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By:

Parashram Patil

14 January 2026 at 8:49:45 pm

Crops of Conflict

As water and climate become instruments of geopolitical leverage, India has an opportunity to turn agricultural resilience into a new form of South-South diplomacy. Climate change is making an old truth harder to ignore: food security is national security. As water becomes scarcer, harvests more erratic and trade policies more protectionist, agriculture is moving from the margins of geopolitics to its centre. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where fragile food systems intersect with...

Crops of Conflict

As water and climate become instruments of geopolitical leverage, India has an opportunity to turn agricultural resilience into a new form of South-South diplomacy. Climate change is making an old truth harder to ignore: food security is national security. As water becomes scarcer, harvests more erratic and trade policies more protectionist, agriculture is moving from the margins of geopolitics to its centre. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where fragile food systems intersect with contested rivers, conflict and disrupted supply chains. For India, this presents not merely a humanitarian challenge but an opportunity to practise a more strategic form of food diplomacy. Clear Warning The Nile basin offers the clearest warning. Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia depend heavily on the river, directly or indirectly, for agriculture and livelihoods. Egypt obtains roughly 90-95 percent of its water from the Nile, with most of its withdrawals going to agriculture. Wheat, rice, maize and cotton are therefore inseparable from the country's water security. Sudan is similarly dependent on the Main Nile and its Blue and White Nile tributaries for crops including sorghum, wheat, cotton and sugarcane. Ethiopia, by contrast, relies much more heavily on rain-fed agriculture, but the Blue Nile remains crucial to its plans for agricultural and economic expansion. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has transformed this already delicate equation. The Blue Nile supplies roughly 85 percent of the Nile's runoff, giving Ethiopia substantial geographical leverage upstream. Egypt and Sudan, downstream and more dependent on the river, have consequently viewed the dam through the prism of food and water security. The dispute has its roots partly in the 1959 agreement that allocated Nile waters between Egypt and Sudan, but the rise of Ethiopia as a major upstream power has altered the political balance. The stakes are enormous. A disruption to water availability is not simply an environmental problem when millions depend on irrigated agriculture. It can affect food prices, livelihoods, migration and political stability. Across the basin, the consequences potentially extend to hundreds of millions of people. The lesson is straightforward: rivers can become geopolitical infrastructure, and crops can become strategic assets. Critical Role This is where India can play a useful role. Its longstanding diplomatic, commercial and maritime links with Africa give it an established platform. Its experience in producing wheat, rice and millets, meanwhile, gives it something more tangible: the ability to contribute to food-supply resilience. Egypt, for instance, remains heavily dependent on imports and is projected to require around 13 million tonnes of wheat imports to bridge its consumption gap. Sudan’s agricultural crisis is still more acute. Conflict and climate stress have sharply reduced cereal production, leaving output well below recent historical averages. India could therefore build food diplomacy around two complementary tracks. The first is supply. Predictable grain arrangements and strategic food buffers could help vulnerable countries absorb shocks in international markets. The second is technology. India's experience with micro-irrigation, precision farming and water-use efficiency offers tools that may help African farmers produce more with less water. The Per Drop More Crop component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana is one example. Drip irrigation, improved canal management, seepage reduction and precision agriculture cannot resolve a dispute over the Nile, but they can reduce the amount of water required to produce a given crop. For this to become a durable strategy, however, India will need to move beyond individual projects. Bilateral agricultural agreements with African countries could be converted into longer-term trade corridors and grain-supply arrangements. Multilateral platforms, including BRICS, could provide mechanisms for greater transparency in food distribution and market stabilisation. Seed exchanges could focus on drought-tolerant millets, biofortified wheat and heat-resistant maize suited to increasingly volatile climates. Indian private enterprise could be brought into this architecture. Agritech startups and Farmer-Producer Organisations could be encouraged to enter African markets through export-linked grants, incubation programmes and risk-sharing mechanisms. EXIM Bank credit lines and export guarantees could reduce the financial risks of deploying solar cold chains, irrigation systems and agricultural technologies in politically volatile markets. Public-private partnerships could also help Indian firms adapt AI-based crop advisory systems and IoT-enabled water sensors to African soils and farming practices. The larger opportunity is strategic. India’s relationship with Africa need not be confined to trade, infrastructure or diplomatic declarations. Agriculture offers a practical form of South-South cooperation in which food, technology and water efficiency reinforce one another. (The writer is a member of Maharashtra Agriculture Price Commission. Views personal.

The Iron Lady Goes to War

Writer: Kiran D. Tare
Kiran D. Tare
23 hours ago
3 min read

Sanjukta Parashar’s rise from Assam’s insurgency-hit districts to the frontline of India’s counter-insurgency apparatus marks a milestone in the long march of women into combat leadership.

Earlier this month, Sanjukta Parashar became the first woman to command the CRPF’s elite Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA). Her elevation to Inspector General of this specialized jungle-warfare force marks a watershed moment in the history of India’s internal security apparatus.

 

The appointment places the 2006-batch Indian Police Service officer at the helm of ten elite battalions whose operational identity is defined by long-range forest operations, counter-guerrilla strikes, and high-risk tactical deployments deep within hostile territory.

 

Her authority over this unforgiving landscape was not built in comfortable administrative corridors, but forged directly on the frontline. Well before her rise to national combat leadership, Parashar earned her spurs - as evinced by her moniker of the ‘Iron Lady of Assam’ - in the shadow of the Sonitpur forests.

 

Serving as Superintendent of Police between 2013 and 2014, she found herself at the epicentre of an aggressive campaign against the National Democratic Front of Bodoland. Over a relentless 15-month operational push, her forces neutralized 16 militants and executed the arrest of more than 60 insurgents. That campaign established her reputation as a formidable field officer who possessed not only tactical nerve, but a deep comprehension of the fluid boundaries between counter-insurgency warfare, local political complexities, and frontline survival.

 

Assam’s long history of insurgency demanded a unique of policing that required navigating difficult terrain while maintaining operational integrity. Sonitpur served as an early crucible for Parashar in the realities of asymmetric warfare – a task she completed with consummate skill and steely resolve.

 

She was tested for strategic depth when she transitioned to the National Investigation Agency, serving from 2017 to 2023. Rising from Superintendent of Police to Deputy Inspector General, she broadened her operational scope from forest patrols to complex counterterrorism networks.

At the NIA, she directed high-stakes national security investigations including the probe into the Madhya Pradesh train blast, mastering the painstaking work of unpicking clandestine webs, tracking terror finance, and assembling evidence that held up across state boundaries.

 

A subsequent tenure leading the Criminal Investigation Department of the Assam Police further consolidated her expertise, fusing hands-on tactical instincts with executive-level intelligence gathering and administrative leadership.

 

The timing of her appointment to head CoBRA carries substantial weight. CoBRA occupies a distinct and extraordinarily demanding position within India's security architecture. Its personnel remain central to ongoing anti-Naxal operations across the dense, landmine-rigged forests of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, while key battalions are deployed in Manipur to navigate volatile, multi-layered ethnic conflict in notoriously unforgiving terrain.

 

Operating where conventional policing cannot reach, CoBRA requires a leader capable of commanding absolute respect from troops trained for high-intensity, close-quarters combat – something which Parashar is admirably suited to given her experience.

 

The intellectual foundations of Parashar’s career were laid well before her first operational assignment. Born in October 1979, she completed her early education in Assam before moving to Delhi, where she earned a degree in Political Science from Indraprastha College for Women, followed by a Master’s and Doctorate in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her academic background has prepared her for a rigorous structural understanding of conflict, political economy and statecraft that informs her practical approach to internal security threats.

 

While six other female IPS officers currently serve as Inspector Generals across various CRPF formations leading sectors in Jammu, the Rapid Action Force, the Northeast, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, CoBRA had never, since its inception, been headed by a woman.

 

For young women considering careers in India’s police and paramilitary forces, the path to senior leadership has historically been shaped by institutional conventions and assumptions about the roles women can occupy. Parashar’s rise demonstrates that command of a specialised, combat-focused formation is no longer beyond the reach of a woman officer.

 

For the Iron Lady, heading CoBRA is a key posting in an already illustrious career marked by conspicuous success. For the women who may follow her, it is a glass ceiling that has been definitively shattered. Her appointment fundamentally redefines the narrative surrounding female command in India’s armed and paramilitary forces, proving that operational excellence knows no gender boundaries. 

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