India’s Ocean Neighbourhood

The book is a narrative about the multi-dimensional importance of ocean neighbourhood for the economic growth and national security of India..

It stresses on the enormous resources hidden under the seabed of the two million sq.km Exclusive Economic Zone and in the huge water column over it. It also reminds the technological challenges ahead in this connection.

It argues that the ocean neighbourhood need to be integrated in the overall defence strategy. It emphasizes the strategic importance of Eight and Nine Degree Channels in the Lakshadweep Sea and the Six Degree Channel in Andaman Sea in the context of increasing Chinese belligerence in Indian Ocean. A naval blockade of these channels is a potential option available to defend Himalayan Border in any future crisis. Lakshadweep and Andaman & Nicobar Islands are unsinkable aircraft carriers.

The sovereignty and security of India are intertwined with the hold over Ocean Neighbourhood.

Publisher : VBIT ; Pages : 186 ;  Hardcover ;

Born in 1936 at Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, Sarvepalli Venkata Seshagiri Rao had his higher education at Osmania University, Hyderabad, and at IIT, Delhi.

For over three decades, he taught mathematics and

geophysics, supervised research in these and allied fields in Osmania University. He was guest scientist at the Geological Prospecting Institute, Moscow, and at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy in mid-1970s. He had a stint as professor of petroleum engineering at Al Fathe University, Tripoli, Libya, during 1981-82.

Prof.Rao has been a prolific writer on issues of national and social importance. His End of Communist Utopia and Political Islam in India received wide acclaim.