Foreign Policy: India's military build-up tops 2011’s list of overlooked events

Washington: The military build-up by India along with the separatist movement in Pakistan's Baluchistan province and some other low key events around the world has been ranked high by the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine for events and trends that were overlooked this year, but may be leading the headlines in 2012.

The insurgency in Baluchistan has been dubbed as Pakistan's ''secret war''.

The unique list is topped by India's military build-up and has the Euro crisis, Mexico's drug war, US immigration crackdown, expanding wings of piracy, and Rwanda as other events that have missed hogging the limelight as they ought to.

"China's new aircraft carrier - actually just a refitted Gorbachev-era Soviet model purchased for $20 million from the Russians -- made international headlines when it began sea trials this year, signalling Beijing's growing military ambitions in East Asia.

"But it isn't the only Asian giant investing heavily in new military hardware.

"India has kept pace with its neighbour to the north and, in some areas, is actually exceeding it - a development that, though much less noted, is a sign of the growing militarisation of the region as a new generation of emerging powers with global ambitions jockeys for regional supremacy," says the Foreign Policy magazine's 'The Stories You Missed in 2011'.

It said India is now the world's largest weapons importer, according to a 2011 report by the prestigious defence studies institute, SIPRI, accounting for 9 per cent of the world's international arms transfers between 2006 and 2010.

India will spend an estimated $80 billion on military modernisation programs by 2015, according to an estimate from the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, it said.