Bharat Geopolitics

From Vision to Strategy: India-Japan Advancing a Free and Open Indo-Pacific

Vivek Raina The partnership between Japan and India has developed into a key component of modern Indo-Pacific geopolitics, signifying a change from an economic partnership to a full strategic alignment. This collaboration, which is based on a commitment to a rules-based system, mutual trust and shared democratic principles, is now crucial in tackling new regional issues. This document highlights how India and Japan are changing their engagement from transactional cooperation into a forward-looking strategic enterprise by further aligning their views and capacities to foster stability, resilience and inclusive prosperity as the Indo-Pacific power dynamics continue to change. Context India-Japan collaboration has become one of the key strategic alliances of the twenty-first century, with results that go well beyond bilateral interaction. A fully institutionalised, all-encompassing strategic alliance based on common democratic ideals, the rule of law and a shared commitment to regional stability has developed from what started as an economic association focused on the trade of cars and electronics. These days, this partnership is motivated by a distinct convergence of geopolitical interests, especially in reaction to the Indo-Pacific region’s changing power dynamics. Its fundamental goal is to maintain a rules-based international order and guarantee the continued freedom, openness, inclusivity and security of the Indo-Pacific region. In addition to enhancing bilateral relations, India and Japan are influencing the larger regional architecture through collaboration in vital areas like supply chain resilience, infrastructure development, maritime security and emerging technologies. As a result, this collaboration is now transformational rather than transactional, establishing both countries as key players in preserving security and prosperity throughout the Indo-Pacific. Strategic Importance of the Indo-Pacific Indo-Pacific region has emerged as a central pillar of global geopolitics and economics, making it critically important for both India and Japan. Spanning Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas, it accounts for over 60% of global GDP and nearly 65% of the world’s population, positioning it as the core of global economic activity. The region hosts vital Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) and key maritime chokepoints such as the Strait of Malacca, through which a significant portion of global trade and energy supplies flow, making maritime security and stability in areas like the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal essential. For India and Japan, the Indo-Pacific is also a strategic space to counterbalance China’s growing influence, particularly through coordinated infrastructure and connectivity initiatives in countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as alternatives to the Belt and Road Initiative, alongside cooperation with partners such as the United States, Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Both countries advocate a Free and Open Indo-Pacific based on rule of law, freedom of navigation and an inclusive, rules-based economic order. The region’s strategic importance is further reinforced by ASEAN’s central role in linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans, with India supporting a unified ASEAN to ensure regional stability and prevent fragmentation. Additionally, the Indo-Pacific sits at the crossroads of global energy flows and supply chains, with a substantial share of global exports and millions of barrels of crude oil transiting through it annually, making its security vital for economic resilience. Together, these factors underscore why the Indo-Pacific is not only a geographic construct but a strategic imperative for India and Japan in shaping a stable, balanced, and prosperous regional order. India–Japan Partnership in the Indo-Pacific Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision has emerged as one of the most influential strategic frameworks shaping regional geopolitics over the past decade. Conceived to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains free, inclusive, rules-based, and open to commerce, FOIP reflects Tokyo’s response to shifting power balances, maritime insecurity and the growing salience of connectivity and economic resilience. For India, FOIP has not only complemented its own strategic outlook but has also deepened one of its most consequential partnerships with Japan. At its core, FOIP is anchored in three principles: the rule of law, freedom of navigation and the promotion of connectivity through quality infrastructure. These principles resonate strongly with India’s own vision of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) and its broader Indo-Pacific policy. The convergence is not accidental. Both India and Japan are maritime democracies with a shared interest in maintaining stability across vital sea lanes that carry energy supplies, trade and digital connectivity. The India–Japan partnership has evolved significantly in tandem with FOIP. What began as an economic relationship has matured into a comprehensive strategic partnership encompassing defence, infrastructure, technology and multilateral coordination. The institutionalisation of this partnership is evident in regular 2+2 ministerial dialogues, defence exercises such as Malabar and increasing interoperability between the Indian Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. These developments are not merely symbolic; they reflect a shared understanding that maritime security is central to regional stability. A key dimension of FOIP is connectivity, where Japan has played a pivotal role in supporting infrastructure development across the Indo-Pacific. In India, Japanese investments in projects like the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Corridor and industrial corridors underscore a commitment to high-quality, transparent and sustainable infrastructure. Beyond India, both countries have collaborated in third-country projects, particularly in South Asia and Africa, offering alternatives to debt-driven infrastructure models. This cooperative approach strengthens regional resilience while reinforcing norms of transparency and sustainability. FOIP also intersects with the evolving role of minilateral groupings, most notably the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), comprising India, Japan, the United States, and Australia. While FOIP predates the revival of the Quad, it has provided an intellectual and strategic foundation for its agenda. For India and Japan, the Quad is not a military alliance but a platform for coordinating responses to shared challenges, including maritime security, disaster relief, supply chain resilience and emerging technologies. This flexible, issue-based cooperation reflects the pragmatic nature of FOIP. The economic dimension of FOIP is equally significant. The Indo-Pacific accounts for a substantial share of global GDP and trade and disruptions in this region have far-reaching consequences. India and Japan have increasingly aligned their economic strategies, particularly in supply chain diversification. Initiatives such as the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI) aim to

Bharat Pakistan Terrorism United States USA War World

Pakistan May Use Iran as a Smokescreen to Spread Terror in India

Intelligence warnings are flashing red. The arrests are piling up. Pakistan does not need a reason to export terror to India. It needs an opportunity. And right now, with West Asia in open conflict, Pakistan’s deep state believes it has exactly that. Rahul PAWA | X – @imrahulpawa Every major world crisis has provided Pakistan’s terror machinery with operational cover to strike India, timed with cold precision to moments of maximum international distraction or diplomatic leverage. On March 20, 2000, the eve of Bill Clinton’s arrival in India, 35 Sikh men were lined up and shot dead in Chittisinghpora village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district. The terrorists wore Indian Army uniforms and spoke Punjabi and Urdu, a calculated false flag designed to hand the visiting American president fresh images of fabricated Indian Army atrocities in Jammu and Kashmir. It was Lashkar-e-Taiba, operating under the Pakistan Army’s direction and its foreign intelligence agency ISI’s direct command. After 9/11, with American attention consumed by Afghanistan and the world watching Islamabad perform as a frontline ally in its “war against terror”, Pakistan’s deep state moved with characteristic audacity. On December 13, 2001, LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists stormed the Indian Parliament in New Delhi, killing nine security personnel and nearly triggering a full-scale war. The attack was not opportunistic. It was a calculated attempt to internationalise Jammu and Kashmir at a moment when the world was already in crisis and the Islamic world was split. In November 2008, as Gaza descended into violent escalation and global Islamic outrage peaked, ten Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists sailed into Mumbai and held the city hostage for sixty hours, killing 166 people across multiple coordinated sites including the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, and the Nariman House Jewish centre. The terrorist attack was meticulously planned, with Pakistan Army and its ISI providing training, logistics, and real-time operational guidance. This is not Pakistan-sponsored terrorism born of desperation. It was Pakistan Army strategy, executed with maximum cynicism. In 2001 it wore the mask of America’s indispensable ally against terror while simultaneously directing terror at India. Today it wears the mask of a responsible Islamic middle power and self-appointed Iran mediator while running active cells across Indian cities. The mask changes. The target never does. Domestically, the amendment of Article 370 of the Indian constitution in August 2019 began delivering what Pakistan had spent decades of propaganda insisting was impossible. Pakistani generals watched in horror as peace and normalcy returned to Jammu and Kashmir. Tourism surged. Investment flowed. A new generation of Kashmiris was experiencing connectivity and economic opportunity rather than terror branded as jihad. The Kashmir valley, whose civilisational roots run deep into Hindu tradition, whose saints and ancient temples reflect centuries of Hindu practice long preceding the region’s recent history, was beginning to rediscover itself on its own terms. The Pakistan Army could not allow this. A peaceful, prosperous Jammu and Kashmir demolished the foundational premise of Pakistan’s existence and its seventy-year investment in terror, war, and propaganda. So it recalibrated and struck. On April 22, 2025, three Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists armed with American M4 carbines, AK-47s, and a GoPro camera traced to a Chinese distributor and activated in Dongguan fourteen months before the attack, descended into Baisaran Valley and separated Hindu men from their wives and children before executing them in cold blood. They fled before Indian security forces arrived and were hunted down a few months later, with Home Minister Amit Shah confirming their elimination in Indian Parliament on July 29. From the bodies of attackers, investigators recovered Pakistani voter ID slips linked to Lahore constituency NA-125 and Gujranwala constituency NA-79, and biometric data from Pakistan’s National Database on a micro-SD card recovered from a broken satellite phone. The objective, as evidenced by the immediate operational claim on social media by The Resistance Front, a proscribed outfit and proxy of Lashkar-e-Taiba operating out of Muridke, was precise. Blame Hindus, declare Kashmir exclusively Islamic land, and manufacture an outsider and insider narrative implying that the very Hindus who form the civilisational core of Kashmir since its existence were settlers and occupiers. A fabricated narrative lifted directly from recent collaborators Hamas and Hezbollah’s playbooks in West Asia, designed to erase the Hindu soul of a valley Pakistan has spent decades trying to destabilise. India’s response was decisive and precise. Operation Sindoor struck nine confirmed terrorist training sites: Markaz Taiba in Muridke, LeT’s headquarters where the 26/11 Mumbai attackers were trained; Markaz Subhan Allah in Bahawalpur, Jaish-e-Mohammed’s nerve centre; the Masjid Syedna Bilal camp in Muzaffarabad; the Gulpur camp in Kotli; the Sawai Nala camp in Muzaffarabad; the Abbas camp in Kotli; the Mehmoona Joya facility of Hizbul Mujahideen in Sialkot; the Barnala camp in Bhimber; and the Sarjal facility at Tehra Kalan, a key weapons storage site. These were not arbitrary targets. They were the nerve centres behind decades of attacks on India including the IC-814 hijacking, the 2001 Indian Parliament attacks, and the 2008 Mumbai carnage. Pakistan’s response was to have its generals and senior officers attend the funerals of globally proscribed terrorists and then escalate. Pakistani forces deployed KARGU-2 loitering munitions and Bayraktar TB2 drones procured from Turkey and China in waves against Indian civilian and military targets. On the night of May 9 to 10, Indian air defence intercepted a Pakistani Fatah-II hypersonic ballistic missile over Sirsa in Haryana, aimed at targets near Delhi. In response to Pakistani escalation, Indian armed forces struck eleven Pakistani airbases including Nur Khan in Rawalpindi, the Pakistan Air Force’s central command and logistics hub, Rafiqui in Shorkot, Sargodha’s Mushaf Base, Murid in Chakwal, Skardu in Gilgit-Baltistan, and Bholari in Sindh, degrading frontline squadrons, runway infrastructure, drone hubs, and radar installations across the country. SEAD operations disabled air defence radars in Lahore and Gujranwala. The Indian Navy’s Western Fleet, including an aircraft carrier, repositioned in the northern Arabian Sea within operational range of Karachi. The intensity and reach of India’s strikes forced Pakistan’s DGMO to call his Indian counterpart and

Bharat Canada Geopolitics Hindus Human Rights Khalistan Policy

Canada’s Bill C-9 and Its Implications for Hindus and Khalistani Extremism

With the enactment of Bill C-9 (Combatting Hate Act), Canada’s legislative stance on hate speech, extremist iconography and religious space protection underwent an important change. The law establishes penalties for intimidation at religious institutions motivated by hatred and makes it illegal to publicly display insignia associated with terrorist groups. The law is both a chance for legal protection and a test of the legitimacy of enforcement for Canada’s Hindu minority, which is dealing with an increase in temple destruction, intimidation, and hate speech related to Khalistan. The rule was passed in response to growing worries about targeted animosity toward Hindu populations, temple destruction, and radicalization of the diaspora.

Geopolitics International United States USA War World

Washington’s Narrowest Gamble: A Seizure, Not an Invasion

Three places will signal when this war evolves: the Strait of Hormuz, Kharg Island, and the hills above southern Lebanon. Everything else is noise. Rahul PAWA | X – @imrahulpawa There is a particular kind of tension that settles over a theatre of war when everything is in place and nothing has yet happened. It is the tension of a held breath. That is where West Asia finds itself today. The aircraft carriers are in position. The Marines are at sea. The Israeli Defense Forces are clearing southern Lebanese hills. And yet the orders to cross into Iran has not been given, and may not be. Late last week, U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the deployment of roughly 5,000 Marines to West Asia aboard amphibious assault ships, including the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit sailing from Japan and the 11th from California. An 82nd Airborne rapid-reaction brigade is already in the region. This is the largest American force concentration since the war with Iran began on February 28th. It is not subtle. It is not meant to be. And yet President Trump, asked directly whether he was considering a ground invasion, said he was not. He spoke instead of being “close to our goals.” His Secretary of Defence said something rather different. Analysts say something different still. This is not necessarily contradiction. It may simply be the grammar of coercion: you do not announce a landing before you need to make one. What, then, are these forces actually for? The honest answer is that they are for several things at once. They are a signal to Tehran that the cost of continued resistance is rising. They are an insurance policy against Iranian escalation in the Strait of Hormuz. And they are, according to several ground reports, the forward edge of contingency plans to seize Kharg Island, the oil export terminal that accounts for the majority of Iran’s crude shipments, along with the islands of Abu Musa and the Tunbs. Seizing Kharg would be a surgical act of economic strangulation rather than an invasion in the traditional sense. U.S. air power has already struck the island’s coastal defences, deliberately sparing the oil tanks themselves. The logic is legible: destroy Iran’s ability to sell oil and you destroy its ability to fund a war, without needing to take Tehran. The Marines would be the lock, not the key. Further north, Israel is pursuing what it sees not as an open-ended war of choice, but as a necessary security campaign with increasingly durable aims. Defence Minister Israel Katz has signalled that Israel may seek to hold southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, roughly twenty miles from the Israeli border. Since mid-March, Israeli ground forces have been clearing villages, bridges, and access routes across a broad arc, with the objective of creating greater strategic depth against Hezbollah and other Iran-backed armed groups. From Israel’s perspective, the logic is clear: push the threat farther north, deny hostile forces proximity to the border, and prevent the northern front from once again becoming a platform for sustained attack. Hezbollah has vowed to resist. What is taking shape, therefore, looks less like a temporary manoeuvre and more like the early outline of a more enduring military posture. Israel’s calculus is that Hezbollah cannot be defanged from the air alone. Netanyahu has said as much, repeatedly. But holding southern Lebanon is not a surgical strike. It is an open-ended commitment that risks inflaming the region and straining the alliance with Washington, which has its own timelines and its own thresholds. The two campaigns, the American one in West Asia and the Israeli one in Lebanon, are coordinated in broad strategic terms but not necessarily in lockstep. To the east, Pakistan has quietly closed its border crossings with Iran and reinforced its long held Balochistan frontier. Islamabad is not preparing to join any offensive. It is preparing for the consequences of one: refugee flows, cross-border terrorism, the destabilisation of a region already stretched thin. Pakistan’s deputy prime minister has been making calls, invoking a Saudi defence pact to urge Iranian restraint. The mountains of Balochistan, are not friendly to armoured advances in any direction. Iran, for its part, is not without leverage. Its missile and drone inventory, numbering in the thousands, remains largely intact. Its networks in Iraq and Syria are on alert. The Houthi rebels in Yemen have declared themselves ready to strike Gulf shipping routes the moment Iran gives the word, threatening to close the Bab al-Mandeb strait as a second chokepoint alongside Hormuz. Iranian officials have warned that any strike on its coastline would trigger naval mining operations across straits, with consequences for world oil markets that no government in the West is eager to contemplate. Diplomacy has not provided an exit. A fifteen-point Saudi-led ceasefire proposal was rejected by Tehran. Germany and France have said they will not endorse military escalation absent a truce framework. In the United States, public appetite for a ground war in Iran is low, even as polling suggests most Americans expect ground troops to go eventually. That gap between expectation and appetite is the space in which policy is made, and it is a narrow one. What this moment most resembles is not the eve of a great offensive. It resembles the final hours of a negotiation conducted entirely through the movement of ships and soldiers: a bid to extract a concession from Tehran before the Marines are ordered ashore. Whether Iran will read it that way, or whether it will conclude that the Americans are bluffing, will determine what happens next. The honest assessment is this. Three thousand six hundred combat troops, divided between two Marine battalions and a paratroop brigade, are not an invasion force for a country of ninety million people and one of the largest standing armies in the region. They are, at most, a raiding party with strategic objectives. Kharg Island. The Hormuz approaches. Time-limited. Defined. Reversible, if things go wrong quickly enough. Whether

Economy Pakistan Terrorism War World

Recurring Bailouts Expose Flaws in Pakistan’s Economic Framework

By N. C. Bipindra Pakistan’s economic crises have unfolded with a familiar pattern for decades. It emerges from a balance-of-payments shortfall with foreign exchange reserves dwindling and its government running for emergency support from friendly capitals and multilateral lenders. As temporary relief arrives and the immediate crisis subsides, it has never led to any meaningful reforms in the country’s economic architecture, and hence allows the same cycle to repeat recurrently. This pattern has hardened into something more troubling over the decades, which is Pakistan’s structural dependency on external aid, but without the political will to reform the economy that requires it like breathing air. Pakistan’s current economic distress demonstrates this dynamic with much clarity, with its financial fragility once again pushing it to seek assistance from traditional lenders, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), China, and the Gulf states. But what distinguishes this moment is not merely Pakistan’s need for aid but the growing reluctance of its creditors to continue providing support without a meaningful change in the country’s economic management. Facing mounting pressure, and exacerbated by external shocks like the ongoing Middle Eastern war between the US-Israel combine, and Iran that has disrupted global energy flows and strained import-dependent economies like Pakistan, it has again turned to its external benefactors. According to Pakistani media reports, Islamabad has in recent months submitted as many as eight separate requests to Saudi Arabia, the country that has bailed Pakistan repeatedly, seeking urgent financial assistance. These requests include converting $5 billion currently deposited in the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) into a long-term facility that could last up to a decade. The original deposit, which began at $3 billion in 2024 before expanding to $5 billion, was meant to stabilise Pakistan’s dangerously low foreign exchange reserves, which had gone below $8 billion after the country narrowly avoided default in 2023. In addition to restructuring the existing deposit, Pakistan has also requested that Saudi Arabia expand its deferred oil payment facility from $1.2 billion to $5 billion. There is a telling silence from the Saudi side, which has yet to respond positively to any of these Pakistani appeals. But it reflects a broader reassessment underway in Saudi Arabia and other creditor capitals regarding Islamabad’s long-term economic credibility. While Pakistan’s partners for years assisted largely out of strategic calculation or diplomatic goodwill, today those same partners appear increasingly unwilling to write blank checks. A part of this hesitation from Pakistan’s international lenders stems from concerns about how aid is used once it arrives in the country. Oftentimes, it has been reported that the financial assistance, which is intended to stabilise the economy, dissipates within a governance system marked by weak administrative oversight, political patronage networks, and persistent institutional inefficiencies. Rather than catalysing structural reforms of Pakistan’s economy, these external funds have frequently served as temporary patches that delay bigger changes. These concerns have been further compounded by the perception that portions of economic assistance are indirectly absorbed by Pakistan’s powerful military establishment. Since the country’s armed forces wield enormous influence over national decision-making and maintain extensive economic interests through military-run enterprises, this external aid therefore runs out of the formal economy into the parallel military economy. While these institutions are used to provide benefits to the military ecosystem, they do little to address the broader structural weaknesses of the civilian economy. This dynamic raises questions for Pakistan’s foreign lenders, who are left wondering how much assistance actually translates into sustainable economic improvement. In this context, Saudi Arabia has already been signalling its answer. In 2023, its finance minister, Mohammed al-Jadaan, during a speech at the World Economic Summit at Davos, made it clear that Riyadh’s approach to foreign aid was changing as the era of giving “direct grants and deposits without strings attached” was effectively over. While the message was directed broadly at countries dependent on Saudi support, including Jordan and Egypt, it resonated particularly strongly in Pakistan as al-Jadaan stressed that future assistance would come with expectations that recipient countries undertake genuine economic reforms. Riyadh explicitly stated that Islamabad would need to expand its tax base, implement fiscal reforms, and address structural distortions in its economy if it hoped to receive continued financial backing. “We are taxing our people, we are also expecting others to do the same, to make their efforts. We want to help, but we also want you to do your part,” al-Jadaan argued. It is instructive how even personal diplomacy has struggled to overcome these new conditions. Earlier, when Pakistani leaders could secure economic aid on the back of a call from its Gulf partners, now even requests from its powerful army chief, General Asim Munir, are shrugged off. It was demonstrated in 2023 itself when Asim Munir travelled to Riyadh and reportedly made direct but unsuccessful appeals to Saudi leadership seeking credit line extensions and additional support. The Saudis, as media reports from the time highlight, insisted that Pakistan first demonstrate progress on reforms demanded by international lenders. Moreover, China, which is Pakistan’s major economic partner and financial patron, has also adopted a cautious approach about extending its credit lines to Islamabad. Although China has invested over $65 billion in Pakistan through its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Islamabad’s economic slowdown and its rising internal security challenges have made Beijing grow wary about its commitments. Accordingly, China has also aligned its stance with that of the Saudis and other Gulf creditors of Pakistan and demanded that Islamabad take credible economic reforms before it expects any external credits. Even the IMF, which has bailed Pakistan nearly 24 times since 1958 when it extended its first package to the country, remains cautiously engaged. After it preconditioned its latest $7 billion Extended Fund Facility program to Pakistan in 2024 to stabilise its macroeconomic environment, it has pushed Islamabad to implement some measures under the programme. These measures include tightening fiscal and monetary policy, reducing energy subsidies, and introducing limited structural reforms. But the progress has remained uneven as Pakistan requires deeper reforms to transform its economy by breaking from political resistance, bureaucratic inertia, and competing power centres, which have repeatedly diluted reform efforts in

Bharat Geopolitics United States War World

Washington Arms West Asia

A single-day $23.5 billion approval marks the largest concentrated U.S. arms sale commitment to the West Asia since the 1990-91 coalition build-up, a direct counter to Iranian attacks on regional energy infrastructure. Rahul PAWA | x – imrahulpawa On a single day last week, Washington approved more arms for West Asia than most nations spend on defence in a decade. The $23.5 billion in potential sales cleared by the U.S. State Department on 19 March 2026, split across the UAE, Kuwait, and Jordan with a significant portion processed quietly as extensions of existing deals, did not emerge from routine procurement cycles. They were fast-tracked, and the reason is not complicated. Iran has been hitting things, and the things it is hitting matter. Drone and missile strikes against West Asian energy infrastructure have pushed oil and gas prices higher and exposed a vulnerability that regional governments and their American patron can no longer treat as theoretical. The question of whether regional air and missile defences can absorb a sustained, multi-vector Iranian attack has moved from war-gaming seminars to operational planning desks. The 19 March approvals are Washington’s opening answer. The headline figure for the UAE is $8.4 billion in publicly announced sales, but the real number is nearly double. An additional $7 billion, processed as expansions of earlier agreements and deliberately kept outside standard Congressional notification channels, brings the effective UAE total to approximately $17.3 billion. Within that, $5.6 billion covers Patriot PAC-3 interceptors and $1.32 billion funds CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters, with the remainder spanning missiles, drones, radar systems, and F-16 munitions and upgrades. The combination is not accidental. PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement variants extend engagement envelopes and improve hit-to-kill performance against manoeuvring targets, directly addressing the gap that Iranian drone saturation tactics are designed to exploit. The Chinooks are less obviously connected to air defence but no less important: when a battery must redeploy under fire and the target set shifts faster than ground transport allows, heavy-lift becomes a tactical asset rather than a logistics footnote. The F-16 elements ensure the UAE retains offensive reach. This is not a package built for passive absorption of Iranian strikes. Kuwait’s approximately $8 billion clearance is focused on lower-tier air and missile defence sensor radars rather than interceptors, and that distinction is easily misread as less significant than the UAE’s allocation. It is not. An intercept system that cannot cue accurately is wasted hardware. Before Kuwait can field effective missile defence at scale, it needs a coherent recognised air picture, the ability to detect, track, and classify incoming threats in time to task the right effector against the right target. The sensor architecture investment establishes that upstream layer. It is preparatory rather than terminal, and the effector investment will follow. What the 19 March approval does is build the information foundation without which no subsequent kinetic capability can function reliably, and it does so at a moment when Iranian strikes on West Asian energy infrastructure have made that urgency impossible to argue against. Jordan’s $70.5 million allocation barely registers against the other figures, and that is not a slight. Jordan’s value to the regional security architecture is geographic and logistical, a critical corridor and staging environment whose air assets need to be ready rather than numerous. The package, focused on aircraft and munitions support, is calibrated precisely to that role. The decision to process $7 billion of the UAE package outside standard Congressional notification is legally permissible under the Arms Export Control Act, which allows the executive to structure sales as expansions of previously cleared programmes without triggering fresh legislative review. The practical effect is speed. The political risk is exposure. In a conflict where civilian casualty reporting could shift domestic opinion, the absence of a formal congressional record for nearly a third of the total commitment creates a vulnerability that has not yet become a problem but will depend entirely on how the conflict develops. Primary contractors RTX, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin will execute the bulk of the programmes, each already managing PAC-3 production backlogs driven by European NATO restocking requirements. Adding West Asian demand of this scale to lines that are not running at surplus capacity is a scheduling problem that no approval document resolves. For newly manufactured systems, operationally meaningful delivery, integration, and crew training is unlikely to materialise in under twelve to eighteen months. Sensor packages to Kuwait may move faster. Washington has made a strategic judgement that Iranian escalation is not a temporary spike to be waited out and that the window for hardening West Asian defences is present and finite. The 19 March approvals are the material expression of that judgement, designed simultaneously to close the capability gap that Iranian tactics have been targeting, to signal to Tehran that further escalation faces diminishing tactical returns, and to reassure West Asian governments that the U.S. security guarantee is substantive rather than rhetorical. Regional states are watching how Washington behaves under pressure. A fast-tracked, multi-billion-dollar approval package announced in direct response to Iranian strikes is the kind of signal that reassures, not because the systems will arrive tomorrow, but because the decision to send them was made today. (The author is an international criminal lawyer and director of research at New Delhi based think tank Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies (CIHS).

Afghanistan Pakistan Terrorism War

104

Malfeasance at large

USCIRF worked to puncture US interests by framing its strategic ally Bharat as a country of particular concern and recommend ban on RSS, RAW. What’s the hidden agenda? K.A.Badarinath Why doesn’t US President Donald J Trump wind up the pugnacious and toxic organization US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) that worked against American interests?President Trump cited ‘inefficient’, ‘wasteful’ expenses or ‘anti-US’ working as reasons good enough to withdraw from 66 international bodies including 31 UN agencies beginning January this year.By same yardstick, USCIRF is a fit case for immediate closure, try all six commissioners appointed through Presidential decree for ‘anti-US’ activities and recover state expenses that went into its anti-American propaganda. To begin with, US Congress that funds USCIRF for an ‘independent’ opinion on religious freedom in different countries may have to reconsider and stop bankrolling the redundant outfit. President Trump may have to then go ahead and proceed against these commissioners possibly having a hidden agenda.Now, one would be wondering as to what’s the crime that USCIRF or its commissioners resorted to for such an extreme measure. USCIRF recommendations in its report update of 2026 have the potential to derail American strategic and special relations with its major Asian allies like India.It has recommended limiting security relations, link US assistance and bilateral trade to “improved religious freedom” and pushed for enforcing Section 6 of Arms Export Control Act to halt sale of arms to India.All these recommendations have been made on purported “…continued acts of intimidation and harassment against US citizens and religious minorities (in India)”. Neither of these charges were proven nor evidenced to demand virtual severing of links between US and Bharat.More obnoxious is the recommendation of USCIRF headed by Pakistan linked Vice Chair Asif Mahmood to impose targeted sanctions on individuals and entities like India’s external spy agency, Research And Analysis Wing (RAW) and Hindu-centric civilizational, cultural organization, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Brazenly enough, USCIRF has sought freeze on assets, movement of people associated with these organizations.Incidentally, Asif Mahmood is a Pakistani American Physician and political activist based in California. Mahmood was head of APPNA (Association of Physicians of Pakistani Decent of North America) in South California that was reportedly a lobbying front for Islamabad.Avowed reason, however, offered by the commission is that these two organizations, RAW and RSS, tolerated severe violation of religious freedom in Bharat. Even Republican White House led by Donald Trump will have to think a billion times before restricting RAW or RSS leave alone a US government commission.Does USCIRF have the mandate to get the sovereign national agency of Bharat sanctioned? Larger malfeasance is to recommend sanctions on world’s largest volunteers driven, services oriented movement, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.As a commission funded by US government, it’s within its right to undertake critical analysis on issues that may be of importance to American interests. One gets flummoxed as to why the commission picked RAW and RSS in one sweeping recommendation sans logic, reasoning and rationale that’s basic to intellectual activity.RAW is the state-run agency and part of Indian security establishment like the American CIA and Israel’s Mossad. USCIRF has had no reference to RAW in its entire report leave alone irrefutable evidence to recommend sanction against a professionally run agency.On the other hand, RSS is a movement with millions of selfless volunteers providing education, healthcare, rural development, women’s participation, inclusivity and personality development services through tens of thousands projects.As per latest report of RSS Sarkaryavah Dattatreya Hosabale presented to the organization’s general council last week at Samalkha in Haryana, a whopping 152,003 service projects are run to benefit millions of vulnerable individuals, families and communities.Hindu-centric RSS is open to objective scrutiny by communities, stakeholders, friends and foes. But, it cannot be used as whipping boy by USCIRF to pursue its pre-designed anti-Hindu, anti-Bharat narratives globally. Otherwise, how does one explain the commission equating Hindus, Hindutva and Hinduness to ‘religious bigotry’ without having reported convictions, prosecutions or accountability data?After having established in 1925, RSS evolved into the largest Hindu organization working amongst communities. Several RSS inspired Hindu organizations have been active in countries like the US to provide humanitarian services during adverse climatic conditions apart from community centric projects.This is not the first time that USCIRF committed the abomination that seeks to rupture respectful relations between Bharat and United States. USCIRF report of 2026 has outraged Bharat’s intellectuals that came down heavily on its recommendations.About 131 decorated army officers, 131 former bureaucrats that include ten ex-ambassadors and 25 retired judges have openly questioned findings of USCIRF report. They cited lack of intellectual rigour and present a report that’s ‘disturbing’ and imbalanced with regards to religious freedom in Bharat.While designating Bharat as a ‘country of particular concern’, USCIRF showed its true face by picking on every development and governance in Bharat especially under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies (CIHS) pointed to USCIRF having waded into resolution to Babri structure, decision on Article 370, citizenship amendment act, anti-conversion laws and Waqf amendments done through due process of courts and Bharat’s parliament.For instance, Babri structure was resolved through three decades of patient, painful and at times frustrating judicial process and never by force of Hindu majority. USCIRF to resorted to Bharat bashing without reason or rhythm and points to its hidden agenda. It was gross to primarily denigrate a sovereign nation with irrefutable record of judicial processes, stringent Parliamentary democracy and associated institutions of repute.Let the commission be wound up and not rupture the special and mutually respected ties between Bharat and US. (Author is a veteran journalist, Director & Chief Executive of New Delhi based non-partisan think tank, Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies).

Afghanistan Pakistan Terrorism War

Pakistan Bombed a Rehab Hospital. It Is a War Crime.

slamabad called it a military target. International humanitarian law calls it a protected facility. The evidence supports one of those positions. Rahul PAWA | x – imrahulpawa At approximately 9 p.m. on 16 March 2026, an airstrike hit the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital in Kabul, a 2,000-bed drug rehabilitation facility near the city’s international airport, destroying large sections of the building. Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry confirmed 408 dead and 265 injured. Rescue crews were still recovering bodies from the rubble the following morning. The patients were civilians in medical treatment for addiction. Pakistan’s Information Minister said the air force had carried out precise, deliberate, and professional strikes on military installations and terrorist support infrastructure, that secondary detonations clearly indicated the presence of large ammunition depots, and that no hospital, no drug rehabilitation centre, and no civilian facility had been targeted. The factual dispute between Islamabad and Kabul has not been independently resolved. The legal analysis does not require it to be, because under international humanitarian law the evidentiary burden does not rest on the victim. It rests on the state that fired. International humanitarian law does not prohibit civilian deaths in armed conflict as such. It prohibits specific categories of conduct, and attacking medical facilities sits near the top of that list. Article 12 of Additional Protocol I requires that medical units be respected and protected at all times. Article 18 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states explicitly that civilian hospitals may in no circumstances be the object of attack. The Rome Statute, in Article 8(2)(b)(ix), classifies intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to medical purposes as a war crime, provided those buildings do not constitute military objectives. Residents and a Reuters journalist present at the site confirmed it was the hospital that was struck, and that the Omid hospital and Camp Phoenix, the former NATO base Pakistan claims to have targeted, were not the same location. The facility held protected status under four separate instruments of international humanitarian law. Its location beside a former NATO base that had been repurposed by Afghan authorities after 2021 does not extinguish that protection. The central legal question is whether Pakistan can demonstrate that the facility’s protected status had been lawfully forfeited before the strike was ordered. Under IHL the threshold for forfeiture is narrow and procedurally demanding. A medical facility loses its protection only when it is actively used to commit acts harmful to the enemy, not when a state suspects proximity to militants, not when it occupies ground adjacent to a former military installation, but when the facility itself is engaged in hostile military conduct. Even then, a warning must be issued, a reasonable deadline set, and that warning must go unheeded before an attack becomes lawful. Pakistan issued no warning. Its claim that secondary detonations indicated ammunition storage was made after the strike, not before it. Post-hoc assertion is not pre-strike evidence, and the burden of proof rests entirely on the attacking party. Article 50 of Additional Protocol I is explicit: in case of doubt, civilian status is presumed. That presumption applied to the Omid centre. Pakistan made no demonstrated effort to rebut it before firing, which means the strike was unlawful from the moment the order was given. The proportionality and precaution analysis is an independent and equally serious exposure. Article 57 of Additional Protocol I requires commanders to do everything feasible to verify that targets are military objectives, to select means and methods that minimise civilian harm, and to refrain from attacks where civilian losses would be excessive relative to the anticipated military advantage. These are binding obligations, not operational guidelines. The strike occurred at 9 p.m. in a populated district of Kabul, against a 2,000-bed medical facility, with no warning issued to staff or patients. Pakistan has not defined the military advantage it anticipated, has not quantified it, and has not demonstrated that any proportionality assessment was conducted before weapons were released. The precautionary duties of Article 57 exist precisely to prevent this scenario. They were not discharged. Pakistan’s stated defences do not survive legal scrutiny. The first is that it struck a legitimate military objective, which requires verified pre-strike evidence of hostile use and established forfeiture of protected status. Neither has been demonstrated. The second is that Afghanistan provides sanctuary to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan fighters, giving Islamabad just cause. This is irrelevant to the targeting legality of a specific building on a specific night. The principle of distinction requires attacks directed at identified military objectives, not at territory as collective accountability for the conduct of armed groups operating there. The third, implicit in Pakistan’s public framing, is that Taliban cross-border attacks on Pakistani civilians provide reciprocal justification. That argument was explicitly and permanently rejected at the Nuremberg Tribunals in 1946. Reciprocity does not suspend the laws of war. An adversary’s violations do not authorise your own. On the mental element, the Rome Statute does not require proof that Pakistan intended to kill patients. It requires that the attack be intentionally directed at a protected site, and recklessness satisfies that threshold. A commander who orders munitions onto a compound at night, without verifying it is a lawful military objective, without issuing a warning, when a civilian medical population is foreseeably present, has met the intent standard through recklessness even absent specific malice. On the present public record, every element of the war crime of attacking a protected medical facility is satisfied. The site held protected status. No forfeiture was established. No warning was issued. The proportionality obligation was not discharged. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for an investigation and for those responsible to be held to account in line with international standards. That call will almost certainly go unmet. Pakistan is not a party to the Rome Statute, and a Security Council referral would face veto from states with their own unresolved targeting exposure. The legal classification and the probability of accountability are two entirely separate questions. The strike constitutes a war crime. Whether

Bharat Disinformation Hindus Human Rights Misinformation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)

Rebuttal of USCIRF India Entry and Issue Update on Alleged Religious Persecution

Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies (CIHS) has released a comprehensive rebuttal of the USCIRF Annual Report 2026 and its accompanying Issue Update on India. The rebuttal finds that USCIRF’s recommendation to designate India a Country of Particular Concern rests on methodological failures, unsourced assertions, and recommendations disconnected from the document’s own findings. Most strikingly, the report proposes sanctioning Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the world’s largest voluntary organisation and India’s Research and Analysis Wing without a single evidentiary basis anywhere in its text. CIHS concludes that documents of this kind, issued under the authority of a U.S. government commission, do not serve the cause of religious freedom. They damage the mutual respect on which one of the world’s most consequential democratic partnerships depends.

Bharat Hindus

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India’s Moral Diplomacy: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam in an Age of Conflict

R K Raina India’s engagement with the world has never been guided solely by strategic calculations or economic interests. For millennia, the country’s outlook toward humanity has been shaped by a deeper civilisational ethic Sharanagata Rakshanam, the sacred duty to protect those who seek refuge. Rooted in the philosophy of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the world is one family, this principle has repeatedly guided India’s actions across history. India’s recent humanitarian gesture toward the Iranian naval vessel reflects the principle that offering protection in times of distress transcends political differences. It demonstrates that India’s approach to international engagement remains rooted in compassion, restraint, and moral responsibility. Leadership Anchored in Civilisational Values In recent years, India’s leadership has increasingly emphasised the Bharatiya ancient civilisational ethos as a guiding principle of its global engagement. Concepts such as Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, prominently articulated during India’s global diplomatic initiatives, reflect the continuity of this worldview. By reaffirming these values in practice, the present government has highlighted that India’s foreign policy cannot be separated from its cultural and civilisational foundations. Actions rooted in humanitarian responsibility reinforce India’s credibility as a nation that combines strategic strength with moral conviction. Rather than acting as a power seeking dominance, India has often positioned itself as a bridge-builder, encouraging dialogue and stability while maintaining a high moral ground. At a time when conflicts and geopolitical rivalries are destabilising many regions, India’s civilisational values provide a moral compass that continues to shape its foreign policy and humanitarian responses. The recent decision to provide shelter to an Iranian naval vessel in Indian coastal waters during heightened regional tensions reflects not merely a diplomatic gesture but a continuation of a long-standing moral tradition. A Tradition Older Than the State India’s civilisational memory is filled with examples that emphasise the protection of those who seek refuge. Historical texts and folklore highlight that safeguarding a person who comes under one’s protection is a sacred duty. One of the most powerful illustrations of this ethos is the legend of King Shibi, who chose to sacrifice his own flesh to save a dove that had sought refuge from a pursuing hawk. The story symbolizes a moral ideal deeply embedded in Indian consciousness, the obligation of the protector toward the protected. This civilisational ethos later translated into real historical practice. Over centuries, India became a sanctuary for communities fleeing persecution and displacement. The Syrian Christians, escaping religious persecution in the Middle East, arrived on the Malabar Coast between the first and fourth centuries and were welcomed by local rulers. They were granted land, social recognition, and the freedom to practice their faith while becoming part of the broader cultural fabric of India. Similarly, Jewish communities such as the Cochin Jews and the Bene Israel lived in India for centuries without facing the systemic persecution that marked their experience in many other parts of the world. Historical documents, including the copper plate grants of the Chera rulers, gave them autonomy and the freedom to maintain their religious institutions. The arrival of the Parsis in the eighth century offers another powerful example. Fleeing the Islamic conquest of Persia, they sought refuge on the western coast of India. According to the well-known narrative of Qissa-i-Sanjan, the local ruler initially indicated that his kingdom was already full. The Parsi priest responded by adding sugar to a bowl of milk, symbolising that his community would blend peacefully into society while enriching it. The Parsis were welcomed and allowed to preserve their faith while adopting aspects of the local culture, eventually becoming one of India’s most dynamic and respected communities. These examples reflect a distinctive Indian approach coexistence with identity, rather than forced assimilation. Modern India and the Continuity of Civilisational Values Independent India carried forward this civilisational legacy into its modern statecraft. India has repeatedly demonstrated humanitarian leadership during major crises. During World War II, Maharaja Digvijaysinhji Jadeja of Nawanagar opened his kingdom to more than a thousand Polish children who had escaped the devastation of Europe. He treated them not as refugees but as members of his own family, famously telling them that they were no longer orphans. In 1959, when the 14th Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans fled Tibet following the Chinese crackdown, India granted them asylum and enabled the Tibetan community to rebuild its cultural and religious life in exile. Today, the Tibetan presence in India stands as one of the most remarkable examples of cultural preservation in exile. Similarly, during the 1971 Bangladesh crisis, India opened its borders to nearly ten million refugees fleeing violence in East Pakistan. Despite severe economic constraints at the time, India provided shelter, food, and humanitarian assistance on a massive scale. These actions were not merely political decisions but expressions of India’s enduring civilisational ethos of Karuna compassion. India’s Civilisational Responsibility in Today’s Conflicts In today’s volatile geopolitical environment, particularly amid tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, India’s role assumes special significance. The region stretching from the Middle East to South Asia has deep historical and cultural connections with India. Instability in this region affects not only geopolitical alignments but also shared civilisational linkages built over centuries. A Bridge Between Civilisations India’s engagement with the Middle East and neighbouring regions has historically been rooted in cultural exchange, trade, and spiritual interaction rather than confrontation. In moments of crisis, this civilisational perspective allows India to occupy a unique moral space one that emphasizes dialogue, stability, and the protection of human life. The expectation from India today is therefore not only strategic but also moral. The region looks toward India as a country capable of combining strategic prudence with civilisational wisdom. A Message to the World In a world often driven by narrow geopolitical interests, India’s civilisational philosophy offers a different vision one where compassion, protection, and moral responsibility remain central to international conduct. The ancient dictum “Udaar Charitanam Tu Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” reminds us that for the noble-minded, the entire world is one family. India’s long history of sheltering the persecuted and supporting the

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