Forthcoming

India’s Maritime Power: New Directions

P.V. RAO

Contemporary India is redefining national perception of the sea. Past neglect of the sea (sea blindness) is shed. New roadmaps to leverage ocean wealth for national progress are being dawn. Successive maritime programmes and projects launched - Coastal Industrial Corridors, Deep Ocean Mission, Maritime Visions, Matsya Sampada, Yojana, NLEP, Rail Sagar, Sagarmala - are the building blocks of national maritime power.

India’s naval power and maritime power quite often are used as synonymous, or coterminous terms. Are they so? Are the attributes of naval and maritime power same? This book argues building naval power and maritime power demand different blue prints, resources and are directed to serve different objectives.

Blue economy, India’s current maritime discourse, inspires maritime power building. But what are the capabilities of maritime power? Does India have the requisite resources - capital, technology, skills - to develop them? If not, how are these resources mobilised? Who are the stakeholders involved in the maritime sectors? What are the government strategies to mobilise private partnerships and its regulatory controls over the investing partners? Lastly, what is the status of major maritime projects launched, and the problems encountered by them. These are the critical issues this book laboured to address. But, it does not claim to survey all the maritime programmes, given their large number and scope. Nonetheless, it is assumed no other publication on India’s maritime power matches the contents of this book.

P.V. RAO obtained Ph.D on European Integration from School of International Studies, JNU. He sustained his research interest by obtaining British Council Scholarship, London School of Economic; Fulbright Post Doctoral Fellowship, Johns Hopkins University, Washington; Ford Foundation Grant, BCIS, Colombo. He is National Fellow, ICSSR; UGC Emeritus Professor of Political Science.

Rao was on the faculty of Osmania University for thirty three years and retired as Director of UGC Centre for Indian Ocean Studies from the same University. He was invited as Visiting Professor to teach at National Law University (NALSAR), Hyderabad. He was a member of UGC Committee on Area Studies; guest faculty at College of Defence Management (CDM); College of Air Warfare (CAW), Secunderabad.

Professor Rao has eight books and over 50 research articles in International and Indian Journals, to his credit. The author is founder editor of Journal of Indian Ocean Region, Routledge, UK; Advisory Board member of Journal of Indian Ocean Studies, published by Society for Indian Ocean Studies (SIOS), New Delhi.

Contents

Preface

Figures and Maps

1. Introduction
2. Ports: Gateways to Growth
3. Merchant Marine: Flagships of Power
4. Land and Sea Connectivities
5. Maritime Governance
6. Coast Guard: Sentinel of the Sea
7. Maritime Military Power
8. Ocean Research, Technologies, and Capabilities
9. Space Assets for Maritime Power
10. Conclusion

Index