India and the World

Modi’s high-speed diplomacy: 3 countries, 4 summits, 40 leaders in 10 days

- by Manish Chand

Three countries, four multilateral summits, meetings with over 40 leaders of the world, spanning continents and diverse geographies, including Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America and Pacific Region. And all this in 10 days! If this sounds like fantastic and humanly impossible, weigh in again. This is India’s speed diplomacy cruising along in high gear as Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads on a 10-day overseas tour that’s going to underline New Delhi’s commitment to multilateralism and its proactive thrust to shape an emerging world order.
Prime Minister Modi looks poised to display a deft multilateral diplomacy and reaffirm India’s commitment to multilateralism that was questioned by many after New Delhi stood globally marginalised following its refusal to play along with the Trade Facilitation Agreement at the WTO. In a departure statement ahead of his trip, PM Modi has summarised some key themes of his longest overseas trip. First, be spoke about multiple global challenges and underscored national development and resurgence as the driving force of India’s diplomacy.

By the time Mr Modi returns home, he would have met leaders of most of the world, spanning continents.

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Act East: New energy in India’s ASEAN journey

- by Manish Chand

Act East. It’s the flowering of the Asian Dream, and India’s burgeoning relations with the 10-nation ASEAN grouping are at the heart of this unfolding Asian resurgence. This win-win synergy and chemistry between India and ASEAN, home to economic vibrancy, innovation and enterprise, will be encapsulated in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s maiden trip to Myanmar November 11-14 to attend his first India-ASEAN summit and the 18-nation East Asia Summit.
Commerce, Culture and Creativity are the three pillars of India’s robust engagement with ASEAN. In the economic arena, the India-ASEAN relations are poised to scale new frontiers.
Under the new leadership in Delhi, India’s Look East policy has morphed into a proactive Act East policy, which envisages accelerated across-the-board engagement between the two growth poles of a vibrant Asia. This has been reflected in a spate of two-way visits in the first few months of the Modi government.
Looking ahead, the two sides will be exchanging notes on the next steps in their partnership in the form of the 2015-2020 action plan, which is expected to be firmed up and unveiled at the India-ASEAN summit next year.

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Multiple challenges await India’s new defence minister

- by India Writes Network

India’s new defence minister Manohar Parrikar will have to hit the ground running as he begins his tenure in South Block from November 10. From tensions on the unresolved borders with China and Pakistan to India’s embarrassing tag of being the world’s largest arms importer, he will have his hands full.
It has taken Prime Minister Narendra Modi over five months to appoint a full-time defence minister for the country. Parrikar, a grocer’s son and former Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) pracharak, is known to share a good personal rapport with Modi.
While his predecessor Arun Jaitley set the ball rolling, it will be Parrikar who will have to measure up to the challenging task of overseeing India’s operational military preparedness.
The task at hand for Parrikar is particularly onerous given that his predecessor A.K. Antony, who served as the defence minister for no less than eight years, was unwilling to take fast decisions and risks lest his image of ‘Mr Clean’ be sullied.

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With economy on rebound, Modi set for G20 summit debut

- by Manish Chand

Eight summits and six years after it was born in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, the upcoming G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, could be a milestone in fructifying some key initiatives to restore global economic growth and create the much-needed equilibrium in the global economic order.
For India, there will be a lot riding on how some of the expected outcomes shape up in the G20 joint declaration on November 16. Growth and job creation will be the twin focus of India’s business-friendly Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for whom the Brisbane summit will be his first G20 experience as well as his first major global outing with leaders of the world’s most advanced and emerging economies.
At a time when the economic growth across the world remains uneven and show stark asymmetries, India is going to the Brisbane summit on a high note, with a clear message that India will contribute substantially to the global economic growth in the years to come, and hence it makes sense for the world to be on the side of the India story and global economic resurgence.

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India & Bhutan: All-weather friends eye new horizons

- by Manish Chand

It’s set to be a unique year in the annals of the all-weather friendship between India and Bhutan. As President Pranab Mukherjee heads on his maiden trip to the strategically located Himalayan state early November, the timeless and exemplary relationship between the two fraternal neigbours will once again be in the spotlight. The presidential visit underlines a confluence of civilizational, economic and geostrategic imperatives that grounds special ties between the world’s largest and youngest democracies. 2014 is, therefore, set to be a watershed year as this is the first time the president and the prime minister of India would have visited this Himalayan nation, which prefers to measure its national wealth in terms of gross national happiness, within months of each other.
President Mukherjee’s forthcoming visit to Bhutan will build on these winning ideas and reinforce the template of B4B – Bharat for Bhutan and Bhutan for Bharat – which has been eloquently articulated by Prime Minister Modi. This idea of intertwined destinies has been aptly encapsulated by Bhutan’s king, who has said memorably: “My bond with India is for life, for it arises from two loves — my love for India and, my love for Bhutan and my people.” This sense of deep fraternal bonding and synergy of interests will endure amid the relentless flux of time and gain new force in days to come.

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India-Russia talks: Setting the stage for Putin’s visit to India

- by Manish Chand

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to be in India early December, much after India’s new prime minister would have held summit meetings with the leaders of the US, Japan, China and many other countries. Is Moscow going down a notch on India’s foreign policy radar under the new dispensation in New Delhi?
This kind of scepticism is voiced in some sections of the media and commentariat, but it would be a gross misreading of the Modi government’s foreign policy priorities. The fact that the Modi-Putin summit meeting is happening after other Modi’s headline-hogging meetings with world leaders does not mean anything; on the contrary it reflects enduring trust a comfort factor in the India-Russia relationship which has no parallel.
For Moscow remains pivotal to India’s core national interests, and the shifting geopolitical realities of the second decade of the 21st century is not going to change this plain fact. This centrality of Moscow’s place in India’s foreign policy calculus will be reflected in wide-ranging talks between Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in New Delhi November 5.

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