Rajnath Singh, our Defence Minister, has been talking of scaling up defence production. This has been echoed by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who has gone a little beyond and set an ambitious target for the exports of defence equipment. The emphasis on defence production for our national needs and strategic self-sufficiency is acceptable but we should not export any arms and armaments. We are the land of Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of non-violence, and we should protect and nurture his philosophy of Vasudeiva Kutumbakam and propagate it around the world. As for the threats that we face from our neighbours it is only China and Pakistan in that order. Between China and Pakistan the latter is a spent-force beset with economic travails and an unstable political scenario. Thus the principal threat in the short-term is China where we have been seeing incidents across our north and north-eastern borders. We need to reinforce our arms infrastructure and additionally to keep a vigil on our extensive maritime boundary and the outlying islands of our territory like the Andamans and Lakshadweep.
