India needs to address its deficits: Army Chief General Rawat

New Delhi [India], May 4 (ANI): Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Thursday said India needed to address its four deficits, namely historic, economic, security and energy, before developing any strategic thought process and upgrade military in the nation. Speaking at a book release function, Rawat said India needed to identify its friends and start building alliance in order to circumvent any aggression adopted by its adversaries. "The first strategic deficit is the historical deficit that emerged after the Independence, the creation of India and Pakistan. India had reached till the Middle East, but with the creation of Pakistan, there was a break in the outreach. And to recreate that outreach we have to start looking at newer alliances," Rawat said. As the China is aggressively pursuing its 'One Belt and One Road' initiate, Rawat stressed on the need to review India's Act East Policy in order to counter any encirclement. "Now, we have again started looking towards the East, which is 'Look East' and finally, it is described as the 'Act East' policy is encirclement of the northern neighbour from the East. While we talk of our own encirclement, we have to start looking at how we carry out the counter encirclement of some of our future adversaries," he said. The Chief of Army Staff said India needed to focus on creating alliances, so that it could find its rightful place in the United Nations in the Security Council. Shifting his focus to the economic and security deficit, Rawat said misconceptions on growing budgetary allocations on military must be avoided as it helped in ensuring peace and stability along the borders. "I think we need to appreciate that defence and economy go hand in hand. Only strong military can help in ensuring stability along the borders and within the nation in your hinterland and that will help to develop your economy. This is the deficit, which remains while we are developing the economy that military somehow is not getting its due share which it deserves," he said. Highlighting on the need to address energy deficiency, Rawat said India needed to explore alternative energy resources, so that its dependence on oil is reduced. "We need to look at alternate sources of energy. The western nations are already looking at them. We have an abundance of solar and wind power for developing our own energy sources," he said. (ANI)