The 1962 War was indeed a traumatic experience for the Indian arms. The story from the Indian side is generally well known but very little is known about how the Chinese planned and orchestrated the entire campaign. While India held a firm belief till the very end that China would not resort to a large scale military action; the Chinese on the other hand had been preparing for it since 1959. Even though the writing was on the wall, Indian Army allowed itself to be hustled into a war on those high Himalayas for which it was ill prepared...a kind of hurtling towards a point of no return. Based on the Chinese literature, for the first time, we have been able to delve into the Chinese thought process, their grand strategy and reconstruct various battles across the entire front from Chinese point of view; of course tempered with what is known from authentic Indian sources. It is a narrative that is designed to fill a great void that has existed all these years about this War.

The book is based on the USI National Security Seminar with contributions from some of the well known experts on China from India & abroad.

The current paradigm of violence in South Asia is based on militancy and strategic terrorism drawing from extremist ideologies, be it religion, ethnicity or sub nationalism across the region. While frequently fundamentalism is said to be the core of conflict in South Asia, there are many diverse threads to instability. The arc of insecurity and intensity of violence is extending each day, manifesting in different forms, be it Mumbai 26/11, Lahore 3/3, Marriott bomb attacks or air borne suicide strike in the heart of the capital Colombo. This book attempts to examine the overall threat emanating from non state actors in South Asia, with particular reference to India and suggest a joint framework to neutralise the same. The book examines contemporary and future security environment in South Asia and the threats and challenges. The phenomenon of Non State actors has been examined in detail to include armed Groups as Al-Qaeda, Lashkar e Tayyaba, Jaish e Mohammed, as well as Naxalites in the hinterland. Each facet of these to include Leadership Structure, Organisation, Political, Military, Judicial functions, Religious, Funding, Charity and aid arm, Media and Networking with other non state actors has been covered in detail.

Today, the whole world is watching China with great interest and that includes India. China has been termed - a threat, a challenge, an opportunity, a concern, a competitor, the next superpower, a global player and many more things. It depends, who is looking at it and from where? In 2009, United Service Institution (USI) of India decided to commence a five years study programme on China. Towards that end, we held the National Security Seminar 2009 titled 'Rising China - Opportunity or Strategic Challenge' on 25-26 November 2009. Its proceedings have been published in the form of a book.