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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle

The Elephant and the Eagle at Sweet 16

05 Sun Jun 2016

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, South Asia, United States

≈ Comments Off on The Elephant and the Eagle at Sweet 16

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Ajmer, Allahabad, ASEAN, Association of South East Asian Nations, Australia Group, Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-spatial Cooperation, BECA, China, CISMOA, Communication Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement, Defence Technology and Trade Initiative, DTTI, European Union, free trade, India, intellectual property rights, Logistics Support Agreement, LSA, Make in India, Missile Technology Control Regime, MTCR, NSG, nuclear, Nuclear Suppliers Group, Pakistan, Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV, smart cities, TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP, United Nations Security Council, United States, UNSC, Vishakapatnam, Wassenaar Arrangement, World Trade Organisation, WTO

It has been 16 years since George W Bush fundamentally altered the way the United States looked at India. As the old Cold War with the Soviet Union receded into memory and a new one with China appeared imminent, at least to the Bush White House, India emerged as an important potential ally in the new world order. India’s economy had recently started down the road to liberalisation too, making the South Asian country attractive to US industry as well as the government.

Despite frequent kerfuffles in the media – and there have been plenty – India-US relations have moved from strength to strength over the past 16 years. From the Strategic Quartet – high technology trade, space cooperation, nuclear energy, and missile defence – through the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership to the historic Indo-US nuclear deal and the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative, Washington and Delhi appear poised on the brink of a century-defining partnership. If state visits are any indication of warmth, prime minister Narendra Modi is visiting the United States at this moment for the fourth time in just two years – something his predecessor required nine years to necessitate.

Defence ties are usually the most prominent measure of relations between nations for obvious reasons: not only do they declare how much skin each state has in the other’s security, but they are also a statement of how much states trust each other with their prized technology. No wonder, then, that India’s defence purchases from the United States have attracted so much attention. Between CH-47 Chinooks, AH-64 Apaches, C-17 Globemasters, and C-130J Super Hercules, India’s aggregate defence acquisitions from the United States has crossed $13 billion. The loss of India’s Multirole Medium Range Combat Aircraft contract disappointed Washington but under Modi’s Make in India programme, US defence firms are considering moving the production of the F-16 and F-18 to India.

The United States has moved beyond the role of being a mere supplier of weapons to India: officials have been engaged in talks that, if successful, would result in the co-production of systems. Under the DTTI, the next generation of Raven unmanned aerial vehicle will be jointly developed and produced. Other projects include intelligence gathering and reconnaissance pods for the C-130J, mobile electric hybrid power sources, helmet-mounted digital displays for aircraft and helicopter pilots, high energy lasers, and chemical and biological warfare protection gear for soldiers.

Washington has also been keen to assist India with core defence technologies such as the development of jet engines and the catapult launching system on board US aircraft carriers. India’s Kaveri programme has been a miserable failure and with Delhi’s increasing focus on maritime security, the US offer could provide a healthy boost to Indian capabilities.

India’s change of mind on what the Pentagon calls the foundational treaties – LSA, BECA, and CISMOA – has been a welcome surprise. These agreements formalise the sharing of logistical facilities and align communication protocols between the US military and their partners, greatly enhancing the range and capabilities of both forces in joint humanitarian or security missions. Although the agreements will remain unsigned during Modi’s visit this June, it is reported that they are close to conclusion.

The United States’ support for Indian admission to the permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and technology export control groups such as the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group, and the Wassenaar Group gives some weight to Philip Zelikow’s statement in 2005 that the United States intends to help India become a major power.

Although both India and the United States have come a long way in defence cooperation, one cannot shake the feeling that both sides are still hedging from a complete commitment. India has lost no opportunity to stress that the signing of the foundational agreements with the United States will in no way erode its sovereignty, that it is happy to conduct numerous maritime joint exercises but will not be persuaded to conduct joint patrols, and that India sees itself as a friend and partner of the United States but not quite an ally. On the American side, senators questioned the wisdom of a bill that proposed elevating India to the status of a NATO ally in all but name given that the South Asian country did not see itself in that role. The US bill would have amended the Arms Export Control Act and made defence transfers to India quicker and smoother.

One hurdle in closer ties is Pakistan: India is displeased with the continued sale of US weapons to the Islamic republic despite ample evidence pointing to terrorist ties and an unhelpful disposition towards US goals in South and Central Asia. However, the dynamics of these ties have remained relatively unchanged since the 1950s: Pakistan provides services in the region that the United States cannot get elsewhere in return for White House forbearance on matters Islamabad sees as vital to its interests. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was basing privileges for US reconnaissance aircraft conducting missions over China and the Soviet Union; in the 1970s, Islamabad served as the channel to Beijing and a rapprochement with China; in the 1980s, it was the shipment of arms to the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. In the 2010s, Islamabad has become the conduit to the Taliban, with whom Washington hopes to negotiate a “decent interval.” Even now, though the United States has been urging India to play a greater role in Afghanistan, Delhi has declined, choosing to involve itself more in important but not critical facets of Afghanistan’s development.

India’s reluctance to play a more significant role in its own interests may frustrate observers but this has, understandably, in large part to do with the country’s capabilities. Couched in the rhetoric of multipolarity and morality, India’s inaction misleads the casual observer. The ignored pachyderm in the room is that Delhi lacks the financial and industrial wherewithal to flex its military muscle in Central Asia or the South China Sea, and any attempt to persuade it to do so will fail. The remedy to this is economic growth, technological development, and strategic coalitions.

On the surface of it, economic relations seem to have grown substantially between India and the United States. Both countries are investing more in each other’s economies and trade between the two stands hovers around $70 billion. More and more US companies are setting up shop in India as Indian companies are expanding their business beyond the Atlantic. Washington is the lead partner for developing Allahabad, Ajmer, and Vishakapatnam as smart cities. There is still plenty of room to grow and Modi has ambitiously suggested aiming for $500 billion in trade in a few years. However, there are several issues that will plague relations. The first is subsidies: Washington recently won a case against India at the World Trade Organisation that prohibited the Indian government from giving preferential treatment to domestic solar panel manufacturers. US firms are also pushing Washington to act against subsidies the Indian Space Research Organisation gets from the government for its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle programme.

A second hurdle is intellectual property. In several sectors, India has brought its laws into alignment with US and international norms yet there remain significant differences in philosophy. Pharmaceuticals is one such field, where Indian courts have been hostile to the US practice of evergreening patents, instead seeing a social dimension to the industry. India has also had disagreements with the United States on its agricultural subsidies and food security programme.

A sector-specific yet politically potent point of friction is nuclear energy. Although the Indo-US nuclear deal was announced in 2005 and came into force in 2008, there has been little movement on that front since. India’s nuclear liability laws were found to be at odds with international norms and it was only in 2015 when US president Barack Obama visited India during the Republic Day celebrations that some headway was made in easing the logjam. The Indian side came up with a convoluted mechanism to bypass its own law without losing face and satisfied Washington but private companies are still uncomfortable with the provisions. As a result, a number of nuclear energy projects have stalled across the country; GE has flatly refused to participate in the Indian nuclear energy market as long as the present law stands and Westinghouse has delayed the submission of its project proposals. The sins committed by the BJP while in Opposition have been visited upon the BJP while in power.

A probable future cause for concern is the US creation of large trading spheres via the Trans Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. India is not party to either of these blocs and its efforts to forge free trade agreements with important partners such as the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has proceeded at a snail’s pace. There is a danger that the implementation of the TPP and TPIP will take trade away from Indian shores to within the bloc, dampening much-needed Indian economic growth.

Many of these frictions arise from the fact that the US and Indian economies are at different points: certain Indian policies may not optimize on economic efficiency but are geared towards lifting more of its population out of poverty or establishing its own industries firmly in the international arena. Delhi and Washington have much work to do to negotiate through the clashing policies that will certainly arise in the future and early recognition and amelioration will insulate relations from harsh market realities.

After 16 years, India-US relations are on a firm footing. Much has been accomplished though a lot more remains to be done. It was feared that the warmth between the two would dissipate after the exit of Bush and the election of Obama but despite the lull due to an international economic slowdown and a paralysed UPA government, ties have started to blossom again in the past two years since Modi took office. India enjoys bipartisan support in the US and Washington a hesitant embrace in Delhi. Can relations be derailed? There will always be swings and roundabouts but it seems to have dawned on both countries that the geopolitics of this century are best navigated as friends than estranged democracies.


This post appeared on FirstPost on June 06, 2016.

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A War in Space

01 Mon Jun 2015

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, Security, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on A War in Space

Tags

A2/AD, Agni, ANGELS, anti-access/area denial, anti-satellite, ASAT, Automated Navigation and Guidance Experiment for Local Space, C5ISR, Cartosat, CCI-Sat, China, Communication-Centric Intelligence Satellite, Corona, Dong Fen 21, Dong Neng 2, Earth Observation Technology Experiment Satellite, electromagnetic pulse, EMP, EOTES, Fengyun, geosynchronous orbit, Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, Global Positioning System, GPS, GSAT, GSLV, GSO, India, Indian Regional Navigational Satellite, Indian Space Research Organisation, IRNSS, ISRO, Istrebitel Sputnikov, Joint Vision 2020, laser, LEO, Low Earth Orbit, microwave, Pakistan, Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, Prowler, PSLV, radar imaging, RISAT, satellite, SC-19, Soviet Union, space, United States, United States Space Command

A few hundred kilometres above the earth, an orbiting object receives a signal from a ground transmitting station; gently, the satellite powers up its systems and conducts a series of short thrusts that put it on course to its target. Drifting into the proximity, at almost five km per second, it emits a short yet powerful electromagnetic pulse. Far below, the Indian Navy cannot seem to get through to its nuclear submarines, the bearers of its vital nuclear second-strike capability. This may sound like a scenario from a John McTiernan blockbuster but it is very much within the realm of the possible. For years now, China has been developing its capabilities to wage war in space and of late, its string of successes merit series concern from India and its neighbours.

The militarisation of space started decades ago. Beginning in June 1959, the United States began to launch the Corona series of reconnaissance satellites that were tasked with gathering information on the Soviet military, their economy, electronic intelligence, and even early detection of missile launches. A total of 144 satellites were put into low earth orbit (LEO) until May 1972. The United States had halting success with anti-satellite (ASAT) weaponry but efforts were discontinued by the US Congress as the Cold War was winding down. However, in February 2008, the United States used a Standard Missile 3, designed primarily as an anti-ballistic missile, to destroy one of its military reconnaissance satellites.

On the other side of the Cold War, the Soviet Union developed and deployed an anti-satellite weapons system as early as November 1963, the Istrebitel Sputnikov (IS). The weapon was a single-launch kamikaze satellite carrying a 300 kg fragmenting warhead that would be put into LEO by a launch vehicle and then manoeuvre itself towards its target. The radius of the shrapnel from the warhead was no more than two kilometres and the satellite itself carried only enough fuel for 300 seconds of operation. The Soviet Union had little success with anti-satellite missiles but experimented with military space stations, lasers, and other means of intercepting, jamming, and destroying enemy satellites in case of war. The Soviet Union’s successor state, Russia, has recently restarted this project after a lull since the end of the Cold War and secretly launched a satellite in December 2013 that is capable of approaching other satellites, studying them, and intercepting, jamming, or destroying them if necessary. This is similar to the US Prowler satellite launched in 1990 or the ANGELS (Automated Navigation and Guidance Experiment for Local Space) programme announced in 2014.

SatellitesChina’s first forays into space had begun in 1956 with a programme whose primary task was to detect and counter American and later Soviet ballistic missile threats. Its formative years were spent developing a credible nuclear deterrent and received much assistance from Moscow until the Sino-Soviet split ended all cooperation in mid-1960. A presence in space was envisioned only in July 1967 and China’s first successful satellite was launched in April 1970. However, space evinced little interest from a China that was still recovering from the Cultural Revolution and new projects were taken up sparingly. Improving on previously tried and tested systems, China was able to offer a commercial launch facility in 1985 that would put several European and Asian satellites into orbit. Interest in space was on the rise again in Beijing in the late 1980s and a full-fledged ministry for aerospace was established in 1988. The first Gulf War two years later served as a Sputnik moment for Beijing and the state-owned aviation industry concern was made responsible for extraterrestrial endeavours as well. The number of annual Chinese space launches currently exceeds that of the United States and it is believed that China presently operates some 132 satellites in space, second to only the United States.

China shocked observers by bringing down one of their Fengyun class meteorological satellites with an ASAT variant of their Dong Feng 21 missile in January 2007. A further test was carried out in January 2010 with the same missile, the SC-19. Beijing conducted two more tests, one in May 2013 and another in July 2014, under the guise of a scientific mission. In these, a new type of missile was tested, the Dong Neng 2. China has already tested placing a parasitic microsatellite in orbit in 2008 when a BX-1 passed within 25 kms of the International Space Station – a collision could have been catastrophic.

These developments might not have been particularly worrying during the Cold War as few countries had come to depend heavily on satellites. However, the extent of integration of space-based assets in prosecuting Operation Desert Storm in January 1990 marked a new era in war-fighting. The use of global positioning to locate troops, reconnaissance satellites for image data of terrain and enemy troops, communications satellites to connect various services and theatres of battle, and Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites to detect early the launch of Scud missiles made the conflict the first space war; by Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001, satellites had become even more integral to the military – now, they guided smart bombs onto their targets, provided video links to headquarters, and were the interface between unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and their operators. In 2015, the ability to cripple or even deny an opponent the use of space assets is a severe threat that can very well decide the fate of an engagement.

Beijing has observed these developments closely and has come to the conclusion that “whoever controls space [the universe] can control the earth,” a quotation the Chinese military attributes to US president John F Kennedy. In fact, much of Chinese thinking on space warfare is directly influenced by the United States. Chinese security journals regularly cite US literature on strategy, tactics, and technology development in space and some of their more influential thinkers even borrow Western terminology. Presently, there is an unstated acceptance in the Chinese Politburo and the PLA of the United States’ unassailable technological and material superiority in space. As a result, China has opted for an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy that would eliminate or hinder US C5ISR capabilities (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Combat Systems, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) against China in case of conflict. China would conduct nodal warfare, breaking the United States’ information chain at critical moments to undermine support given to conventional forces and weaken their dominance.

Chinese military ambitions are focused on achieving tactical parity with the United States. To this end, the country’s primary focus in counter-satellite warfare has been on space object surveillance and identification, direct ascent and co-orbital ASAT programmes, laser and microwave weapons systems, electronic warfare, and cyber weapons. The PLA’s understanding of US military doctrine, based on US actions as well as policy documents such as the United States Space Command’s Vision for 2020 and Joint Vision 2020, is that a space war is inevitable; through the command of space, the United States has the ability to perform surgical strikes and obviate the necessity for the greater use of force. This ability may be enough of a deterrent to an opponent to submit without fighting. Yet the cost of deploying space assets and their limited scale means that these forces cannot be employed at will. Even rich nations like the United States will be strained to maintain even a thin layer of space-based assets. Instead of challenging the United States in toto, Beijing will seek to gain footholds in a few, well-chosen areas that have decisive implications for security and operations. Thus, full engagement is avoided because, as one Chinese analyst wrote, “to break one finger is more effective than hurting all fingers.”

Satellite centric warfareAccording to Chinese military strategists, in contrast to the past, modern wars have become increasingly short and are often decided by just one intense campaign. Thus, winning the campaign may well mean winning the war. There might not be time, or China may lack the capability, to destroy all the enemy’s strategic assets as it might have had to in previous wars. In fact, there is no need to do so anymore if offensive focus can be spearheaded, even temporarily, against vital targets that integrate and support the enemy’s overall operations system. In other words, the PLA will strive to paralyse its opponent first and then conduct an operation of annihilation later to encourage a rapid political conclusion to hostilities. The appeal of this strategy against a technologically and operationally superior foe is obvious; as a Xinhua article recently stated, “For countries that can never win a war with the United States by using the method of tanks and planes, attacking the US space system may be an irresistible and most tempting choice.” Once most of the technological force multipliers are eliminated, China will have the upper hand in terms of sheer numbers.

This is unfortunate for India, who has to contend with a hostile power on its border that is constantly expanding its military capabilities. China’s undeclared Cold War with the United States pulls it into an unacknowledged arms race whose ripple effects its neighbours have to bear. India will also have to contend with the possibility that China will share at least some of its space assets with Pakistan. Beijing may easily provide Rawalpindi with intelligence on Indian troop movements, deployment, and signals intercepts in addition to what Pakistan might have managed on its own. The use of Chinese A2/AD against India on its western border will degrade Delhi’s conventional superiority against Islamabad and bleed the Indian treasury more to mitigate the situation. Such a scenario is highly plausible given the reckless sharing of nuclear and missile technology by Beijing with Islamabad in the past.

The good news is that destroying space assets is not a particularly difficult task – satellites are relatively easy to detect and since their orbits are clearly defined, much easier to shoot down than ballistic missiles. Indian defence planners will also be glad that their efforts in the new domain of space need not start from the ground up – India has already developed several technologies on its own for other weapons systems that may be modified and applied to defence purposes. Much like in the nuclear field, the difference between a space asset for civilian use and for military purposes is marginal and apparent only towards the end of the production cycle.

India’s Agni III and Agni V missiles, for example, amply indicate the potential to engage targets at high altitudes. The recent space missions to the Moon and to Mars also demonstrate a fair ability to track objects through space and to communicate with them. India’s family of satellites is not unimpressive and it has already launched several dual-use civilian and military satellites. India’s first remote-sensing satellite was launched in 1988, the IRS-1A, with a resolution of 36 metres; the IRS-1C, seven years later, achieved a resolution of under six metres. In 2001, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched the first satellite that had clear military applications as well: the Earth Observation Technology Experiment Satellite, with a resolution of one metre and weighing slightly over 1,100 kgs, was put in orbit from Sriharikota by the workhorse of the Indian space programme, a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. In 2008, Cartosat-2A was launched with even better resolution than the EOTES, and Cartosat-2B was put in orbit in 2010. The same year, ISRO also sent up the Oceansat-2, purposed for weather tracking and identification of fishing zones. However, it is also available to the Indian Navy for bathymetry and anti-submarine warfare. In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on Bombay, India acquired a radar-imaging satellite, the RISAT-2 from Israel. It was India’s first such platform and was equipped with the X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar, allowing it to monitor its assigned area regardless of time of day or weather. ISRO had planned to launch Cartosat-3 by the end of 2014 but it has now been pushed back to September 2017; the satellite will have a resolution of 25 centimetres and provide the highest resolution earth photographs of any commercial satellite.

None of these are exclusively military satellites, of which India has very few. Even the constellation of seven Indian Regional Navigational Satellite (IRNSS) GPS satellites is meant to be available to civilians as well as the military. Part of the reason is the expense of becoming a space-faring nation. ISRO subsidises the development of its space infrastructure by selling services – launches, imagery, applications – commercially. Data from Indian satellites is routinely used around the world and benefit many causes. According to one estimate from 2004, India’s IRS satellites have earned more than four times the amount which has been invested on them through commerce as well as their contributions to urban planning, disaster management, and water resources management. However, this sort of jugaad economics cannot continue for much longer. “In space we have to be at par,” explains former ISRO chairman UR Rao. “We cannot say that we would make products which cost less but can get part of the job done. You just cannot bargain with space and have to have the best technology.” The GSAT-7 was India’s first exclusively military satellite, meant for communication with and between Indian naval vessels, was launched only in August 2013; another dedicated military satellite for electronic intelligence, the Communication-Centric Intelligence Satellite (CCI-Sat), is scheduled for 2020.

Not all satellites are the same. Other than shielding and the limited ability to manoeuvre in space, satellites are also defined by the orbits they trace. Satellites in LEO are easier to target than those further away in Medium Earth, High Earth, or Geosynchronous Orbits. GSO satellites are, as the name suggests, stationed above a particular point on earth at an altitude of 36,000 kms. Their coverage of the earth’s surface is greater but they are less flexible in their orbits or manoeuvrability. This trajectory is usually reserved for communications satellites as their fixed location obviates the need for expensive and bulky tracking equipment on the ground. At the other end are LEO satellites. These cover far less of the earth’s surface at a time but are faster, more manoeuvrable, and have greater proximity to the earth, all of which makes them ideal for imaging missions. The lower orbit also means that a greater number of such satellites are required to cover the same area constantly as a satellite in higher orbit. LEO satellites are more vulnerable to ASAT missiles than are GSO satellites but they are also usually cheaper and less valuable strategically than the latter. A country spreads its space assets in a multitude of orbits depending on mission profile, budget, and strategy.

One important step India can take is to give its disparate space efforts some focus. A dedicated Aerospace Command, to serve more as a nodal agency between the services than an independent wing of the Indian military, will be better able to judge and accommodate the needs of the services without unnecessary and expensive replication of capabilities. Furthermore, it would be a politically wise decision to separate ISRO from military missions; the organisation only recently was removed from under US sanctions and its involvement in Indian space warfare missions would only make it a target again. The dual use of space technologies a well established fact, it serves India’s needs to have one of its space centres beyond international reproach.

India also needs to significantly upgrade its space infrastructure. The country has just one space launch facility at Sriharikota that struggles to handle much more than six to eight launches per year when several more are required if the deficiencies in space are to be overcome in a timely manner. Additionally, ISRO has been struggling with the development of an indigenous cryogenic engine and the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) for years. The PSLV has managed to handle the workload, especially with additional boosters strapped on, but India needs a reliable rocket that can put payloads in excess of even 15 or 18 tonnes into LEO.

Beyond infrastructure, India needs to consider what countermeasures it can provide its satellites. Even though satellites are easy targets, the more advanced varieties can withstand some amount of interference with its sensors and communications. Shielding is perhaps the simplest countermeasure, but this makes satellites heavier. Another method is to build in some amount of manoeuvrability so that it can escape from a predatory co-orbital anti-satellite device. This will require fuel to be carried and stored onboard which will also make the satellite heavier and will eventually run out. Yet another option is to build in redundancy – if a certain mission requires a constellation of nine satellites, a dozen might be tasked; the additional three satellites, together with the ability to launch replacements quickly if needed, might perhaps be a cheaper option than a handful of very expensive and very valuable satellites.

The military must also consider what kind of anti-satellite measures it wishes to develop to disrupt the enemy’s C5ISR. Given the work done in developing India’s ballistic missile defence and intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, a kinetic kill vehicle – industry parlance for an ASAT missile – might seem the easiest option. However, the Chinese test in 2007 created over 2,500 fragments in space that now interfere with the satellites of all nations. In fact, one of these fragments crashed into a Russian satellite in May 2013 and destroyed it. Cleaner kills would be through the development of microwave, EMP, or laser weapons systems. Depending upon their nature, intensity, and exposure, the effects could be temporary or permanent, giving India far more flexibility in its response to incidents.

There is little reason to panic just yet but space warfare is something that deserves more scholarly attention in India. A fair portion of India’s space budget goes unused each year despite the need for aggressive expansion of infrastructure, facilities, and manpower. Though it is difficult to compare space budgets internationally due to the dual use nature of the technology, India needs to invest significantly more into the industry. Luckily for India, this is not a guns vs. butter argument because the potential for overlap between civilian and military needs is enormous. While the initial elements of robust space defence exists in India, strategic vision is needed to shape it into a potent programme. As the Good Book tells us, where there is no vision, the people perish (Míshlê 29:18).


This article first appeared in the June 2015 print edition of Swarajya.

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