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[OPIRG-EVENTS] The War on Terror and India's Quest for Security: A presentation in Ottawa
South Asia Partnership Canada
Cordially invites you to a mid-day presentation
On
The War on Terror and India's Quest for Security
by
Professor M. D. Nalapat
UNESCO Peace Chair
Manipal Academy of Higher Education
Manipal, India
Date: Wednesday May 14, 2003
Time: 12.00 to 2.00 PM
Place: Room 202, 1 Nicholas Street, Ottawa
"After Punjab in the 1980s, India faced militancy in Kashmir the next
decade. More than two decades of experience has given rise to a uniquely
Indian way of dealing with terrorism, one different from that followed by
the other two democracies with which it is often clubbed, Israel and the US.
For New Delhi, the war on Terror is just one part in an overall effort to
create a secure environment for its one billion citizens, a process that
takes in not just the United States and Russia but China into its range.
What is the Indian experience? And what lessons can other democracies learn
from it, in a context defined by 9/11 and the US response to that atrocity?
In a context that has seen the rise of China as the new Giant of Communism?"
M. D. Nalapat is Professor of Geopolitics and UNESCO Peace Chair at the
Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India's elite private university. He
was Coordinating Editor of the Times of India, largest-circulating
English-language newspaper in India, Editor of the second-largest Malayalam
daily Mathrubhumi.
During his tenure in the Mathrubhumi, he had taken up issues such as
religious intolerance, focusing for example on the denial of certain
privileges to "lower" castes in the famous Guruvayur temple in Kerala; the
discarding of unwanted wives through easy divorce practices in the Muslim
community; and the denial of inheritance rights to Christian women in the
state. He also exposed several cases of governmental corruption.
During his tenure with The Times of India, M. D. Nalapat emphasized the
problems arising from India's insurgencies and the creation of nuclear and
missile deterrents. Professor Nalapat was the first to enunciate the
theory, later popularized by Russian Prime Minister at the time, Yevgeny
Primakov, that an alliance of India, Russia (then USSR) and China would have
the capability of posing an effective challenge to the Western Alliance. In
1994 he called for the use of the "business card" in Pakistan, offering
commercial incentives generously while denying concessions sought by the
Pakistan Army.
He has researched extensively on insurgencies in India. His book, "Indutva,"
claims that all Indians are a composite of Vedic (Hindu), Mughal (Muslim),
Western (Christian) civilizations. Therefore the Hindu Right's concept of
Hindutva (which demands that all Indians adapt to and adopt practices of the
Hindu faith) was unworkable.
As UNESCO Peace Chair, he organized major conferences, including on
USA-India relations; Persian Gulf Region-India relations; and China-India
relations. In February this year he organized the first-ever Trilateral
Security Conference between India, Israel and the USA in partnership with
the Jewish Institute of International Security Affairs, Washington.
He is Senior Associate of the National Institute of Advanced Study,
Bangalore and Member of the Institute for Social and Economic Change and the
United
Services Institution of the Indian Ministry of Defense. Apart from being a
contributor to several newspapers he is Consulting Editor of the Indian
Defense Review.
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Space is limited. Please RSVP:
Faruq Faisel
Canadian Program Manager
South Asia Partnership Canada
1 Nicholas Street, Suite 200
Ottawa Ontario K1N 7B7
Canada
E-mail: ffaisel@sapcanada.org
Phone: (613) 241 1333, Extension 226
Fax: (613) 241 1129
URL: www.sapcanada.org
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