Author: Manish Chand

Putting South Asia first in his foreign policy calculus, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is heading on his first foreign trip to Bhutan, a nascent Himalayan democracy and a country that enjoys special time-tested relations with New Delhi.

After high-voltage, headline-hogging South Asia diplomacy, it’s time for the new government to infuse spark in India’s “Look Middle East” policy as it gets ready to host the foreign minister of Oman, the Gulf state which is home to 700,000 Indians who send home $3 billion in annual remittances.

“Out-of-box thinking.” Striking an upbeat note on the trajectory of India’s external engagements in the days ahead, India’s new external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj indicated innovative thinking could well be the mantra of the foreign policy of the new government in India.

Unveiling his desire to transform India-Pakistan relations, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held his first meeting with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and underlined the need for both countries to work together to fructify “the common agenda of development and revival.”

Days after he was elected with an overwhelming mandate to lead the world’s largest democracy, India’s prime minister-designate Narendra Modi has unfurled the South Asian dream as the leaders of SAARC countries have been invited by Delhi to attend his swearing-in ceremony next week.

India’s connect to Central Asia in the middle of the election fever in the country, as telescoped in the May 7-9 visit of Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh to Tajikistan, underlines the growing strategic importance of the resource-rich region.