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Conventional weapons seem to have reached the end of the road. Does that mean the work started by the likes of Alfred Noble[i] and Tipu Sultan[ii]has finally reached its pinnacle as far as further development in technology and concept is concerned? The answer is in the affirmative!

With 2014 marked as the Chinese New Year of the Horse, India and China have galloped together into taking new strides in their bilateral relations.

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China is about to operationalise a 1 GigaWatt (GW) nuclear power reactor at Karachi in Pakistan, highly-placed sources within the scientific community warn. Two more are in the pipeline in Karachi and three more in other parts of the country. This represents a quantum leap from the much smaller reactors hitherto supplied by Beijing to Islamabad, and is also the first time that such advanced technology has been demonstrated globally.

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A passage or a corridor is that geographical entity which represents a connection between two or more places. In international relations, a corridor becomes significant not merely because of the places it links but also because of the relative location where it is situated. Hence corridors demand and deserve a lot more attention than just those places that it attempts to unite. However, very often instead of focussing on the significance of the corridor, value is given to those two or more regions which are linked with the help of the former.

The geopolitics of many Asian countries revolves around the Himalayas. With state policies having clear and definite impact on both traditional and non-traditional security threats, it becomes imperative to understand the politics of the Himalayan region. Himalayan Watch as a part of the website ‘Science, Technology and Security Forum’ intends to serve as a platform for experts from India and around the world to express their views on issues of politics and security in the Himalayan region.

No First Use (NFU) and punitive retaliation have been core components of India’s deterrence based Nuclear Doctrine. As much as this is an a priori concept, the fact that New Delhi has never been embroiled in an all out nuclear war with either Pakistan or China, is testimony enough of its credibility. After all, it is argued that the only utility of nuclear weapons is to prevent a nuclear war in the first place.

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Space has fascinated human’s imagination for long. Since the launch of the first artificial satellite Sputnik,in 1957 by the erstwhile USSR, significant progress towards developing technologies for conducting multiple activities in space has taken place. Presently, human beings are trying to reach new heights up into the outer space and are found attempting to reveal the mysteries of the universe.Various countries in the world are investing in space programmes to explore multiple scientific, technological, industrial and security benefits.

'Tsu-NaMo' has become the new word to describe Narendra Modi's spectacular victory in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections in which he, as the Prime Ministerial candidate, guided his party, the centre – right Bharatiya Janata Party, to a clear majority.  After winning 282 seats in the 543-seat lower house of the Parliament, Modi-led BJP will certainly have more elbowroom in driving India’s foreign policy.

Dissent in China is not something new. A long tradition of political dissent is an integral part of Chinese history and owes much to Confucianism and Daoism. Despite the fact that Confucianism and the state has been historically fraught with conflict and tensions, the same Confucian doctrines that provided moral justifications for state control and power were also used against cruel and tyrannical rulers who could not deliver honest, compassionate and conscientious rule.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the sole recognized 'international' body that studies the scientific, technical and socio-economic effects of climate change, has come out with yet another report in 2014, which has gone one step ahead this time to include a chapter on 'human security'. The Working Group II that collates scientific information regarding Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, has provided details with regard to the ways in which climate change would affect cultures, values and societies.