Why the Dragon Baits the Tiger

China's neighbours are bearing the brunt of its worsening internal challenges, but there is a solution.

This latest incursion at Daulat Beg Oldi is not unique. There have been at least 600 such incidents since 2010. Every previous incursion was resolved by talking ourselves down from a stand off or with PLA troops simply leaving the area. There's no reason to assume this incident will end any differently.

But why do Chinese troops keep crossing the LAC? It boils down to one word: legitimacy. The Chinese government - actually, the Communist Party (they are technically different entities) - has expertly positioned itself as the only guarantor of its citizens' well-being. To maintain legitimacy and avoid its own demise, it needs to continue being seen as just such a guarantor. To be fair, the Party has delivered extraordinary economic growth, reducing China's poverty rate from 85% in 1981 to 15% in 2005.

This unfettered growth has brought its own challenges. Among them, a huge gap between rich and poor, debilitating pollution that is now the leading cause of social unrest, and clashes with between the State and ethnic minorities. Official figures for "mass incidents" or unrest grew from 8,709 in 1993 to 87,000 in 2005. These are official figures, so the actual number is likely higher. Then came the very public embarrassment from the Bo Xilai scandal, which severely damaged the Party's already worn reputation. In short, the Party has lost 'face'. It now greatly fears a threat to its legitimacy. 

As a sort of insurance policy for its own survival, the Party has spent more on internal security than military expenditure for three years running. For added insurance, it is simultaneously distracting its citizens from the many problems within the country, by making outsiders take some of the flak. 

The South China Sea dispute with the Philippines and Vietnam is back on the front pages. Japanese and South Korean businesses have faced increased hostility from Chinese consumers. Taiwan remains a sore point. And there's India - the only land-based border dispute that Beijing has not yet settled. Most of these neighbours have seen an increase in aggression that has coincided with growing China's internal unrest. The U.S's very loud 'pivot to Asia', which was partially a response to growing Chinese aggression, has only added to this sense of encirclement.

This raises an interesting question: how do you deal with someone who wants to demonise you, just so they can distract from their own problems?

Let's start with the immediate problem - the incursions. The one thing India does not want to do is to play Beijing's game. Beijing wouldn't mind a fight right now. This would rally China's citizens behind the Party. The goal, remember, is not the fight itself, which the PLA will likely win thanks to superior logistics. It is for the Party to have the unquestioning support of its citizens. India, at any rate, cannot afford a conflict right now. The best solution is to talk and defuse such provocations. This has happened 600 times before and will continue to happen in the future. The media should avoid conflating such obvious distractions with the real problems identified above. 
 
That said, there is no harm in enhancing India's ability to respond to a potential conflict. The stationing of new military units along the LAC is a strong signal that New Delhi is prepared to defend its territory. This conventional deterrence bolstered by the existing nuclear deterrent, will ward off more serious land-grabbing attempts. 

Another strong signal would be the strengthening of ties with China's other neighbours such as Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan. The message to China's strategic community from this is that continuing such tactics would only alienate Beijing further. In fact, such ties should not only include military exercises but also partnerships in the fields of science and technology, agriculture, trade and investment. The wider the basket of benefits for good behaviour, the greater will be Beijing's perceived alienation for its bad behaviour. MEA officials and observers in the strategic community indicate that the New Delhi is doing exactly this. Perhaps its public messaging could do with improvement.

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Of course there are covert means to discourage China from a fight, but I would leave these to the imagination of conspiracy theorists and the capable hands of more competent individuals. Finally, for anyone looking for more perspective, do read Lt. General Panag's excellent primer on the standoff.

UPDATE: I'd like to add a link to another post by Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal, distinguished fellow at SAISA (an earlier version of this post incorrectly stated he worked at CLAWS. He is no longer with the organization). He explains that another reason for the timing of these incursions is that China is in a position of relative strength. So, it is looking to gain as much ground before India can develop enough of a conventional deterrent to pre-empt future incursions.

Fog of War: Italian Marines

The made-for-television jingoism surrounding the Italian marines case has made dispassionate analysis of what went wrong nearly impossible. Anyway, here's my theory of how and why two Indian fishermen ended up dead on February 15 2012. 

Much of what happened can be traced back to an anti-piracy manual released nearly two years earlier. The document is titled "Best Management Practice 3: Piracy off the Coast of Somalia and Arabian Sea Area". It was published in June 2010 by an international consortium of merchant shipping organisations and federations. Insiders call it 'BMP3' for short. Among other things, the manual plotted 'high risk areas' for piracy, gave advice on identifying a potential pirate vessel and what to do during a pirate attack.

Let's start with its definition of a 'High Risk Area'. Before BMP3 came out, merchant ships followed guidelines set by BMP2 (released in 2009). BMP2 advised vessels to inform maritime security authorities 4-5 days before they entered the HRA. In 2009, this was defined as an "area bound by 12 degrees North or 58 degrees East or 10 degrees South" (yellow on map below).

In 2010, in Section 2.3, BMP3 updated the HRA to include an area "bounded by Suez to the North, 10°S and 78°E". The significant extension of the HRA is seen in the red area on the map. 

 

View High Risk Area for Somali Piracy in a larger map or zoom out for a better view.


Merchant vessels were now forced to sail right up to Indian territorial waters to avoid the expanded HRA. In doing so they would often encounter Indian fishing vessels. 
 
On February 15 2012, at the time of the fatal shooting, the Enrica Lexie was roughly 22.5 nautical miles off the Indian coast. This falls within the HRA as updated by BMP3 (and its successor, BMP4, published in 2011). 

Now that we know why the Enrica Lexie was sailing so close to India, let's examine why the Marines on board had their fingers on the trigger. Here's what BMP3 says about the nature of pirate attacks:
- Pirates typically attack using two or more skiffs (Section 4.1)
- Pirate attacks increase following the release of hostages or after bad weather when pirates are unable to sail. (Section 3.6)

Given this context, let's look at other regional events that occurred before the shooting: 
- The Indian Coast Guard and Navy had arrested pirates operating near the coast a whole year before this. In short, the extension of the HRA in BMP3 was perfectly valid.
 - Roughly three weeks before the shooting, on 25 January, US Navy SEALS killed 9 pirates during the rescue of two western hostages in Somalia. Merchant ships would have been wary of their comrades wanting to make up for the lost ransom money or those wanting to avenge their deaths.

 - Five days before the shooting, on February 10, Somali pirates seized the Free Goddess, a bulk carrier. One report of that hijacking notes that weather conditions were "improving", and that pirates were "leaving the coast in greater numbers". The same report notes that having armed security teams on board and implementing the BMP had deterred most attacks. 

Any merchant ship passing through the HRA that night would have been on high alert.
  

The courts now need to decide whether the Italian marines operated within the rules of engagement. If they opened fire without a warning, they should be held accountable for the deaths. If sentenced to prison, it would not be unprecedented for them to serve their jail term back home. However, given all the context, as far as I am concerned, February 15 2012 was a tragedy waiting to happen. 

I'll end this post with two thoughts:
1. The Indian government is now petitioning international authorities to have the 'High Risk Area' pushed out to 65 deg East. This will mean fewer merchant vessels sailing through areas where Indian fishermen operate. However, Somali pirates do not heed international law. Allowing ships to drop their guard in places where the pirates still operate may prove unwise. This threat affects not just human security but global commerce. The correct response would be to increase ship and air patrols in the region. UPDATE: It would also be prudent to create standard operating procedures for fishing boats when they encounter merchant vessels. These could include a range of measures such as warning lights/flags, moving out of the path of larger ships, knowing and using the appropriate response to warning signals from ship crews, etc.

2. There is some precedent when it comes to soldiers harming foreign civilians while serving abroad in peace time. 

- In 1998, a US Marine Corps jet severed a cable car line in Italy, sending 20 people falling to their deaths. The jet was flying out of Italy's Aviano Air Base, a NATO station. The pilots faced a military trial back home. They were found 'not guilty' for involuntary manslaughter, but guilty on charges of 'obstruction of justice' and 'conduct unbecoming of an officer' as they had destroyed video evidence from the flight. Both were dismissed from service (hat-tip Kabir Taneja).

- In 2001, a US spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet sent to intercept it off Hainan Island, killing the latter's pilot. A second Chinese jet forced the spy plane to land, following which the PLA detained the 24 US crew members. They were released 10 days later - without charges - after diplomats worked on a face-saving solution. 

- Closer to home, Indian soldiers were indicted for sexual misconduct while serving as UN peacekeepers in Congo. The army took disciplinary action against one jawan, while three other men, including a major, were accuses of failing to retain control of their men. None of the soldiers stood trial in Congo. All of them (many more were investigated) faced a court of inquiry back in India. (hat-tip Jaskirat Singh Bawa).

The point of highlighting these cases is to show that such incidents are not uncommon. Thankfully, calmer heads have prevailed in this case too. Let's hope they continue to do so.

What if a Parsi were PM?

If you were ever curious, this is the sort of stuff Parsis forward to each other to have a laugh. Boy, am I proud to belong (at least in part) to a community that laughs this much at itself!

UPDATE: Someone I met requested that I make it clearer, since "this is the sort of stuff Parsis forward to each other" is vague. I have not written this piece. It was forwarded to me by an uncle. If anyone knows who the original author is please let me know and I'll happily add credit.

What if a Parsi were PM? 

Stop laughing. This is a very serious fantasy. 

There would be a Ministry Of Dhansakh. This would be known officially as the Ministry Of Diplomacy of course, serving up cauldrons of the good stuff to leaders of other countries.  Naturally, once they were stuffed senseless, they would sign treaties that benefitted the country immensely.

All car & bike owners who didn’t maintain their cars and bikes in an impeccable manner, would be summarily shot at dawn. Their vehicles would then be auctioned off, to find a home where they would be loved and taken care of, for the next hundred years.

Parliament would be home to some very un-parliamentary language. ‘Bhosri no’, ‘choothyo’, ‘bhangi’ and ‘lauro saalo’ would have to be explained to the translators of visiting dignitaries well in advance as being mere expressions of warmth and welcome. This would avoid anyone starting a nuclear war. 

Additionally, the PM would have to undergo sensitivity training to avoid calling President Obama, ‘te kaaro saalo’. This would also, it is hoped, avoid a nuclear war being started. Liquor companies would have to recalibrate their bottles, to account for Parsi Peg measures. Egg farmers would laugh all the way to the bank as the country discovered the glory of  ‘everything par eeda’. Life Insurance companies would moan about skyrocketing cholesterol levels, but such is life.

The national airline would be handed back to the Tatas. This would mean Air India would have hot bawi airhostesses with names like Roxane and Persis, instead of the current matronly, grumpy brigade in the sky. Accompanying them would be gay bawa pursers with names like Ronnie and Tempton. In-flight magazines would also have to explain to foreigners flying on board that, ‘kem che madarchod?’ is but the Captain’s friendly welcome as you enter the aircraft.

The suburbs of most cities would be bombed, razed and rebuilt, like baugs. This would allow non-parsis the right to host inter-baug games and give old men across the country, the right theyhad hitherto not enjoyed, to legitimately stare lasciviously at young girls thumping volleyballs across nets well into the night. The price of pacemakers would plummet, given their rising demand.

Our PM would know when to clap, if any symphony orchestra visited the country. He, or she, would also clap people into jail with a zero-tolerance attitude for corruption. The Army, Navy & Air Force Chiefs of Staff would have to deal with a boss who’d be even more finicky than them, about maintaining their tanks, ships & planes. Who knows how many Court Martials may occur for a spot of oil on a tarmac that ought not to have been there.

There’d be a permanent solution to Pakistan, Kashmir & Ayodhya. The first would be invaded and rejoined with our country, the second won over through Dhansakh Diplomacy and the third would be the disputed site being handed over to Zoroastrian Priests, to keep the peace between the two main communities as an amicable solution.

China’s attempts at building roads and train tracks near the Siachen border would be met with swift countermeasures. ACC and L&T would swing into action, to build a network of highways and tracks that would send the ‘cheena gadheros’ packing.

India would exert tremendous pressure upon Iran to behave itself in the Middle East. The Iranis of India would be commissioned to show the Iranis of Iran how to set up coffee shops around the world that served brun maska and sugary sweet tea, earning rich foreign exchange in return. This would get the mullahs very agitated, but the Brun Pao Spring would be irreversible. Embargos would be lifted (Obama would have to, else no more dhansakh) and Make My Trip would offer bumper low prices on Tempting Tehran package tours.

All terrorist negotiations would involve Parsi Mother In Laws. The terrorists would know when they were severely outclassed and give themselves up post haste. But that would only be in extreme circumstances. As a softer option, Shiamak Davar could be sent in with his troupe to gyrate to Kajra re. This mind-blowing experience would leave them separated from their Kalashnikovs - and even their sanity.

Everyone in India would learn how to play the piano. This would foster harmony in the neighborhood, people would drop in for sing-a-longs every evening and copious amounts of beer would be drunk. You can’t riot against people you’ve been drunk with after all.

A Parsi PM would hang out with the Queen back ‘home’ and convince her that the Kohinoor really ought to return back home to India. (Another fine example of Dhansakh Diplomacy at work.) A Parsi PM would laugh a lot, swear a lot, eat a lot, drink a lot and entertain like crazy. World leaders would swing by to India when they needed a good laugh. And good food.

The Jam-E-Jamshed would have a higher circulation than the Times Of India. Everyone would want to know about what the PM said in his own community newspaper first. The Times Of India would promptly rebrand Bombay Times to Bawa Times and throw a launch party with Tanaz Godiwalla catering to boot. Queenie Singh would sport a gara miniskirt. This would leave Parsi women fuming and Parsi men steaming.

Trains would run, planes would fly, the environment would get cleaner, the cities greener. Smoking would be stubbed out, poverty would be rubbed out. The Left would grumble, the Right would mumble, the middle would rumble contentedly.

The Judiciary would have incorruptible bawa Judges. In five years flat they’d expedite the zillions of cases that have clogged the courts. Any frivolous lawsuit would be dealt with a swift dismissal, any true plea for justice would be swiftly dispensed. The parallel system of goondagardi would lose its relevance as people believed in the system, the State once again.

A Parsi PM. Who’d crack the country up when he spoke in Hindi every Republic Day from the ramparts of the Red Fort. Who’d laugh the loudest himself when he was lampooned by the Comedy Store. Now that’s a happy thought for this Navroze. Into that heaven of completely benign lunacy, dear Father, let my Country awake.

Techies, The NCDC Could Use A Hand

Yesterday, I paid a visit the National Centre for Disease Control in Delhi on a personal errand. While waiting for one of the pathologists, I met an epidemiologist who has worked on both the policy side as well as in the lab. We had an engaging and fascinating discussion that sparked off from our mutual admiration for the amazing work of the very appropriately-named Larry Brilliant. 

(I encourage you to learn more about this unsung hero who has saved tens of thousands of Indian lives. Here's an interview I did with him three years ago). 

Coming back to the reason for this post, our discussion headed towards how the NCDC currently works to detect potential epidemics and stop them in their tracks. 

From what I gathered, the current system has two levels. The first is monitoring centers located in each district. These are in touch with local clinics & hospitals. They report back to New Delhi via satellite if there is a sudden rise in hospitalisations or sick patients, etc.

The second level is what the NCDC calls its 'Media Scanning & Verification' team. This team is based in Delhi and 'scans' TV & print media across the country for information of potential outbreaks. The team's epidemiologist then gets in touch with local authorities and doctors to 'verify' details of the disease, its virulence and whether any help is required to control the spread. 

In an ideal scenario, the district teams would rapidly spot a potential epidemic and alert the NCDC, which would then swing into action. In case the district teams miss something, the NCDC would pick up signals from media reports and swing into action. 

This 'sort of' works but I personally find it inadequate in the age of Google Flu Trends and rapid, mass transit. 

(Google Flu Trends - US. Feb 14, 2013 snapshot)

Our system relies on official reporting, which as we all know, takes time. Several days may be lost between the time 'Patient Zero' develops symptoms to the time 'The System' realises 'Patient Zero' has travelled to another city via a major airport hub. 

Now, Google does report Dengue Trends for India. However, the NCDC has some 35 diseases on its watchlist.

Google Dengue Trends - India. Feb 14, 2013 snapshot)

So here's a call to techies and coders who'd be willing to volunteer time and work with the really passionate doctors at the NCDC. I personally believe an effort to develop tools like the ones Google offers, relevant to the Indian context, can save countless lives. I'd be happy to connect you to the team I met at NCDC. Leave me a comment or connect with me via Twitter. 

Rapes and the Indian Justice System: An experimental data visualisation

This weekend, I attended an excellent big data visualisation workshop organised by Hacks/Hackers Delhi. The idea was to get journalists and techies to collaborate on investigative, data-driven stories and tell them in intuitive ways. Numbers dull the reader's mind. A well-designed infographic can convey complex ideas in a single frame.

The group I was a part of included journalists Nasr ul Hadi, Rajan Zaveri, Aayush Soni and my colleague at ITG Rohan Venkat. Our 'techies', who did much of the heavy lifting, were Piyush Kumar and Konark Modi. We were also joined by Yuan Lei, a journalism student from Shantou University in Guangdong. Since it's been such an important story in recent weeks, we looked at how rape cases in India are treated by 'the system'.

Before I get to our findings, I want to add a short note. We had just three hours to find data, organise it, clean it, 'query' it, and generate the visualisations. Not a lot of time. I'm sure a team working with more resources (particularly time) will draw more impactful conclusions. Our intention - since this was not a formal editorial process - was to start the conversation. We focused on three questions based on the data we had immediately available.



1. Adjusted for population, which states have the highest incidence of rape? 
For brevity's  sake, we called this 'rape probability'. In other words, how many rapes per thousand people. (Total reported rape cases/ State's Population x 1000).

Some states such as Mizoram appear to have an unusually high 'rape probability'. This may simply be because more rapes are reported, and not necessarily because women are more at risk. The national average was about 0.03 rapes per 1000 people.


2. If a rape case is reported in a state, how often does it result in a formal chargesheet? 
We called this 'chargesheet probability'. (Number of cases where charges are framed / Total reported cases x 100).

The clear outlier here is Manipur with just 9% of reported rapes ending in chargesheets. Is that only because of AFSPA? We cannot draw that conclusion until we know who the suspects are in each reported case. I also noticed an oddity. Three states - Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Tripura and Goa  - have 'chargesheet probabilities' higher than 100%. We didn't have time to find out why, so if someone out there could help in explaining that, I'd be grateful. The national average here was about 80%.


3. Finally, of the total reported cases, how many result in convictions? 
We called this 'conviction probability'. (No. of cases ending in convictions / No. of reported rapes x 100).

The outliers here are Nagaland and Sikkim with convictions secured in nearly 70% of cases that went to trial. Kerala was personally surprising with just a 2.7% conviction rate. The national average was about 18%.


Data sources: 2011 National Crime Records Bureau, National Census data

P.s. Even though we had the data, Google Fusion Tables would not generate visualisations for Jammu and Kashmir. It automatically marked the territory as 'disputed'. Oddly, while it marks Arunachal Pradesh with similar diagonal lines, we still get the data represented on a map. I have contacted the Help Team about this and will post an update if I get a reply. 

P.P.S Several states and U.Ts would show zero in their data fields. That's mostly because data was either unavailable or could not be reliably 'cleaned'. 

When Journalism & Public Opinion Don't Mix

The Hindu's articles on past events at the Line of Control have set of a storm. Some readers dismiss the reports as a fabricated lie. Others dismiss them as Rawalpindi's propaganda. Both groups hold the opinion that the reports were designed to demoralise India's armed forces. Analysis on the South Asian Idea (SAI) blog, for example, portrays the stories as going against India's "national interest'. It argues that the article plays into the hands of the enemy by diminishing our own forces' morale. 

This is an interestingly-phrased argument. The author of the SAI blogpost does not actually deny Indian forces have committed atrocities. Instead he or she argues that the act of revealing these atrocities is the real problem. I disagree wholeheartedly. 

Jaideep Prabhu has a very thoughtful take on this episode here. In a sort of 'preamble', he writes the following: 
"Unlike those offended by the article, I do not think that the events show the Indian Army in a bad light. Having studied conflicts over centuries, one accepts that tragedies occur when people with weapons under a lot of stress are put in extreme environments. This is not to impose an equality between India and Pakistan – the latter has acquired an international reputation for aiding and abetting terrorists while the former, us guys, may have problems but do not indulge in such activities. It is also incredibly obtuse to think that one side would not give as good as it gets, no matter what the orders are from HQ – unit cohesion would not last the week otherwise." 

I share Jaideep's opinions and tweeted something very similar last month. Now that you know where I stand on whether Pakistan gains any moral(e) advantage, let's move to the Hindu's coverage. 

I asked myself this question: If I had access to the the UNMOGIP documents and I was able to verify their authenticity, would I write about them? My answer was 'Yes'. When I reached that answer, I realised it did not matter how I got the documents. It could have been someone at the "Media Facility" as indicated in Major Lucero's first email to Jaideep; or another contact at the UN Headquarters in New York, where the Major indicated these documents were sent. In fact, as the SAI blogpost author suggests, the source may well have been the ISI's New Delhi station chief himself. 

Frankly, though, once I could confirm the documents were indeed from UNMOGIP, where I got them from was no longer important. The only thing that would matter is that I reported their contents in a balanced and responsible manner. Here's how I would do it. 

STEP ONE 
Since Pakistan's complaints were not been investigated, I would present their version as claims and allegations. Here's how The Hindu did it: 
"...The allegations, laid out in confidential Pakistani complaints to the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan..." 
"...The most savage cross-LoC violence Indian forces are alleged to have participated in..." 
"..The Pakistani military claimed to have recovered an Indian-made watch..." 
"...the Bandala massacre is alleged to have been carried out by irregulars backed by Indian special forces..." 
"...Indian troops, Pakistan alleged, killed a JCO... and three soldiers in a raid on a post in the Baroh sector..." 

There are at least four more instances where the word 'alleged' appears in the article. 

So here's an experiment: remove the words 'alleged' and 'claimed' each time they appear. As any practitioner of journalism, law or diplomacy will tell you, the meanings of the sentences would be dramatically altered. From one-sided allegations, they would become statements of fact. The Hindu has been very deliberate in not allowing this to happen. 

STEP TWO 
Approach the Indian government and armed forces for an official response. The Hindu approached the Ministry of Defence (which only responded after the report was published), the Ministry of External Affairs, a military spokesperson and an army officer who served in India's Northern Command when some of the incidents allegedly occurred. 

Here, it is important here to explain how this business of 'official comment' works. One individual who clearly has no reporting experience, reached some embarrassingly premature conclusions because of his lack of understanding of this process. Your source and the official spokesman are not always the same person. So, the source could well have been a disgruntled ministry staffer with access to the UNMOGIP files. While the spokesman who has no knowledge of the exchange of information with your source, would deny the story.

Sometimes it gets more complicated. It isn't unheard of for the spokesman to be your source, and yet simultaneously issue a denial on behalf of the ministry!

STEP THREE 
Write the story presenting the various allegations and responses. This step is the easiest. The hard part of journalism is the stuff you do before you sit down to write. It is the coaxing, convincing and cajoling of officials to hand over information you shouldn't have. Strike that, it's actually the many hours you spend drinking tea with them before you ever approach them for information. It is the dozens upon dozens upon dozens of pages of research you go through to understand the contours of the story. It is the meetings with editors to shape and direct your focus. All of that happens before pen is ever put on paper. 

As far as I am concerned, there is no doubt to the authenticity of the UNMOGIP documents. Jaideep found two of them while conducting his own research. Others are possibly still classified and therefore unavailable on the UN website.

Still, what is in doubt is the veracity of Pakistan's complaints contained therein. For my money, the writer has made this explicitly clear. To some this may sound like a load of journalese, but as any one who pays attention to linguistic details will tell you, that is where the devil lies.

China's String of e-Pearls?

(postwesternworld.com)

This Wednesday, ET reported that India's intelligence community was worried about Huawei's and ZTE's overtures to governments in South Asia. 

"The Research & Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency, raised an alarm in early December about China's growing partnerships in the region, which could potentially compromise the integrity of telecom and Internet communication between India and its neighbours." (Economic Times)

I couldn't quite put my finger on why the story bothered me when I first read it. Having met the reporter professionally, I know his sources are beyond reproach. But something still nagged away. Why does this not make sense? An email from a colleague this morning helped the penny drop. 

Here's the bit that that crystallised my thoughts:
"In a December 10 note, R&AW reported that the Maldives foreign affairs ministry had approached China for "concessional financing" of $60 million from its Export Import Bank to develop the island nation's IT infrastructure. The agency also reported that Chinese telecom giant Huawei had signed an MoU to develop the IT infrastructure of Maldives under the 'Smart Maldives' project.

The development in Maldives come months after the agency had warned of a similar move in Nepal, where Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE were installing next-gen networks for Nepal Telecom.... In a separate October 2012 report, the agency had also asked India to take counter measures after ZTE secured a $44-million deal to build four high-tech data centres for Nepal's privately held Ncell."

The concern R&AW has expressed about the "integrity of telecom & internet communication between India and its neighbours" seems to me a red herring. Why? Huawei is already India's biggest telecom equipment supplier. If our intelligence agencies were that worried about the integrity of networks, they’d have blocked Huawei from selling across India. Instead India has only blocked Huawei & ZTE from sensitive networks (many governments are doing this anyway). 

The real concern, as I see it, may be economic & diplomatic. China has been aggressively pursuing closer relations with India's neighbours by offering them huge ‘discounts’ as the ET story noted. Effectively, New Delhi has steadily lost influence in Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Now, even our (fairly mature) IT & telecom industires are losing out, after infrastructure companies got the boot earlier. To me, this is the real trigger for the R&AW note in December. I'd be very surprised if South Block actually bought the line about "integrity" of communications with foreign countries.