The author sums up Australia's neglect of the world's largest democracy, which is also in Australia's region, very accurately.

Given the siting in the Indian Ocean of:

- Australia's main submarine base (Fremantle)

- main approach route for refugees,

- main large neighbour (Indonesia), and

- main source of oil

the Indian Ocean should not be relagated by those in Austrralia's eastern states as a Western Australia, NT issue.

Pete

So what if Perth is closest to some Indian port then Sydney is to Shanghai? talk about inane crap. And as for India being the 'worlds biggest democracy' tell the Indian women that- the only place on Earth besides Afghanistan where women die before men- around 40 years old currently. India has an appalling human rights and environmental record, something they share with their neighbour, China, along with overpopulation because slave labour is cheap. Both coun tries are dictatorships where corruption is rife, both having amongst the highest per capita billionaires in the world.As for selling uranium to India to make bombs, does this 21 year old have any education at all? Have'nt you heard of Fukushima? The Japanese PM said this week on Hiroshime August 6 that japan would be phasing nuclear energy as a result of this year's catastrophe of nuclear meltdown. The thing that surprised me was the authors oversight of mentioning the great cricketing ties between Australia and India, being former British colonies and all.

India is the ranking Superpower in our, South-Asian region, it is building a naval fleet that will, when complete, be capable of projecting the same level of force in the Indian Ocean as the US can. India is also a vital defence partner for Australia, being capable, in the near future, of achieving force parity with China.

There is also a serious "cold-war" going on at present, there is a massive arms race between India and China in our region, while the USA & China are involved in another in the Pacific region (which we sit on the edge of). Afghanistan and the fight with Pakistani proxies in both India & Afghanistan should be viewed as symptoms of this. China is providing massive amounts of advanced weapons and equipment to Pakistan, in order to pressure the Indians (and us). The marxist rebels in Nepal/Northern India are funded and equipped by China directly.

But India has been our ally since before federation. Indian Army units were decimated (and worse) at Gallipolli and in the campaigns in the middle east during WWI, and Australian troops fought beside Indian Army troops in WWII (and in Singapore & Malaya after that). India, unlike Pakistan, is a valued member of the Commonwealth (it isn't providing arms, training and refuge to those fighting Commonwealth nations, unlike Pakistan) and deserves our support.

As for idiotic comment above, that India is somehow more repressive than Pakistan, look up Balochistan and genocide, that is what the Pakistani government represents.

...I would suggest a deeper meaning behind the new infatuation of the West with India. India, with an appallingly lagging and State owned infrastructure, notable for its entrenched corruption; by Western standards measures up to a one billion person slum.
A country where, for example, over half of electricity produced is stolen; amounting to 1.5% of GDP; where so entrenched is corruption, the Swiss Banking Association estimates puts India on top of the world wide list for black market money, with an estimated $1.5 trillion stashed in Swiss bank accounts: or 13 times its external national debt.

...Obviously, the real story behind the West sharing the joy stick with India, will be read between the lines!

...Maybe I should develop the invisable writing between the lines. If all the corrupt black Indian money held in swiss bank accounts were returned to India, India would be the second most wealthy nation on earth: next to the USA (so the estimates go)! Ah, so now we all see a new reality...