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Amid rising competitive populism and economic protectionism around the world, India needs to project its hard power alongside its soft power, said Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh on Friday. Singh was speaking at the Southern Command Defence Tech 2025 seminar (STRIDE 2025) here. Addressing the gathering, Singh said the trend of increasing globalisation and free trade has been brought to a halt by geopolitical factors linked to the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Europe and the rise of populist leadership patterns across the globe. These trends are causing competitive populism and economic protectionism around the world, accompanied by economic fragmentation, the decline of multilateral institutions, and a growing tide of nationalism. As a result, the need to back a soft power with hard power is becoming more and more critical at a time when strategic deal-making requires you to be able to project hard power as well, said Singh. He also said there is a need to bring ..
The 2+2 dialogue between India and the United States is expected to take place in November and the two countries will hold a meeting of the Defence Policy Group (DPG) soon, sources said.They said that India and the US will have a series of engagements and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar will be visiting the United States. A counter-terrorism and designation dialogue between the two countries will be held soon, the sources added.The third India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue was held in New Delhi in October last year. The DPG is the apex official-level meeting mechanism between India's Defence Ministry and the US Department of Defence. It reviews and guides all aspects of bilateral defence cooperation between the two countries.Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited the United States last month for a bilateral meeting with President Joe Biden. He had also taken part in the first in-person Quad leaders' Summit and addressed the UN General ...