His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s message on Aung San Suu Kyi release
(Dalailama.com)
November 14th 2010
I welcome the release of fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and extend my appreciation to the military regime in Burma. I extend my full support and solidarity to the movement for democracy in Burma and take this opportunity to appeal to freedom-loving people all over the world to support such non-violent movements.
I pray and hope that the government of the People’s Republic of China will release fellow Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo and other prisoners of conscience who have been imprisoned for exercising their freedom of expression.
The Dalai Lama

His Holiness the Dalai Lama joins call to make world free of nuclear weapons
Tibet.Net
13 November 2010
Hiroshima, Japan: His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Friday attended the first day of the 11th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in the city of Hiroshima. Permanent Secretariat of the Nobel Peace Laureates supported by the Hiroshima city council organised the three-day summit. President of the Secretariat, Mikhail Gorbachev could not attend the summit because of health reason. Around four hundred delegates and participants from different countries attended the summit.
Among the Nobel Laureates were, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Frederik Willem De Klerk, Mohammed ElBaradei, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams. Representatives from United Nations have also come for the summit.
Mayor and the Governor of Hiroshima opened the summit by welcoming the Nobel Laureates and the delegates. A Hiroshima bomb survivor and witness to the tragedy addressed the gathering about his fearful experience on the day.
The Nobel Laureates and the experts discussed and deliberated on three issues divided into three sessions – Hiroshima legacy, A world without nuclear weapons and Threats of nuclear weapons.
Speaking on Hiroshima legacy, His Holiness the Dalai Lama said that Hiroshima and Nagasaki atom bomb experience is reminder to all of us about the destructive nature of war and nuclear weapons. He hoped that the two cities be the first and last places to experience nuclear bomb, and that the world will never see another Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We all must seek and work for a world without nuclear weapons, we also need to work for demilitarisation of each nation in order to create a world free of war and weapons. For this we must first achieve inner peace and realise that we are all interdependent. Concept of war is outdated, defeat of your enemy is no longer your victory. Destruction of your neighbor is destruction of yourself, said His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Former President of South Africa, De Klerk and other laureates also spoke and discussed on the issues at length. They invited questions from university students from Japan and abroad. They said that Hiroshima has become an important beacon for international community, it is a beacon sending message to the world about the horror of nuclear weapons. Nobel Laureates agreed that the problem lies not with the ‘atom’ but with the human soul, that this nuclear threat will forever endanger human civilisation if its proliferation is not checked.
According to some delegates, root cause of the presence of nuclear weapon needs to be studied. Since the fall the Berlin Wall and collapse of Soviet regimes, many countries gave up nuclear options, because threat perception was considerably reduced. Nuclear weapon is very dangerous if it falls into the hand of a totalitarian regime who does not live by international law, and where the government is not accountable to the people. There are countries where there is law, but no justice. So the freedom, human rights and democracy are the pillar of free and responsible society.
His Holiness talked about the importance of co-operation and friendship in building a more harmonious and free society to promote better international understanding. We all need to work in full co-operation, but it should be based on friendship, and friendship comes from trust. But trust cannot come from fear. A society or a nation which rules by fear and intimidation is very dangerous, His Holiness said.
It was discussed that elimination of nuclear weapons must start from the nations possessing nuclear weapons. Non nuclear states need to urge the nuclear states to make the world a safer place by gradually doing away with this dangerous weapon, and the civil societies need to put pressure on the respective governments to raise this issue of elimination of nuclear weapons from this world.
At the start of the afternoon session, Mr. Weur Kaixi, a former Tiananmen square demonstration leader addressed the delegation on behalf of Mr Liu Xiaobo, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner. He appealed the international community to urge the Chinese communist government to release Mr Liu and give Chinese people their rightful freedom as granted under the constitution.
Tomorrow will be the second day of the summit, wherein the Nobel Laureates and the delegates will continue to discuss on the issues relating to proliferation of nuclear weapons and the role of international community to stop it.
Report filed by Tsewang Gyalpo Arya, Office of Tibet, Japan

Tibetan Community in Japan apeail to the world
leader, who came to APEC conference.
On 13th of November 2010
Tibetan Community Japan and supporter carried Peace March at APEC Forum.13 Nov.2010.
The APEC leaders gathered at Yokohama, Japan for APEC Forum. A peace march protest and demonstration against the China continual brutal suppression of the Tibetan culture and people is organized by Tibetan Community Japan with the support of Student for Free Tibet Japan.
The significant day was begun with speeches delivered by Zenkoji Temple Ven.Wakaomi and followed by Vice President of Tibetan community Dolma Tsering. In her speech, she explained the purpose of the demonstration as “ We are not here to protest against the countries participating in APEC forum, instead we support for the agenda to be a successful outcome. However, it is our appeal to the various leaders to raise the issue of human right and Tibet issue with China to have a concrete result. Finally, everyone vigorously sang Tibetan national anthem led by Tibetan people.” Makino Seishu, Japan ruling Diet member and ardent supporter of Tibet sent message “I firmly believe the core political agenda in 21st century rest with the dilemma of human right and poverty alleviation. With addressing and solving these issues, there will be a peace in this world. And I commit the addressing of Tibet problem persist only with the spirit of non violence and dialogue with the people of the world. Being one of the politicians of Japan, I would share my solidarity to the people participating here today.” The famous Japanese Alpinist Ken Noguchi also sent message “According to China, Tibet is an internal problem and always warns to the other countries not to intervene in China’s internal affair. Until now, many Tibetan are jailed, tortured and killed. Is this act of brutality a human right rather than China’s Internal affair. So I think the human right issue has no boundary.” There were around 140 people joined the protest which was started near APEC`s venue Goshoyama Park, passing through Isezakicho mall and ended up at Yokohama Park. The SFT Japan especially emphasized and appealed on recent Chinese language medium policy to eradicate the Tibetan language in Tibet. The protest had been covered by various Japan media as NHK.
The main objectives of the protest are as China continues brutal suppression of Tibetan people and culture in Tibet and the recent implication of mandatory Chinese language medium policy in Tibetan to eradicate the various foundation of Tibetan language. The whole Yokohama city is deployed with strong 21,000 Japan Police to avoid any unprecedented events. So far there is no report of any hindrance to the Forum.

Election Commission of the Central Tibetan Admin
declared results of the first round

Punjab Newsline

By Arvind Sharma

12 November 2010

DHARAMSALA: The Election Commission of the Central Tibetan Administration today declared the results of the first round of general election of the 15th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile and the 3rd election ofPrime Minister of Tibetan government in exile (Kalon Tripa).

Lobsang Senge of USA leading in the 1st round of PM election with a total of 22489 votes, he is well followed by Tethong Tenzin Namgyal also residing in USA with 12319 votes. The deputy chairperson of the present Tibetan parliament ms Gyari dolma has been sliped to 3rd place with just 2733 votes
.
Dolma is the only women candidate left for the final round of voting scheduled on 20 March 2011. the other three candidates for the Tibetan PM seat are Tashi Wangadi (Europe) 2101 votes, Lobsang Jinpa (USA) 1545 votes and Khorlatsang Sonam Topgyal (Massoori) 605 votes in 1st round

Chief Election Commissioner Jampel Choesang and two other additional election commissioners of Tibetan government said in Dharamsala Today that as per Article 49 enshrined in the Election Regulation, the Election Commission has short listed a list of 50 candidates each from the three traditional provinces of Tibet and 10 candidates each from the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon religion, North America and Europe as the final candidates of MP92s elections for the 15th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile.

In accordance with Article 67 in the Election Regulation, a total of 6 candidates are short listed for the final round of Prime Minister (Kalon Tripa) election.

The final round of election is scheduled on 20 March 2011. Commissioner Jampel Choesang said that In view of the many eligible voters who have failed to register, the election commission has announced fresh date of registration from 30 November 2010 to 17 January 2011. The list of voter registration should reach the Office of Election Commission in Dharamsala on 24 January 2011,he said

Speaking of the election process in Nepal, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Jampel Choesang said more than 1,000 votes were wasted on account of 18 ballot boxes seized by the Nepalese police at polling booths in two areas in Kathmandu.

The CEC said the Bhutanese government had ordered the Tibetan authorities not to send the voting lists and ballot papers to the election commission in Dharamsala. All 613 votes cast in Bhutan were wasted, he said.

China Genocides Tibet’s Language: Violating UN Law
Y.C. Dhardhowa
The Tibet Post International
October 28, 2010
Dharamshala — In world history, language is maintained as a matter of national identity, language defines a culture. The current genocide of the Tibetan language by the Chinese government aims to make Chinese children out of Tibetan children.
Buddhism and culture depend on the rich and developed language that we call Tibetan. Standard Tibetan is based on the speech of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, also Ü-Tsang dialect belonging to the Central Tibetan languages. For this reason, Standard Tibetan is often called Central Tibetan. It is in turn one of several branches of the Tibetan languages, the others being Kham (Tibetan: Kham kad) and Amdo (Tibetan: Amdo kad). Written Standard Tibetan is based on Classical Tibetan and is highly conservative.
It is clear that the Chinese authorities do not accept Tibetan as a mother tongue, and the authorities think that academic reform is the only a solution to solve this issue in Tibet, thus adhering to USSR dictators theory of “to destroy a nation, we must first destroy the language of the nation.”
Most of the world’s languages are spoken by relatively few people; the median number of speakers of a language is 5,000-6,000. There are fewer than 300 languages with more than 1 million native users; half of all languages have fewer than 10,000 users, and a quarter of the world’s spoken languages and most of the sign languages have fewer than 1,000 users. More than 80% of the world’s languages exist only in one country. So, Tibetan language is one of the latest facing linguistical genocide.
The racism by the Chinese communist regime is continuous and abuses the rights of native Tibetan speakers and the other nationalities, such as those in east Turkestan and Inner Mongolia .The Chinese Government is guilty of “Language Genocide”, against the Tibetans for breaching articles of the United Nations Genocide Convention. The Convention defines genocide as any of a number of acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Therefore, the Tibetan people can bring the Chinese Government to justice by complaining in International Court
over the injustice done by China for not complying with the UN Articles and the “Genocide of the Tibetan Language”.
The Chinese Government should treat all citizens equally within the law and without any discrimination. Every citizen in Han Chinese has a right to be protected under the law equally, and equal protection should be applied to all against any discrimination. I would like to say that the international communities should not allow the Chinese Government to abuse and genocide the Tibetan by branding them for “inciting activities to split the nation.”
To conclude, I want to say that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. So everyone should be entitled to all the rights and freedoms and enjoy them without division and distinction of any type, in regard to race, color or national origin as in written article of the Chinese constitution. Genocide of the Tibetan Language is abuse and a humiliation against the Tibetans and humanity in general. The Chinese communist authorities in eastern Tibet do not accept and respect the Tibetan language as a mother tongue; this means that the authorities act like USSR dictators, who prohibited the languages to be used in the occupied states. I strongly believe this is a big mistake and ignorance and negligent to put other factors aside such as freedom of speech, and the other fundamental rights like education.

Nepal arrests 7 Tibetans, Nepalese prez reiterates one China policy
Phayul
October 28, 2010
Dharamsala, October 28 — Nepalese authorities arrested 7 Tibetans on October 25 from Thankote area in western Nepal, reported the Voice of Tibet radio. The local immigration authorities handed the 7 Tibetans to the National Immigration authorities in Kathmandu on the same day.
The 7 were detained in Kathmandu immigration office where they were interrogated for hours. The authorities found out that 3 of them had Chinese travel permit with them and 4 had Indian Registration Certificate (residential permit issued to Tibetans by the Indian government).
The 4 with Indian permits were fined a penalty of 15000 Nepalese rupees each for illegal entry into Nepal and ordered to leave Nepalese territory within seven days. The other 3 were summoned the following day to the immigration office and their Chinese travel permits were seized. The names and other details of the 3 are not known but the report described them as a 70 year – old – woman from Utsang, a 64 – year – old man from Amdo and a 57 year old man from Kham.
Nepalese armed police disrupted the Tibetan preliminary elections and confiscated ballot boxes containing votes, minutes before the closing of poll.
The forced disruption of Tibetan polls came in the wake of a visit by 21-member high-level Chinese delegation led by He Yong, Secretary of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, to Nepal last month.
During the visit, the Chinese delegation reportedly expressed satisfaction over “Nepal’s ‘one China’ policy and the alertness adopted by the country over the Tibet issue”.
Prior to the Chinese delegation’s visit, the governments of the two countries had even agreed to set up a joint mechanism to help share intelligence on “anti-China activities” in Nepal.
Nepal, which is home to some 20,000 Tibetans, has accommodated Tibetan exiles for decades, but has come under increasing pressure from China to crack down on the political protests.
Under Beijing’s influence and lack of stable government in the impoverished nation, rights groups say Tibetans refugees in Nepal are increasingly vulnerable and at risk of arrest and repatriation.
Meanwhile, the Nepali President Dr Ram Baran Yadav has reiterated his country’s “One China Policy” during a visit to the Tibetan capital Lhasa where he met Pema Thinley, the governor of the “Tibet Autonomous Region.” Yadav assured Thinley that his country will not allow any anti-China activities on its soil.
The Nepali President is accompanied on his first visit to China and Tibet by 17 member delegation including Nepal’s tourism minister. Yadav will be in Shanghai to participate in the closing ceremony of the Shanghai Expo. He will also meet his counterpart Hu Jintao.

The Question of Linguistic Autonomy for Tibetans
By Tenzin Dickyi
Huffington Post
October 27, 2010
Some summers ago when I was in Lhasa, I noticed that the sun rose surprisingly late and daylight diffused quite a long while into the evening. This was because Beijing dictates that every one of its subjects from the outer reaches of East Turkestan and Inner Mongolia to the whole of the Tibetan plateau run on Beijing time. Even though Lhasa is as far away from Beijing as San Francisco is from Washington DC, the Tibetans in Lhasa must rise and sleep in harmonious lockstep with the Party chiefs at Zhongnanhai.
Not content with temporal conformity, Chinese leaders in Qinghai Province have now targeted linguistic autonomy. The Qinghai Provincial Government has issued orders that, by 2015, all lessons and textbooks in Tibetan schools should be in Chinese language instead of Tibetan. This will mean that Tibetan children growing up in the region (the historical Amdo region of Tibet famed for producing scholars and intellectuals) will be taught in Chinese instead of Tibetan. Tibetan students will have to learn history, science, social studies etc. in a second language instead of their native language. In fact, in most other parts of the Tibetan plateau, Chinese language instruction has already replaced Tibetan. This latest attempt to promote Chinese language at the expense of Tibetan has sparked the largest and most significant Tibetan protests since the seismic protests of 2008.
On Tuesday, October 19, over a thousand students from six different schools in Rebkong (called Tongren in Chinese) marched in non-violent demonstration against the planned language change carrying a banner that read: “Equality of Peoples, Freedom of Language.” Over the following days, the protests spread to Chabcha and other areas of Qinghai, as well as to Minzu Daxue, the Minorities University in Beijing where four hundred students participated. Their banner read, “Preserve Nationality Language and Expand National Education.”
These wide-ranging student protests come at the heels of a highly significant letter signed by at least 133 teachers from different schools and submitted to the Qinghai Provincial Government on October 15th. The letter was obtained and published by the popular Tibetan blog Khabdha. In the letter, submitted in both Tibetan and Chinese, the teachers wrote,
“The plan of leaving one’s language aside and prioritizing another’s language, teaching all classes except Tibetan language class in the Chinese language, is a dangerous one that violates the current Constitution of the People’s Republic of China; violates the Law of the PRC on Regional National Autonomy; violates the principle of pedagogy; and violates science-based development.”
The letter goes on to say, “If both the spoken and written language of a people die, then it is as if the entire population of that people has died and the people have been decimated.” The teachers referred to the 4th Article in the PRC Constitution: “All ethnic groups have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages and to preserve or reform their own folkways and customs.” They were careful to note that their appeal is in lawful alignment with the Chinese Constitution as well as the PRC’s Law on Regional National Autonomy.
Policy makers from the Qinghai Provincial Government, as well as Beijing, should take a note from Newton and notice: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. They should also carefully note the deep-seated concern about language and culture apparent in these courageous appeals by the teachers and students. And then they should consider, at length, the fact dictated by common sense, and upheld by education experts: Children learn better in their mother tongue.
The medium of academic scholarship is language, as the medium of music is sound. Forcing students who grow up speaking Tibetan to study the concepts of science, social science and mathematics in a second language is to disadvantage them from the start: a handicap that will place certain stumbling blocks in their educational development.
Unlike the 2008 protests, which were attributed to social and economic causes as well as political ones, these protests and appeals are clearly in reaction to the education policies of the local Qinghai Government. If Chinese leaders want to give any impression to the Tibetans, and to their own growing number of politically-conscious middle class citizenry, that they care about the wishes of the Tibetan people, they should for once listen to the voice of the Tibetan people, and yes the voice of conscience, and at least allow the Tibetans this small zone of linguistic autonomy.

Hundreds sign petition for Tibet language: activists
Agence France-Presse (AFP)
October 26, 2010
BEIJING — Hundreds of teachers and students in northwest China have signed a petition in support of the Tibetan language, a rights group said, after an official education reform plan triggered protests.
Thousands of students demonstrated last week in Qinghai province over plans to institute Chinese as the main language of instruction, limiting use of Tibetan to language classes. Protests spread to a Beijing university on Friday.
According to sources in the area contacted by the US-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), more than 20 students from a Tibetan school in Qinghai’s Gonghe county have been detained following the protests.
The petition, submitted to authorities, was signed by more than 300 teachers and students and calls for Tibetan to remain the main language for teaching.
It says that if Chinese-language instruction is adopted for Qinghai’s Tibetan students, “the outcome would be that the students would not understand what the teacher is saying, not to mention be able to actually learn anything.”
The petition — a copy of which was emailed to AFP by ICT — says that many Tibetans in the province come from farming and nomadic areas and have never been in a Chinese-language environment.
While it acknowledges the need for Tibetans to learn Chinese, it compares the reform plans to instituting English as the language of instruction for ordinary Han Chinese school students.
An official with the Qinghai education department told AFP on Wednesday that he was not aware of the petition.
Many Tibetans accuse China of trying to water down their culture in a bid to increase its control over Tibetan regions, where resentment against Chinese rule runs deep, and the education reforms strike at the core of these concerns.
A top official defended the plans on Friday, saying they aimed to boost both Chinese and the native languages of minorities.
“The plan is aimed at strengthening whatever is weaker and the purpose is not to use one language to weaken another,” Wang Yubo, head of the Qinghai education department, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.
Rights groups say last week’s peaceful protests were the most significant in the area since March 2008, when violent anti-Chinese demonstrations that started in Tibet’s capital Lhasa spread to neighbouring Tibetan regions.

Dalai Lama Given Map Showing an Independent Tibet
before USA Visit

Reigniting the debate on the historical relationship between Tibet and China, the Dalai Lama recently accepted a gift of an antique map from 1869 that clearly defines Tibet and China as separate
Country BigNews.Biz October 18, 2010

An antique map challenging the relationship between Tibet and China was recently given to the Dalai Lama. It clearly defines the two regions as separate countries, a historical counterpoint to China’s claim over the highest region on earth. The gift — drawn almost a hundred years before China’s invasion of Tibet – was presented at a ceremony at the Dalai Lama’s residence in Dharamsala, India.

The Dalai Lama received the map as a joint gift from Emory University and Miklian Antiquarian Maps. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan population, many of whom have lived in exile in India since the 1950s.

The map itself is an original chart of Asia, Tibet and China drawn by Augustus Mitchell in the year 1869. Mitchell was one of the most famous and respected mapmakers of the 19th century, and his maps were prized for their accuracy as well as their striking attention to geographic and artistic detail.

The Mitchell map also bestows additional documentation and credence to the Free Tibet movement, which asserts that the 1950 invasion of Tibet by China was illegal and a breach of state sovereignty. Official statements from China often state that Tibet is, and has always been, a part of China. This map casts doubt on that claim.

While all major governments now consider Tibet to be the domain of China, during many periods of history the relationship between the two regions was not as it is today. Both Tibet and China have cultures stretching back thousands of years, and interactions between the two have undergone tremendous flux as the powers have risen and fallen in supremacy and influence.

Miklian Antiquarian Maps owner Jason Miklian considers the map itself as a significant piece of world history, one that is often more complex and impermanent than we assume. “Almost every land in the world has been ruled by an outside force at least one point in history,” Miklian explained. “This map of an independent Tibet illustrates the always fluctuating geopolitics of nation-states since the 1600s, and a glimpse into how people understood the world almost 150 years ago. This is just one of hundreds of fascinating antique maps that provide proof that today’s borders, boundaries and countries were not always so.”

The Dalai Lama has also been awarded the position of Presidential Distinguished Professor at Emory, and will be arriving to the United States for a series of lectures from 17-19 October 2010, to be attended by actor Richard Gere, author Matthieu Ricard, and other distinguished luminaries.

More information on the Emory — Tibet partnership can be found at
http://www.tibet.emory.edu/, and Miklian
Antiquarian Maps is located at http://www.MiklianMaps.com.

Chinese dragon versus Indian tiger
Rajeev Sharma
The Morung Express
October 12, 2010
China’s resurgence in recent years has jolted the leading powers of the world out of their stupor – and India’s case is no different. Today, forward-looking Indian mandarins are no longer obsessed with Pakistan. New Delhi has started developing strategic plans for dealing with China in 2020 or 2030. Many Indian think tanks are already working on this mission objective and those which are not are gearing up to it.
India is pursuing a China policy that America has practiced for long — emphasising cooperation with China while minimizing competition. It may be the politically correct strategy but it does precious little to counter China’s rapidly increasing military might. Of late, China has become more and more assertive in its diplomatic and military conduct in line with increasingly ambitious global objectives. India, Japan, the US and Russia are indeed mindful of the probable repercussions an increasingly powerful China would have on the international balance of power, particularly when Japan and the US seem unable to maintain their lead.
The Chinese infrastructure drive is an integral part of its “string of pearls” strategy vis-a-vis India. Three ports that China is building in India’s immediate neighbourhood — Gwadar in Pakistan, Sittwe in Myanmar and Hambantota in Sri Lanka – are important pearls in the Chinese string. China has a vibrant presence across South Asia. Besides akistan, with which China has a true strategic partnership, Beijing has emerged as a major player in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Maldives. It has firmly entrenched itself in Myanmar (Burma), Mauritius and the Seychelles.
What transpired last month was an eye opener for China-watchers in the Indian government. On 5 August 2010, The People’s Daily reported that two days previously “important combat readiness materials” (read missiles) of the Chinese Air Force were transported safely to Tibet via the Qinghai-Tibet Railway — the first time since such materials were transported to Tibet by railway. It is a clear demonstration by China of not just its technological competence but also its capability to mobilise in Tibet in the event of a Sino-Indian conflict. China already has four fully operational airports in Tibet (the last one started operations in July 2010) while the fifth is scheduled to be inaugurated in October 2010.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Navy’s recent seafaring activities and manoeuvres have revealed Beijing’s intention to increase its control of the maritime sea lanes of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The latter is an obvious cause of concern for India. China’s new-found aggressive posturing and maritime territorial claims in South China Sea — which Beijing has begun to describe as an area of its “core interest,” a term that the Chinese have been using for Tibet, Taiwan and Xinjiang — is of no less concern.
China is building up its naval might in a big way. It is not just India that is confused and concerned about the real intent of Beijing. Japan, the US, South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan are equally apprehensive. China’s People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) was recently given a green light by the country’s highest military planning body, the Central Military Commission (CMC), to build two new nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. One aircraft carrier — Varyag of the Kuznetsov class — is already under construction. All three aircraft carriers will be available to China by 2017 and will patrol the South China Sea, Western Pacific and Indian Ocean. This will give the the Chinese Navy a blue-water capability to rival the US Navy.
India is far behind China’s gargantuan defence capabilities. At the same time, New Delhi is not twiddling its thumbs and sitting idly. India has been conscious of rapidly growing Chinese military capabilities for well over a decade. In fact, the then Indian Defence Minister George
Fernandes, while speaking in the aftermath of the May 1998 Indian nuclear tests, had gone on record as saying that China was the number one threat for India.
In 1999, the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee approved a 30-year submarine construction plan under which 30 submarines were to be constructed. Construction work on at least four nuclear submarines is in full swing, while the indigenously made Arihant nuclear powered submarine has alreay been launched. India plans to have at least 30 submarines by 2030, but this target may prove to be too stiff. India’s submarine fleet is currently facing depletion and their number is expected to go down to 16 by 2012 with the decommissioning of two Foxtrot submarines in the near future.
In March 2009, the Manmohan Singh government cleared Project 15B under which next generation warships are under various stages of construction. Besides, at least three Kolkata class destroyers are under construction under Project 15A. Two aircraft carriers – INS Vikramaditya (Admiral Gorshkov of Russia) and INS Vikrant — are under construction. To strike a harmonious balance, the Indian Navy is in the process of beefing up its fleet of stealth frigates and has initiated several new projects in this regard. Shivalik will be India’s first stealth frigate of its class. The Sahyadri and Satpura class of frigates are under advanced stage of construction. All this is as per the government’s plans to maintain a force level of more than 140 warships.
China knows very well that it is not dealing with e India of 1962, when the two countries fought a one-sided war. Then India had deliberately not used its air force against the Chinese to minimize loss of territory and restrict Chinese
military gains to the far-flung border areas. Though China retains a decisive lead, New Delhi is determined to stay on Beijing’s heals.