of inclusive AI cultures at Utrecht University, told Rest of World. 'We export the majority of brains to the US, where they become leaders and create offshore places like [Bengaluru]. … They are not Indians representing India in the US … They've become Americans and are serving American interests.' The Indian government, in a recent survey, pointed out that private sector investment in research and development remains consistently low compared to countries like China, Japan, and the U.S. China's Huawei alone spent nearly $23 billion on research and development in 2023 – more than India's total public and private spending combined. In the fiscal year ending 2023, India's top spenders, Tata Motors and Reliance Industries, spent Rs 23,265 crore (around $2.8 billion) supporting tech innovation. 'This is all capex [capital expenditure], which is very high-risk because you are doing the capex up-front in the hope that you will create something truly differentiated at a global scale,' said Ravi Jain, investment director at TDK Ventures – an arm of a Japanese tech company that invests in AI – and the former business head of Indian AI startup Krutrim AI. 'The chance of this coming through is very low because somebody will have to write a 100, 200, 300 million-dollar check up-front to be able to even get started in this pursuit.' As part of its $1.26 billion IndiaAI mission, launched in March 2024, the Indian government has been ramping up efforts to support AI startups and reduce reliance on foreign chip imports. It plans to build a large cluster of graphics processing units – a powerful network of high-speed computers – and train AI models, while offering incentives for homegrown chip designs. China's push for semiconductor self-sufficiency started in 2014 with the launch of the $150 billion National Integrated Circuit Plan. As the US imposed sanctions on China's high-tech chipmaking in 2018, Beijing scaled up homegrown innovation, making huge investments in tech parks, research and development labs, and startup incentives. India's semiconductor policy was created seven years later in 2021. Indian automaker Tata made a foray into chipmaking by establishing a $11-billion semiconductor fabrication facility in Gujarat in 2024. Several other assembly and testing facilities are coming up, including US chipmaker Micron's $2.75 billion semiconductor plant. Tata Group is building a semiconductor assembly and test plant in the northeastern state of Assam, with an investment of nearly $3.3 billion. Manish Tewari, India's former minister of information and broadcasting, told Rest of World the government wasn't doing enough to become competitive on a global scale. 'The R&D spends are definitely on the lower side. And ultimately, you know, we may be driven by the private sector, but the private sector requires support … especially the kind of support which has been extended by the US, by other countries, including China,' Tewari said. With China becoming increasingly inaccessible for foreign investors amid rising tariffs, industry experts say India's tech sector might benefit from the ongoing trade war. In early January, Microsoft announced a $3 billion investment for the next two years in India's cloud and AI infrastructure. Amazon has set aside $120 million to fund manufacturing and AI development in India. A sense of falling behind in the global AI race was palpable at a recent technology summit co-hosted by global think tank Carnegie India and India's Ministry of External Affairs, where several panels focused on the country's AI strategy. Infosys co-founder and chair Nandan Nilekani was among the speakers. He struck an optimistic note, arguing India is well positioned to enable faster AI adoption, thanks to the digital transformation it has undergone over the past 15 years. Nilekani said DeepSeek's debut has sped up the trend of models becoming accessible far and wide. The real gamechanger, he said, is how AI is applied and the quality of data behind it. 'We should not lose sleep because somebody hasn't built a model,' Nilekani said. 'Anybody can build a model – it's not a big deal. All the knowledge is out there. It's the data that makes the difference, so you've got to change the focus.'
