India and the Non-traditional Security Threats

Issues and Challenges

Abstract

The idea of security has drastically changed over time, especially in the post-Cold War period and emphasised has been shifted from traditional security threats to non-traditional security threats as far as nation-States in the contemporary world are concerned. The non-traditional security threats in its ambit include the non-State actors, terrorist networks, biological warfare, cyber-crime networks and the present COVID-19 pandemic other than food, water, internal security and environment issues which revolve around the human face of security. These were demarcated as new security threats or 'new-age threats' with a paradigm shift where India is not outside of its purview. Therefore, discourses and debates centering to non-traditional security approach have impacted the scenario of international relations and foreign policies of the nation-States of the world in general and India in specific. With the above, the paper tries to explore the variables of non-traditional security threats in the light of India's peculiar condition and discusses the related issues and challenges. It also discusses the meaning, definition, and conceptual framework of NTS, as a basis for discussion of India's typical non-traditional security problems in present days.