SAARC summit Kathmandu | India Writes

Messaging behind Modi-Sharif handshake: Keep guessing!

November 27, 2014July 25, 2015 - by Manish Chand

It may have lasted for a minute. But in the end, it was the warm handshake between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif that will remain the most enduring image and the most tweeted photo of the 18th SAARC summit in Kathmandu.
The ringing applause that followed the handshake between the leaders of India and Pakistan and the beaming faces at the end of the Kathmandu summit on November 27 said it all. In the end, despite the official disclaimer that the SAARC is not about India and Pakistan, it was clear that the eight-nation regional grouping can only take off if that handshake translates into a meaningful dialogue between the two estranged neighbours of South Asia.

In a sense, the hype about the Modi-Sharif handshake, with television news channels hysterically speculating 24×7 about a possible meeting between the two leaders which did not happen, also ironically underlines diminishing expectations about the India-Pakistan relations that remain eternally enmeshed in mutual recriminations and the thick fog of suspicion.

New energy in SAARC: Summit salvaged as India, Pakistan PMs smile

November 27, 2014November 27, 2014 - by Manish Chand

In diplomacy, a seemingly impossible situation can change dramatically in a few hours’ time. And so it was with the 18th SAARC summit. The jamboree of the South Asian leaders was dismissed till last night as a no-show till some fresh air and spirited talk among leaders at a resort town outside the mountain city of Kathmandu reversed the gloom and doom narrative, with SAARC signing a potentially defining pact on sharing electricity.
As the curtains came down on the two-day SAARC summit, the optics of the summit had changed radically, with the leaders of India and Pakistan warmly shaking hands after the leaders unanimously adopted the Kathmandu Declaration that outlined a reasonably doable agenda for intensifying multifarious cooperation across the spectrum.
India, which was looking visibly disappointed at the stalling of the three SAARC pacts on energy, road and rail connectivity by Pakistan, heaved a sigh of relief with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif finally going along with other SAARC leaders to give his assent to the pact on creating a regional power grid.
In the end, it was the relaxed and informal interaction among leaders at the retreat at Dhulikhel, an idyllic resort town located nearly 30 km away from the capital Kathmandu, that did the trick. The view of the majestic Himalayas may have helped clear the air.

Amid China’s SAARC embrace, India flags off Enhanced South Asia policy

November 27, 2014November 27, 2014 - by Manish Chand

Amid China’s moves to deepen its foray into the region, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repositioned India in the leadership role in the SAARC, with a clear message that India will move ahead with regional integration, with or without SAARC. In fact, India’s ‘enhanced’ South Asia diplomacy is set for a major upsurge with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay travelling to the country early next year and Mr Modi planning bilateral trips to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives in the coming months.
Refreshingly, India is unfazed by Pakistan’s negativity and is set to galvanize its South Asia diplomacy by backing words with deeds. This enhanced South Asia policy will be reflected in a spate of two-way visits.
Apart from accelerating commerce and connectivity with South Asian countries, India will also be looking to deepen strategic and security ties with South Asian neighbours, which has acquired a new urgency with China deepening its footprints in India’s periphery.

Converting SAARC sceptics: Modi says it’s time to act and make dreams flower

November 26, 2014November 26, 2014 - by Manish Chand

It’s time to make a new beginning in South Asia and convert cynicism and skepticism shadowing the SAARC grouping into a ripe field of opportunity through deeper integration and freer movement of goods, people and dreams. This was the overarching message of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s debut speech at the SAARC summit in the Nepali capital as he unveiled new unilateral initiatives in areas of education, business, public health and IT, and offered to launch a SAARC satellite by 2016.
The prime minister spelt out the five pillars that underpin India’s vision for the region, which includes trade, investment, assistance, cooperation in every area, contacts between people – and, all through seamless connectivity.
In his speech, Mr Modi, who is attending a SAARC summit for the first time, provided a trenchant prognosis of what ails the 8-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, and exhorted the SAARC leader to convert cynicism into a new narrative of hope and opportunity to bind the region together in an intimate mesh of trading, rail, road and air links.

Raising the bar for SAARC: Building Bridges, Linking Dreams

November 25, 2014November 25, 2014 - by Manish Chand

Intertwined Destinies, Interlinked Dreams – expressions like these may appear ornate clichés for sceptics, but in reality it would be an understatement to underscore the enormous stakes each country has in fructifying immense potential of the region. India, the largest economy and the most populous country in the region, is an idealist as well as a realist in its ongoing efforts to revitalise the SAARC as the preeminent forum of regional cooperation and integration. For the India Story can’t be delinked from the state of South Asia, its choices and its conflicts and its surging hopes and aspirations.
In an imaginative initiative, Prime Minister Modi has called for jointly developing a SAARC satellite that could become a powerful symbol of regional solidarity and a realistic vehicle of providing the much-needed data for averting natural disasters and meteorological data to optimise agriculture potential of individual economies and the region. Initiatives like these show that the SAARC grouping, if it wants to, is ready to move into a different orbit, literally as well as metaphorically.
It’s time to raise the sights, dream big and prove that even the sky is not the limit for regional integration.

It’s time for South Asia: Pitching SAARC into higher orbit

November 24, 2014November 25, 2014 - by Manish Chand

It’s a gloriously sunny day, the kind of weather that should stimulate imagination and inspire some out-of-box thinking in leaders of South Asian countries, who will gather in the Nepali capital to invigorate a 29-year old regional grouping that is still itching to take off.
The summitry atmospherics can be felt everywhere in Kathmandu, with colorful banners proclaiming the tag line of the 18th SAARC summit: “Deeper Integration for Peace, Progress and Prosperity.” The theme song encapsulates in a miniature the abiding mastertheme of the November 28-29 summit, and the driving impulse of the SAARC process itself. And rightly so.
In a way, All eyes will be on Mr Modi’s SAARC debut and his vision for raising the bar for the SAARC dream. Home to vibrant and emerging democracies, growing economies, and home to 1.7 billion people and major religions of the world, South Asia has all the makings of a regional dynamo itching for its place under the global sun. It’s time for the leaders of the region to put a stop to endless visions and revisions and take firm and decisive steps to pitch the SAARC into a higher trajectory.