From the Editor-in-Chief

Among India's most magnificent state symbols are the four lions of the Ashokan pillar. Majestic beasts sitting back-to-back, jaws open and ever vigilant for approaching enemies. These lions could also symbolise our armed forces, individually excellent, but, like the symbolic lions, not seeing eye-to-eye or working well as a team. There is more dysfunction when one looks at the defence ministry-the labyrinthine bureaucratic The plan to turn India from the world's second-largest buyers of weapons to a country that makes them locally and exports them has not quite taken off. There is no roadmap either. But then, as the saying goes, what use is a map when you don't know where to go? Writing about Army Chief General Bipin Rawat's plan to restructure the Indian Army earlier this year, I had mentioned how the lack of focus from the political executive had only encouraged the three forces to fight their own wars, separately instead of jointly.