Overseas Talk "India is the single-most important defence partner for US"

William H. Avery, who served in the US diplomatic service as an Economic Officer, is a master at trade development and commercial advocacy, and is a three-time recipient of the US State Department's Meritorious Honour Award. A prolific writer on international affairs, Avery tells Mayank Singh how India needs to start thinking beyond just Pakistan and China and take interest in building a strong military base in the Asian region. India has the potential, he says!

B&E: Asia is constantly represented on the international fora and its position is factored-in by different countries in their policy making. Your assessment?
William H. Avery (WAH): All the action is in this part of the World. We are seeing a shift of economic activity, which will be followed by military activity and military strength from the trans-Atlantic to the Pacific region, including China and India and all the regions that fall in-between. With regard to the subcontinent, principally, India and China are the places that are going to be significant. US also because it is a continent with 300 million people. So I think a new structure is emerging where there are three potential centres of power – US, India and China.

50 years of solitude

'War forced on China'

No account of India-China war is complete without an interview with Neville Maxwell, a British journalist who has also authored a seminal book on the conflict 

Are India-China relations still frozen in 1962?

India-China relations have developed intensively in every area since 1962 — except one, the border issue.

Do you think India has not changed its approach towards the boundary issue in the last 50 years? 

Every Indian government since Jawaharlal Nehru formulated this policy has sustained his obdurate refusal to submit Indian territorial claims to the internationally accepted procedure of boundary settlement — diplomatic negotiations. (All China's other neighbours have amicably settled their borders in this way.)

Rookies earning their wings

October 8 is celebrated as air force day by the indian air force. we therefore, thought it fit to give you a glimpse of an average day of some very extraordinary people, fighter pilots. Mayank Singh spent some time with pilots of a sukhoi squadron. here’s his report.

‘HJ’, as he is known to his colleagues, looks like any other young man his age. But see him in his green overalls, and it is a different story. HJ is a fighter pilot in the making; which is to say he isn’t operational yet. But it’s only a matter of time. 

Being trained to fly the Indian Air Force’s most advanced deep penetration strike aircraft,

The Making Of The Scholar Warrior

It has produced some of India’s best known heroes, And continues to maintain the same high standards it set when it first opened. Mayank Singh spends a day at the IMA, Dehradun to get to grips with how boys transform into men entrusted with protecting the nation’s sovereignty. 

The red and white facade of a timeless colonial building with long corridors greets me as I enter through the main gate. This is Chetwode Building; the heart of the Indian Military Academy (IMA) in Dehradun and it sits in the midst of green salubrious surroundings.

But a sudden shout of “Saavdhan Chal” from behind me, pierces the moment and I am passed by a group of young boys on cycles wearing colourful t-shirts. I say boys. The IMA calls them GCs or Gentlemen Cadets. Why? Because an officer or an officer in the making, is a gentleman, always. 

Three GCs stand out. GC Shiladitya Singh Ranawat, GC Abhishek Chandra and GC Abhay Sharma. With their uniform crew cuts and similar t-shirts, they look the same. But their backgrounds and their place here at the academy couldn’t be more different.