Menon hails Subrahmanyam's contributions to national security debate(Update)

New Delhi, Jan 20 (ANI): Stating that independent institutions outside the government had significant contributions to make to decision-making, National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon has called for the broadening of debates on Indian national security.

Menon said this in a lecture delivered on Thursday to honour strategic expert late K Subrahmanyam, who played a key role in shaping the government and public thinking on key issues and helped draft India's nuclear doctrine.

Menon remembered Subrahmanyam as a towering teacher and figure, who was central to debates on India's national security for well over half a century.

He said Subrahmanyam had made four key contributions to Indian strategic thinking: building a consensus that nuclear weapons were the cheapest and most effective way of guaranteeing national survival in an uncertain world; creating an understanding that defence could not be sidelined in the pursuit of development; developing a modern national security structure; and emphasising the need for India to seek autonomy in its strategic decision-making.

The National Security Advisor said for K. Subrahmanyam, India's core constitutional values, secularism, democracy and the pursuit of the peoples' welfare constituted a road map that provided overall shape to decision-making.

Menon further defended the country's strategy to deal with militancy and strongly denied that India was a soft power.

To a poser on whether India was a soft power when tackling militancy was concerned, Menon said that the country's strategies to deal with the issue was intact and effective.

"Most states have a problem with terrorism, and there are issues of how do you deal with terrorism, even states maybe you regard as hard, they have these problems as well. You can have a legitimate debate on which is the right way to deal with it. Are we dealing with it the right way? But I don't think that has anything to do with the image that India projects," he said.

Menon stressed the need to have more think tanks, as the government needed such resources to provide a different and broader perspective on issues nationals and regional concerns. (ANI)