There is good news from the Arctic for the shipping industry. According to data released by the Northern Sea Route Administration, the nodal agency of the Russian Federal Government, which manages the Northern Sea Route (NSR), 330 applications from ships have been received since April 2013 informing the agency of their plans to transit through the NSR this summer. Of these, 213 applications were approved and 51 rejected. The reasons for the rejection of applications and the fate of the balance of 66 applications have not been made public.
The acceptance of the feasibility of the BRICS Development Bank at the recently concluded Fifth BRICS Summit at Durban has sent a shivering effect on a certain section who criticise the very idea.
Two Russian built warships with the same name i.e. Admiral Gorshkov have been making news in the last few weeks. The first vessel is an aircraft carrier which was sold to India in 2004 and is rechristened as INS Vikramaditya. It has been plagued in controversy due to costs and time overruns. The pre-delivery trials of the ship were unsuccessful and according to reports, the vessel will have to wait till the White Sea ice melts during the summer of 2013 to complete the trials.
The latest Sukhoi T-50 prototype, PAK-FA, a twin-engine fifth-generation stealth jet fighter, aborted a takeoff at the recently held MAKS Air Show outside Moscow on 21 August 2011 after four days of successful demo flights. While two prototypes of PAK-FA have cumulatively made 48 flights since 29 January 2010, it will be important to know the reasons for this mishap.
India, today, stands at a threshold in leveraging its economic and military growth in consonant with its national security goals. This situation has earned both a national identity and an international status, where economic and military strength are major determinants. Ironically, India’s growing global status coincided with two major international developments: One is the disintegration of the erstwhile Soviet Union, and the second one is the end of the Cold War.