Topic Of The Day:-“Deteriorating Environment”
India’s national security environment has steadily deteriorated since 2014. Both the overall violence in Jammu and Kashmir and ceasefire violations on the Line of Control reached a 14-year high in 2017, a trend that refuses to subside in 2018. There are far more attacks on security forces and security installations in J&K, and militant recruitments and violence against civilians in the State than at any time in the past decade-and-a-half. The pressure from China is on the rise. While the government’s spin managers valiantly claim that the surgical strikes of 2016 gave a befitting response to Pakistan, and the stand-off at Doklam conveyed to China that India is no pushover, the reality is that surgical strikes hardly made any significant gains, and the Chinese forces (by all accounts including a report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs) are back in the Doklam plateau with more force. The report goes on to fault the government for “continuing with its conventionally deferential foreign policy towards China”. New Delhi’s neighbourhood policy continues to be in the doldrums and there is a clear absence of vision on how to balance, engage and work with the many great powers in the regional and the broader international scene. The frenzied foreign policy activities we are witnessing today are essentially diplomatic firefighting and damage control of a government in its last lap.
MEANINGS AND WORDS
1) Deteriorated
Meaning: Become progressively worse.
Tamil Meaning: மோசமடைந்ததால்
Synonyms: Worsen, get worse, decline
Antonyms: Improve
Example: “Relations between the countries had deteriorated sharply”
2) Ceasefire
Meaning: A temporary suspension of fighting; a truce.
Tamil Meaning: போர்நிறுத்தம்
Synonyms: Truce, Suspension
Antonyms: Dispute, Fight, War
Example: “The latest ceasefire seems to be holding”
3) Subside
Meaning: Go down to a lower or the normal level.
Tamil Meaning:
Synonyms: Abate, let up, moderate
Antonyms: Rise
Example: “The floods subside almost as quickly as they arise”
4) Valiantly
Meaning: With courage or determination.
Tamil Meaning:
Synonyms: Boldly, Fearlessly
Example: “They fought valiantly to the end”
5) Befitting
Meaning: appropriate to the occasion.
Tamil Meaning: சரியான பதிலடியை
Example: “A country which can run the prestigious tournament in a befitting manner”
