MoD and IDSA No Longer Separate
At the recently concluded annual general body meeting of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), the flavour of the discussion was the think tank’s autonomy. The meeting discussed the resolution on renaming the institute, by affixing Manohar Parrikar to its existing nomenclature. The Narendra Modi government had changed the name last year itself without consulting the institute’s executive council. Later, the government left it to the general body to take the final call.
Since its inception in 1965, the IDSA has had a tenuous relationship with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that has suzerainty over the institute, but at the same time is expected to respect its autonomy. By the end of the annual general meeting (AGM) on 15 July, its autonomy might have taken a body blow by the decisions of the very members who are supposed to protect it. The soul of late K. Subrahmanyam, the architect of the IDSA’s structural relationship with the MoD, could be restless over the changes thrust upon his brainchild.