The book is a must-read for all policymakers, diplomats, academics and civil and military personnel who have an interest in Siachen.

In a world slowing down due to a recession, even if our share of trade goes up from 3 to 4 per cent, that would be a huge boost for the Indian economy. And that is eminently feasible only if we are less afraid of open and free trade.

The book, in many ways, is the last word on the tragic and defining years of Punjab’s turmoil that took a large number of lives.

There are currently 41 ships and submarines under construction, 39 are being built in Indian shipyards, while in-principle approval is there from the Defence Ministry for 47 ships to be built in India.

The author’s prognosis of a major contestation in the not-so-distant future is situated in the South China Sea. The compelling logic portends China’s proclivity to fight one or possibly two major wars before 2035, either with Taiwan or India before the major US-China war.

Riding the global strategic shift in manufacturing, India is on the cusp of attractive large-scale domestic and foreign investors by incentivizing supply chain manufacturing

It would be appropriate to design a comprehensive plan for India to create 10,000 unicorns in the next 25 years and with a few hundred becoming decacorns - enterprises with a valuation of over $10 billion. These enterprises alone could add over $12 trillion to India’s GDP.

It is important to note that India has sufficient food stocks to be able to help the affected people in flood-ridden Pakistan. There is an urgent need to ease border restrictions at least to the levels of 2009 to provide easy access to food and relief materials

While the Assam government must sustain its present moves against radicalisation, New Delhi must be firm in ensuring that insidious attempts/activities by anti-Indian elements/groups are neutralised effectively in the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir and some other states

So, the assessment for the fifth largest economy is that this is a slowing phase, as growth drivers need to pick up along with investor sentiment

Efforts should be made to translate the literary heritage of each state and union territory into each of the national languages of India. This will create a whole new education, employment and business ecosystem in the publishing and media industries, sensitising each Indian to the national and civilisational heritage they inherited and building a sense of unity and common purpose.

The progress of the Montreal Protocol till now is, however, not without hiccups and bumps

Both these carriers, which are floating cities with massive flying and firepower, still do not adequately fulfill India’s maritime force requirement. With two vast seaboards and the Indian Ocean region and two rogue adversarial nations, the considered assessment by old-salt veterans is that even three aircraft carriers, meaning two on the sea and one in refit, are not enough

The other pillars of democracy, the judiciary and media, must remain steadfastly independent and impartial guardians of the Constitution. The people still repose their greatest faith in them to protect their rights and uphold their aspirations

Thus, more than one third of the world’s hungry and undernourished people are in India, which is alarming and embarrassing, if not shameful. India’s rank in the global hunger index also (GHI) has dropped to 101 out of 116 countries