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Non-Traditional Security Challenges in Asia edited by Shebonti Ray Dadwal, Fellow and head of the Non-Traditional Security Centre at the Institute for Defence and Security Studies (IDSA) and Uttam Kumar Sinha, Fellow, IDSA is a compilation of papers presented by scholars in the field of Non-Traditional Security (NTS) threats at the 14th Asian Security Conference organized by the IDSA in February, 2012. It appears that while the International edition of this book was published in 2015, the South Asia edition has become available only in early 2016.

2016 got off to an inglorious start for India Pakistan relations with the attack on Pathankot’s Air Force base by terrorists allegedly affiliated to the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group. The outfit, headquartered in Bahawalpur district, a cotton farming area in Pakistani Punjab, is one of a number of terrorist outfits operating in the region. In addition to Bahawalpur, areas like Rahim Yar Khan, Dera Gazi Khan, Chiniot and Jhang are considered fertile breeding ground for terrorist recruitment. Tashfeen Malik, one of the San Bernardino shooters, was apparently radicalized in Multan.

A complex, enigmatic web of contravening ideas and beliefs shaped Benazir Bhutto’s personality and also determined her political journey in one of the most challenging contexts in the region—Pakistan. As a newly created state with a religiously defined national identity, Pakistan’s social strata was yet to reconcile with the assertions and authority of women as politicians. Therefore, for reasons well understood, a wide range of scholarship has commented upon the life and political trajectory of the late Bhutto scion—a life so splendid, politically charged with its share of agony, yet cut short in a brutal assassination.

Don’t talk of hawks and doves. We are running a foreign policy, not a bird sanctuary.’ Former External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh’s riposte in 1988 when asked whether he was a hawk or a dove. Khurshid Kasuri served as Pakistan’s Foreign Minister (2002– 07) when General Parvez Musharraf was President. He succeeded Abdul Sattar, a former career diplomat, whom Musharraf had appointed immediately following the 1999 coup. (Sattar had briefly served in the same capacity in a caretaker government in 1993.

Burma’s strategic importance to India cannot be underestimated. A neighbour with 1600 kms border, a number of ports facing each other across the Bay of Bengal and four traditional roads connecting the two countries and administratively linked to India under British rule, India and Burma (Myanmar) share commonalities of history, culture, religion, ethnicity and spirituality. Myanmar is the perfect economic bridge between India and China and between South and Southeast Asia.

The plight of border communities, sundered by the Partition is now well recognized in all its dimensions—displacement, rehabilitation, economic and social disruption. While the brunt of the negative fallout was borne by the main inhabited areas along the Radcliffe Line (boundary between India and Pakistan and later Bangladesh), in more remote areas the impact was more economic. Yet over the years the communities living across each other along the border have found ways and means to continue their economic linkages through both formal and informal channels.