The Strategic Forces Command of India, which forms part of the country’s Nuclear Command Authority, is responsible for managing and administrating strategic and tactical nuclear arsenal. Commensurating with the recommendations on national security management, the SFC came into existence on January 4, 2003. While acknowledging the onerous tasks SFC was undertaking, more transparent measures have been recently declared to clear certain anomalies and create more transparency on aspects of India’s nuclear policy.
Terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation have, by and large, dominated the security debate in South Asia. However, the overarching influence of these two issues has led to the neglect of the other problems that are equally, if not more, important for security in the region. One such problem is refugees and migration. The presence of more than 110,000 Bhutanese refugees in Nepal and the condition in which they live in different refugee camps is threatening to develop into a major humanitarian crisis in the absence of concrete effort by the parties involved.
The US President George W. Bush’s re-election poses at least one central question with regard to his foreign policy initiatives in his second term—whether the administration will see an overhaul in foreign policy-making or not. The President’s involvement with India-Pakistan was not a major foreign policy priority for the administration during his first term. The issue, nevertheless, is an important strategic concern for the US. Both Bush and his Democratic rival, John Kerry, sidelined the two South Asian countries in their election debates except over the issue of outsourcing.