Indian Foreign Policy

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Kashi
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Kashi »

arun wrote:I wonder what the PRC Spokesperson meant when she said “The UN Security Council has explicit regulations on whether India can develop ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.”?:
Probably this
http://www.un.org/press/en/1998/sc6528.doc.htm
United Nations Security Council resolution 1172, adopted unanimously on 6 June 1998, after hearing of nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan in May 1998, the Council condemned the tests and demanded that both countries refrain from engaging in further tests.
This could be what PRC propagandist was referring to.
"7. Calls upon India and Pakistan immediately to stop their nuclear weapon development programmes, to refrain from weaponisation or from the deployment of nuclear weapons, to cease development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and any further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, to confirm their policies not to export equipment, materials or technology that could contribute to weapons of mass destruction or missiles capable of delivering them and to undertake appropriate commitments in that regard;

"8. Encourages all States to prevent the export of equipment, materials or technology that could in any way assist programmes in India or Pakistan for nuclear weapons or for ballistic missiles capable of delivering such weapons, and welcomes national policies adopted and declared in this respect;
Anyway, some one tell the PRC jokesperson that these resolutions are redundant and most aspects do not apply since the NSG waver and MTCR membership.
Paul
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Paul »

http://www.vifindia.org/article/2016/de ... cy-in-2016
A Score Card for India's Foreign Policy in 2016
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Amb Kanwal Sibal, Dean, Centre for International Relations and Diplomacy, VIF
India continued its vigorous diplomacy in 2016 under Prime Minister Modi’s leadership. Modi’s aspiration to make India a “leading power” by overcoming the challenges it faces and the opportunities it offers was pursued during the year with characteristic energy and pragmatism. He continued to deliver a message to the outside world of a strong, confident and purposeful leadership in New Delhi, with ambitious political, security and economic objectives for the country. He continued to enlarge India’s foreign policy options, with a show of assertiveness when needed and a capacity to adapt policies as required.
Ties with the US deepened during the year. Modi met Obama five times during 2016 either on bilateral visits or in multi-lateral settings. Such top-level engagement was a product of good chemistry as well as geopolitical and economic motivations on both sides. Modi was invited to address the US Congress, a gesture that acquired extra meaning as he had been denied this opportunity on an earlier visit. Apart from indicating growing bipartisan support for the India relationship in the US Congress, this invitation also symbolically sealed political acceptance of Modi as India’s leader. Defence ties continued to expand during the year, reflecting our rising political trust in the US. Additional orders for defence equipment were placed. More significantly in terms of its connotations, the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement was signed, with which India broke with traditional thinking on this type of a military relationship with a foreign power. The US declared India a Major Defence Partner, a designation that obtained a legal basis with Obama signing the relevant US legislation in late December. The respective defence ministers of the two countries also reached an understanding of the practical implications of this designation with Ashton Carter’s December visit to India. The US had been pushing India on climate change issues, with Obama viewing a global agreement on climate change a legacy issue. Modi astutely extracted India from a position of being viewed as an obstacle by working constructively with the US while strengthening claims for technology and financial transfers from the developed world by initiating a Global Solar Alliance and adopting hugely ambitious renewable energy targets for India.
As part of shoring up India’s global role, India strongly pushed for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in 2016. Risking uncertainties, Modi did not fight shy of personally lobbying for it with various world leaders. India’s efforts proved abortive in the face of China’s persistent opposition. That China was allowed to rebuff India in a body founded by the US in response to India’s 1974 peaceful nuclear explosion showed the compromises and contradictions at play in US management of its relations with both China and India. In areas of greater geopolitical interest to it, the US seeks to mobilise India against China’s power play, but in areas of less critical interest, it is averse to countering China for India’s sake. India, however, obtained membership of the Missile Technology Control Group during the year.
In 2016, India continued to grapple with the difficulty of working at two levels with China, that of countering its challenges at the bilateral and regional levels and cooperating on issues where the interests of the two converge. Modi met Chinese president Xi Jinping three times in 2016- at the SCO, G-20 and BRICS summits, but despite such highest level engagement, the atmosphere of India-China relations deteriorated over the course of the year. China’s made its strategic intentions towards India more visible- that of curbing the momentum of India’s rise to global status as much as possible, and even more openly circumscribing it regionally through Pakistan. It exhibited its strategic spite by persistently opposing India’s NSG membership despite its material consequences for India being limited, as well as preventing the designation of Masood Azhar of the Jaish-e-Mohamed (JeM) as an international terrorist by the relevant UN Security Council Committee. It was undeterred by the negative message it conveyed about China being out of step with the international community on the need to collectively combat the menace of terrorism. China obviously believes that it can bear the cost of hardened negative perceptions about China in India. Not surprisingly, therefore, India disregarded China’s imperious position on maritime issues in the South China Sea and in joint statements with the US, Japan and Vietnam underlined the need to show utmost respect to UNCLOS in addressing them. To increase its political space in dealing with an assertive China, India allowed pro-democracy Chinese dissidents to meet in Dharamsala in April 2016, besides allowing the Karmapa to visit Tawang in November and the US ambassador in Delhi before that in October. The Dalai Lama’s own visit to Arunachal Pradesh was announced for March 2017. The invitation to him to attend a Rashtrapati Bhawan event in December was part of a new and necessary political messaging to China about the need for mutual respect for each others concerns. At the same time, India encouraged Chinese investments in India which showed an upward curve in 2016.
Relations with Pakistan, always tension-ridden, entered into a deeper trough than before in 2016. Pakistan’s terrorist felonies against India continued with the attack against the Pathankot air base in January and against military camps in Uri (September) and Nagrota (November). Burhan Wani’s killing in July saw Pakistan seeking to add fuel to the fire in J&K, with Nawaz Sharif vaunting him as a martyr and denouncing India at the UNGA. These habitual Pakistani provocations forced Modi to react by sowing seeds of a policy that opens up hitherto unexploited pressure points against Pakistan. Modi’s reference to Balochistan in his Independence Day speech was a warning, reinforced by Sushma Swaraj’s allusion to Balochistan in her UNGS speech. Modi changed our predictable response to Pakistani sponsored terrorist attacks by publicly announcing “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control (LOC) in retaliation for the Uri attack. This opened up space not explored before to deal with the terrorist weapon Pakistan uses against India, though our lack of reaction after Nagrota introduced some confusion about our resolve to continue punishing Pakistan by kinetic action across the LOC. Modi announced our intention to exercise our full rights under the Indus Waters Treaty, for which the first inter-ministerial meeting was convened. The regular meetings of the Indus Waters Commissioners were called off. Pakistan has not been earlier put on notice in this manner at the level of the Indian Prime Minister on the highly emotive waters issue.

Isolating Pakistan diplomatically on the terrorism issue became a declared policy in 2016. Some progress was made in this regard with the boycotting of the SAARC summit in Islamabad in November. At the Amritsar Heart of Asia conference on Afghanistan in December, Pakistan was attacked frontally by the Afghan president for providing safe havens to the Taliban. India was able to obtain for the first time a reference to the LeT and the JeM in the declaration issued by this forum. India’s diplomacy with key Gulf countries on the terrorism issue garnered success during the year. Modi made successful visits to Saudi Arabia and Qatar in 2016, with the Qatar Prime Minister returning the visit in December and the invitation extended to the UAE Sheikh to be Chief Guest at R-Day 2017. India was able to consolidate the breach on the terrorism issue with these countries in 2016. This has significance in the Pakistani context.

2016 saw turbulence in India-Nepal ties flowing from the fall-out in India of the crisis created by the promulgation of a constitution for the country that was contested by a section of its population. With the removal of prime minister Oli and his replacement by Prachanda - who chose to make his first foreign visit first to Indi - matters improved, But the China factor continued to cast a shadow on India-Nepal relations. Nepal and China announced the holding of a first ever joint military exercise in February next year. In November Bangladesh received the first of the two submarines it had contracted from China. In August, Sri Lanka signed the Colombo Port City Development Project with China under a new name- the Colombo International Financial City - which underlined the strategic inroads China continues to make in our neighbourhood.

Modi’s visit to Iran in May 2016 when the geopolitically important Chabahar port agreement was signed by Iran, India and Afghanistan was important in terms of expanding our presence and interests in this region to our west. The visits of the presidents of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to India in December reinforced our outreach to Central Asia with which we have shared concerns about terrorism and extremism. Egypt remains a key player on the chessboard of West Asian politics, which made president Al Sisi’s visit to India in September significant, including in the context of the need to collectively combat the threat from extremist ideologies represented by the Islamic State.

Our Act East policy received a boost with a successful India-Japan summit in November that saw the signing of the civil nuclear agreement between the two countries, and Modi’s visit to Vietnam in September. Following the India- Africa summit in New Delhi in 2015 Modi’s visit to South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya in July maintained the momentum of our ties with Africa.

A disquieting development in 2016 was a shift in Russia’s policy towards Pakistan and Afghanistan. The 17th India-Russia summit in October in Goa saw the announcement of major defence and energy related agreements, the two core areas of India-Russia ties. While this maintained the momentum of this vital relationship, it did not remove misapprehensions that crept in during the year about some aspects of Russian policies towards Pakistan and Afghanistan. Russia held military exercises with Pakistan in September, soon after the Uri attack, which was untimely. Reports surfaced about Russia’s intelligence chief visiting Gwadar. Its diplomatic representatives gave legitimacy to the Taliban as a political force in their statements. Its presidential envoy for Afghanistan ignored Indian sensitivities and displayed a pro-Pakistan bias in some of his statements at the Amritsar conference. Russia has initiated a trilateral dialogue with China and Pakistan on Afghanistan. China’s deepening support for Pakistan, coupled with Russia’s increasing engagement of Islamabad has implications for our efforts to isolate Pakistan on the issue of terrorism.
It is evident that vigorous diplomacy does not necessarily mean that a country can achieve all its goals, as other countries too pursue their own interests. The current flux in international is shifting geopolitical cards and our diplomacy has to adjust to these developments. With that in view 2016 was on the whole a successful year for Indian foreign policy.
(The author is a former Foreign Secretary)
Austin
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Austin »

China, India show interest in North-South corridor: Azerbaijani FM
BAKU (Sputnik) – China, India and other South and Southeast Asian countries have shown interest in the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) that will link Central Asia, Iran, the Caucasus region, Europe and Russia via a rail and shipping route, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said Tuesday.

"At my meetings with the representatives of China, India and other South, Southeast Asian countries, they showed great interest in this project [INSTC], which is advantageous both economically and in terms of time and are looking forward to the launch of the route," the minister was quoted as saying by the local AZERTAC news agency.


The Qazvin-Rasht-Astara railway line between Iran and Azerbaijan, which is now being constructed, will be an important part of the INSTC, the minister added. The INSTC project envisages the construction of transport and infrastructure facilities along the shipping route through India, Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia and North Europe.

The project is aimed at reducing the costs and the time of railroad and maritime deliveries between the countries located along the route. The agreement on the INSTC project was signed in 2012. Among the signatories and acceding countries are Russia, Iran, India, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Oman and Syria. Bulgaria has an observer status in the project.
Bhurishravas
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Bhurishravas »

India should work to integrate with southeast Asia.
The islamic states west of India are unreliable. Be it Iran, Gulf, Azerbaijan or central asian states. Prioritising west asian and central asian states over South East Asian states is an unwise policy imho. The west needs realpolitik and machtpolitik before economics.
The investments in Iran(Chahbahar) or in Afghanistan are as good as lost without sufficient machtpolitik to guard them.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by svinayak »

India’s Foreign Policy Challenges For 2017 – Analysis
Indian foreign policy can never be crafted in a vacuum or delusionary Non-Alignment-ism or the much hackneyed “Strategic Restraint” mantra of yesteryears. Geopolitical dynamics would force India toexercise strategic alignment options with no luxury of hedging strategies or preaching multilateralism like China which while sermonising on the same behaves autocratically with its neighbours including India.

Imperceptibly and incrementally, but surely, India seems to have already exercised its strategic alignment preference in favour of the United States. India being designated as a ‘Major Defence Partner’ by USA and the various logistics access and interoperability agreements agreed upon testify to the enhanced strategic partnership between USA and India.

Both in India and the United States bipartisan strong support exists for the US-India Strategic Partnership. With that is as a given, India should expect that the same would continue even under the Trump Administration. Any contrary rhetoric during the Trump campaign trail needs to be discounted including his recent laudatory reverences in his telephonic conversation with Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif.

The challenge for Indian foreign policy establishment in 2017 as regards the United States will rest more on higher strategic expectations and call that the Trump Administration would have on India as the United States gets tough with China and the resultant strategic fall-out from the same.

India may not be a full military alliance partner of the United States but the attendant circumstances which impelled the evolution of the US-India Strategic Partnership was the ‘China Threat’ factor and there is no point in being in denial on it. As a major ‘Strategic Partner’, the military expectations are the same as those from a military alliance partner. India’s challenge therefore in 2017 is not only to reinforce its strategic links with the United States but also prepare its diplomatic contingency plans to deal with the fall-out of the new ‘China Policy’ of the United States in the offing. Concomitant with the foregoing is the military imperative for India to upgrade its war=preparedness and fill the voids in its military inventories.

There is no point in India pretending that it can continue to be a neutral observer when the chips are down between USA and China. China can be expected to use India as a pressure point against the United States even without any military provocations by India. China has not forgiven India for moving into the American strategic orbit.

China will present the biggest foreign policy challenge in 2017 and the ensuing years basically arising from the more assertive policies of the United States in the Asia Pacific specifically and Indo Pacific Asia in general. China has fumed in various ways at the growing strategic proximity of India with the United States. This will intensify as the Trump Administration is unlikely to exercise strategic restraint with China in face of growing Chinese military brinkmanship in East Asia and on its peripheries, including India.

The China challenge to India’s foreign policy establishment gets magnified additionally with the China-Pakistan Axis getting substantially reinforced as a result of geopolitical changes adverse to China. Pakistan with China’s military encouragement would tend to adopt more provocative and adversarial postures against India. India should expect a surge in terrorist attacks emanating from Pakistan.

The inescapable conclusion rising from the above is that the propensity of the Indian foreign policy establishment to initiate unilateral political reachout to both China and Pakistan will no longer be valid. India needs to realise that the ‘Pakistan Threat’ to India in recent years is being fuelled more by China. China is the major, potent and long-range threat to India. No scope exists for Indian diplomacy to dilute the ‘China Threat’ and the now China-added ‘Pakistan Threat’ to India.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by svinayak »

http://www.gatewayhouse.in/indian-forei ... igm-shift/
Indian foreign policy: a paradigm shift?

In assessing Modi’s foreign policy it is important to appreciate that the pace of change in global affairs has picked up speed. Past ideological rivalries have been substituted by challenges to democracies like India and the US from one-party states, such as China; so-called “illiberal democracies”, such as Russia; and the rise of right wing parties in Europe.

The weight of economic growth has tilted further east as India has become the fastest growing large economy. The much larger Chinese economy continues to grow, though at a slower pace, while the West stagnates. And now, the election of Trump in the US has started to change the global paradigm in profound ways even before he has taken office.

Indicating the importance of foreign policy, especially Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), in his vision of domestic economic development, every foreign visit that the practical Modi has undertaken has been a search for FDI, energy security, and cooperation against terrorism.

Modi is different from his predecessors, who sought to advance India’s interests in the environment that confronted them: he projects India as a “leading power” and seeks to shape the global context itself. He has done this by working assiduously to transform India’s relationship with the U.S., which remains the largest economy in the world, has, by far, the strongest military capability, the most numerous allies, and an unmatched ecosystem for technological excellence in the world.

Modi’s turn to the US dovetails with Obama’s rebalance to Asia as both are concerned about China’s strategic expansion in Asia on the back of its continued economic advancement.

His skill lies in the specific and coherent matching of India’s objectives and strategies with those of his interlocutors, taking into account the changing circumstances of the partner country. For instance, growing Japanese concerns, caused by China, have provided the backdrop to Japan’s outreach to India to the extent of overcoming its deep-seated reservations on nuclear issues and signing the India-Japan civil nuclear agreement. This agreement will enable U.S. multinationals, GE and Westinghouse, part- owned by Japanese MNCs, such as Mitsubishi, Hitachi and Toshiba, to engage in nuclear commerce with India eight years after signing the original agreement with the U.S.

Similarly, Modi has strengthened the maritime partnership with Australia in the Indo-Pacific. Even his seemingly random visits to Mongolia, which wants Indian investments, was to obtain uranium. He also used New Zealand and Ireland’s desire to promote tourism from India to seek their support for India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Modi has articulated a coherent Indian Ocean strategy by visiting all the Indian Ocean island nations at one go. He did the same framing of regional strategy by visiting all five Central Asian republics in one trip, lending coherence to our outreach to these oil-rich nations. Likewise, he has injected vigour into the ‘Look East’ strategy of his predecessors by renaming it ‘Act East’ and speeding up connectivity through Myanmar.

Modi has given the Indian diaspora much more prominence than his predecessors did through high-profile outreach, especially in developed countries. He has consistently invited FDI and high-technology and encouraged them to use their political access with their governments to expand relations with India. At the same time, this government has been persistent in trying to ensure the security of Indian labour in the Gulf countries, including well orchestrated rescues of stranded workers from Libya and Yemen.

But the greatest difference between Modi and those who have preceded him lies in his being a risk taker. He has undertaken the very public sharpening of the tilt towards the U.S. through the signing of a U.S.-India Joint Strategic Statement for the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean region in 2015 and increasing defence purchases to the point of commencing programmes for co-development and co-production of hi-tech weapon systems.

To take the edge off the opposition’s criticism of this tilt to the U.S., Modi has worked hard to ensure that the Indian public understands that diplomacy and negotiations are a matter of both give and take. Thus, he has not been reticent either in reciprocating American gestures by altering long held Indian positions in WTO trade talks and on climate issues while also risking the ire of China, which interprets Indo-US cooperation as intended to constrain its dominance, especially in Asia.

Similarly, 70 years after rejecting the creation of Israel at the UN, given India’s opposition to the emergence of new countries based on religion because of its own partition, Modi is not only proud to acknowledge that Israel is now India’s third largest supplier of hi-tech defence equipment, but also that shortly, he will become the first Indian prime minister to make a bilateral visit.

An equally sharp policy departure has been the way Modi has approached India’s most difficult neighbours, reaching out to both China and Pakistan. Relations with China are more complex than ever because it is now a peer competitor of the U.S. While China works with India for a plurilateral world, it is offended by any challenge that it views India as posing to its dominance in Asia. So, India and China cooperate on global issues, such as trade and climate change, and have collaborated in BRICS in the creation of the New Development Bank and the China-led Asian Investment and Infrastructure Bank. But when it comes to India’s oil exploration in Vietnamese waters in the South China Sea, the India-U.S.-Japan joint naval exercises there, the Joint Vision statement with the U.S., and the nuclear agreement with Japan, China is vociferously critical.
svenkat
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by svenkat »

http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/chandrashekhar-dasgupta-raising-the-heat-on-climate-change-114070701144_1.html
Raising the heat on climate change
Contrary to his claims, Jairam Ramesh weakened the pillars on which India's negotiating position rested
India's stand in the climate negotiations rests on three pillars. First, the atmosphere is a global resource and every human being has an equal right to the resource (the per capita principle). There is an optimum range of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. Without a certain minimum level, life could not have existed on the planet, but exceeding the optimum range carries the risk of climate change.


Second, it follows that developed countries, which have exceeded their per capita share, are responsible for causing climate change and should commit to reducing their emissions. Developing countries can have no emission commitments while their per capita emissions are still low and their emissions will increase as they strive for inclusive development.

Third, the emission reductions of developed countries should be periodically reviewed. Review or "verification" cannot apply to voluntary national actions of developing countries that have no emission limitation commitments under the climate change convention. For these countries, there can be "verification" only in the case of projects that are financially supported by an international agency, where the recipient country has contractual obligations.

"Review", "verification" or "consultation" of unsupported national measures imply an international commitment and their acceptance by developing countries would open a door to the conversion of voluntary national actions to treaty commitments. There is no real parallel with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or International Monetary Fund (IMF) dialogues or consultations, since we have certain obligations or commitments under those regimes, unlike the climate regime.

During his controversial stewardship of the environment ministry, Ramesh weakened each of the three pillars.

He began by undermining the third pillar - our position on "verification". In his June 17 article, Ramesh recounts how he took the initiative in the Copenhagen meeting to propose that the unsupported, voluntary national actions of developing countries could be subjected to "international consultations". In fact, Ramesh had gifted this concession to his US interlocutors in New York months before Copenhagen, while keeping his own negotiators in the dark - as I discovered in a preliminary round of negotiations in Bangkok in October 2009. The following extract from my report to the government tells the story.

"Early in the session, I had occasion to explain our position on 'verification' of independent NAMAs [Non-Agricultural Market Access negotiations] on the lines of our brief. The US delegate, Jonathan Pershing, took the floor to question my statement, claiming that it was at variance with recent statements made by our minister in New York! I responded by suggesting that delegates should speak on behalf of the governments they represent and refrain from seeking to interpret the positions of other governments…During a subsequent bilateral meeting with the US delegation we were informed in clear terms that the US interprets our minister's offer of a WTO-like 'dialogue' as covering all the essential elements of 'verification'."

Ramesh replied somewhat vaguely that his statements had been "misinterpreted perhaps deliberately in Bangkok". However, in an interview to Nitin Sethi on the eve of the Copenhagen conference, he came out in favour of a "consultative process in the IMF/WTO sense of the term" for unsupported national actions of developing countries (TNN, December 5, 2009). When I sought a clarification, the minister said these actions "will be for consideration only by the UNFCCC…it will not be scrutinised" (UNFCCC: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). On December 7, Sitaram Yechury asked Ramesh in the Rajya Sabha to explain what he meant by "for consideration". Ramesh initially tried to duck the question by saying that it "will be defined by the UNFCCC" but, pressed more closely for an explanation, he assured the House that it only meant "for information".

Ramesh finally revealed his true colours in the last hours of the Copenhagen conference. As he himself recounts, at President Obama's meeting with leaders of the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) group, Ramesh offered to subject the unsupported, voluntary national actions of developing countries to "international consultation". The US side had, however, already pocketed this concession in their earlier meetings with Ramesh and they now asked for more. In the end, Ramesh conceded "international consultation and analysis". The reader may judge whether this honoured the minister's assurance to Parliament, or the assurances he had offered earlier to his American interlocutors in New York.

Next year, at the Cancun conference, Ramesh took the axe to the two other pillars of the Indian stand. Departing from the prepared text, he declared, "All countries, we believe, must take on binding commitments under appropriate legal forms". This implied that India was ready to convert its voluntary national targets into internationally binding commitments in an "appropriate" legal form. Facing a storm of protest on his return, the minister sought to explain away his statement by claiming that by "appropriate legal form" he only meant domestic legislation. He did not explain why he had not the used the simple phrase "domestic legislation" in his speech instead of an elaborate formulation with a very different connotation.

Finally, Ramesh turned his attention to the all-important per capita principle. Ramesh had assured MPs, in a circular letter of October 6, 2009, that the "equal per capita entitlement principle is the only legitimate internationally acknowledged measure for reflecting equity". However, Ramesh chose to jettison the standard Indian formulation at Cancun and replace it with a totally meaningless phrase - "equitable access to sustainable development". This reduced to gibberish a well-understood principle in the negotiations. Justifying this move, Ramesh claims in his recent article that the new formulation was "superior to the phrase 'equitable access to carbon space', which somehow connotes a fundamental 'right to pollute"'. He deliberately distorts the Indian formulation, which refers to the "atmospheric resource", not "carbon space"; opposes all claims to a "right to pollute"; and which also explains that carbon dioxide per se is not a pollutant and that the climate problem arises only from excessively high per capita emissions. If all countries had the same carbon footprint as India, the world would not have faced a climate change problem.

Reciprocal flexibility and mutual concessions are essential features of any negotiation. However, offering one concession after another without obtaining - or even seeking - reciprocal concessions to protect one's vital national interests is the path to capitulation, not a fair compromise. Indian negotiators often felt that their US and EU counterparts had a clearer picture than they had about Ramesh's ultimate intentions. Cheered on by the opposing team, Ramesh scored successive goals against his own side.
The writer is a former ambassador, climate negotiator and member of PM's Council on Climate Change
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Raja Bose »

Jairam Ramesh, the congi boot licker ghar jamai - what more can we expect from such Mir Jafars? :roll: We must pray daily that Modi gets a 2nd term otherwise its back to square -1^10k if Congis or AAP come to power.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by abhishek_sharma »

zoverian
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by zoverian »

‘Strategic partners’ are now dime a dozen"

India and Rwanda announced a strategic partnership after a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Paul Kagame at the ongoing Vibrant Gujarat summit this week, promising to enhance their exchanges and tighten cooperation between them. But the move has raised eyebrows both within the External Affairs Ministry and outside, with officials conceding that they have “lost count” of the number of such strategic partnerships announced by India in the past two decades.

Since signing its first strategic partnership with France in 1998, India has announced 30 such, a senior official told The Hindu, adding that the Ministry had no “official list” of its strategic partners nor had it “formalised any criterion” for which a country qualifies for the term. “Sometimes, we sign partnerships with countries or entities such as the EU, without even fulfilling basic commitments on annual meetings with them,” the official said.

No mission in Kigali

In the case of Rwanda, experts say, India has signed a “strategic partnership” despite the fact that New Delhi does not even maintain a mission in the Rwandan capital of Kigali. In the joint statement issued after the Kagame-Modi meeting in Gandhinagar, India said only that it “is positively considering opening a resident Mission in Kigali”.

“I do not see what ‘strategic’ interests India has in Rwanda at present,” said Satish Kumar, a former JNU professor who has assessed India’s most important partnerships for a study on India’s strategic partners by the Foundation for National Security Research.

At present, the Indian High Commission in Uganda is concurrently accredited to Rwanda and Burundi, though Rwanda opened its mission in Delhi in 1999 and has posted an Ambassador here since 2001. President Kagame has visited India on a number of occasions, including the India Africa business summit, but the last Indian dignitary to visit Rwanda was the then Minister of State for External Affairs, Preneet Kaur, in 2012.

The larger problem, officials and experts said, was that “really important” strategic partnerships with countries such as the U.S., Russia, France and Germany and neighbours such as Afghanistan lose some value every time the government associates a country with the title that does not have the same strategic importance.

“The main criterion for choosing strategic partners should be a complementarity of interests in vital areas like security, defence and investments, on a long-term basis,” said Satish Kumar, a former JNU professor who has assessed India’s most important partnerships for the FNSR study. “If you keep adding countries to the list that India has relatively minor geopolitical interests with, the term becomes mere rhetoric,” he added.

Officials said the Ministry was often asked to come up with “qualifiers” to add emphasis during summits with those countries. For example, India’s ties with Russia were referred to as a “special and privileged strategic partnership”, the United Kingdom is a “long-term strategic partnership,” Vietnam has been upgraded to a “comprehensive strategic partnership” and Malaysia an “enhanced strategic partnership”, the officials said, suggesting that a more formalised structure for strategic partnerships needs to be devised.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/% ... epage=true
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Rupesh »

He foiled the 1994 OIC resolution, which, if passed in the UNHRC, would have led to sanctions against India.
Not many people know that Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former president of Iran, who passed away recently, was instrumental in a remarkable turnaround in Iran’s bilateral relations with India at the cost of its ties with Pakistan. In March 1994, an Indian military aircraft touched down at a snowed-in Tehran airport carrying the ailing minister of external affairs Dinesh Singh on a secret mission. Hospitalised at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and barely able to walk, the minister had a surprise visitor the day before. Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao had come calling to urge the minister to deliver an urgent letter in person to Rafsanjani.

The UN Human Rights Commission (now Council) was set to pass a resolution against India, prompting Rao to visit Singh and exort him to proceed to Tehran and blunt Pakistan’s edge at Geneva. It was not the India of the 21st century. In 1992, India had mortgaged its gold reserves and its economic woes were far from over. Russia was licking its wounds after the break-up of the Soviet Union, India’s most bankable ally. The Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), supported by influential Western nations, was moving a resolution at the UNHRC to condemn alleged Indian human rights violations in Kashmir.

The resolution, if passed, would have been referred to the UN Security Council to initiate economic sanctions and other punitive measures against India
Singh passed away a month later. And Rao never attempted to steal the thunder from Vajpayee or Abdullah. It emerged later that when the Pakistan ambassador sought to move the OIC resolution, his Iranian counterpart in Geneva, acting on Rafsanjani’s directives, backtracked. His argument was that since Iran was a close friend of both India and Pakistan, it was ready to mediate and there was no need to raise this at an international forum.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by panduranghari »

Amazing isn't it? When we are weak, we held our nerve and stood up to all assaults, somehow scraping through. In 2017, it feels surreal.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by arshyam »

I think it's time we bestowed a Bharat Ratna on PVNR - it's the least we could do to an unsung PM.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Manish_P »

“I do not see what ‘strategic’ interests India has in Rwanda at present,” said Satish Kumar, a former JNU professor
One reads that the apes in Rwanda are endangered. Perhaps we can send our apes and monkeys there. The JNU is said to be a particularly good haunt of these creatures
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Pratyush »

panduranghari wrote:Amazing isn't it? When we are weak, we held our nerve and stood up to all assaults, somehow scraping through. In 2017, it feels surreal.
It's the difference between PVNR and 10 years of MMS.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Bart S »

panduranghari wrote:Amazing isn't it? When we are weak, we held our nerve and stood up to all assaults, somehow scraping through. In 2017, it feels surreal.
Well, we have become less vulnerable to external threats but the internal dangers have multiplied by an order of magnitude. Who wrote that article and the position in the media that such a person holds, is an apt indication.
IFTIKHAR GILANI
The author is Editor, Strategic Affairs, DNA.
panduranghari
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by panduranghari »

Yes PVNR certainly deserves more official respect. As per Atri ji, his family come from RSS so how can he not be nationalistic!

Internal dangers multiplied due to mickeymouse singh's willful ingnorance as clarified by Pratyush ji.
ramana
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by ramana »

Interesting that we didn't bother tracking the Raisiana Dialogue organized by ORF.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by panduranghari »

I watched the whole thing live via you tube. While admiral Harris was very vague, I thought the deputy foreign minister of Japan gave a good key note speech. The womens debate conducted by the BBC correspondent from Afghanistan was good too. Whats with Indians and failure to keep to time? Its very disappointing.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Peregrine »

panduranghari wrote:I watched the whole thing live via you tube. While admiral Harris was very vague, I thought the deputy foreign minister of Japan gave a good key note speech. The womens debate conducted by the BBC correspondent from Afghanistan was good too. Whats with Indians and failure to keep to time? Its very disappointing.
panduranghari Ji :

Grateful if you can kindly post the above mentioned youtube presentation.

Cheers Image
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by panduranghari »

Here you go Peregrine ji

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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by svinayak »

panduranghari wrote:I watched the whole thing live via you tube. While admiral Harris was very vague, I thought the deputy foreign minister of Japan gave a good key note speech. The womens debate conducted by the BBC correspondent from Afghanistan was good too. Whats with Indians and failure to keep to time? Its very disappointing.
Admiral is a service personal but not a policy maker. The policy makers are in NSC and national security

Dont expect details from them.
Last edited by svinayak on 21 Jan 2017 23:47, edited 1 time in total.
Peregrine
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Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Peregrine »

panduranghari wrote:Here you go Peregrine ji

panduranghari Ji :

Thank you Sir!
Cheerss Image
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by ramana »

NRao
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by NRao »

ramana
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by ramana »

Thanks NRao. Wish there was a feature to post from Twitter!!!

Meanwhile:

Modi speech at Raisina Dialouge:

PM Modi Speaks

FS Jaishankar Speech:

MEA Secy Jaishankar
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Paul »

Pajis have come up with their own raisana dialogue. Search for Riaz Khokhar in YouTube.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by A_Gupta »

What is this? Indian foreign policy or somebody's psy-ops?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard ... f348456e6e
JAN 21, 2017
India Tells Sri Lanka: You Can Take Your Port And Shove It
svinayak
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by svinayak »

A_Gupta wrote:What is this? Indian foreign policy or somebody's psy-ops?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard ... f348456e6e
JAN 21, 2017
India Tells Sri Lanka: You Can Take Your Port And Shove It
article tone is psy ops
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Philip »

Grapes are sour! The US was desperate during the Cold War to absorb Lanka into becoming a US client state like the Philippines and lusted after Trinco.The pro-US govt of Jayawardene was on the point of doing so but the ethnic crisis flared up and the country slid into a 25 yr old conflict that encompassed most of th north and east.Trinco was a very vital base for the SLAF and SLN ,apart from the SLA,as from it ,it could pivot to the north and eastern coastline. There was atime whn even the militant pro-Sinhala JVP wanted to offer Trinco to India to help curtail the LTTE.

Look,for just a few billion,we will get a foothod for a century at least in one of the worlds most fantastic naval anchorages with a huge hinterland where there are large numbers of oil tanks in the WW2 oil tank farm.Trinco/Ceylon was Lord Mountbatten's HQ in WW2. The entire IN fleet can base itself in Trinco,which has avery narrow entrance to the harbour and v.deep waters where even whales have been spotted. We would be asinine to reject an offer to develop Trinco.The problem with our asinine mandarins in the MEA is that they should (as China is trying to do and has done with Pak),look at Lanka as an island that is an Indian protectorate-another Bhutan,which is beholden to us and from which no foreign power can be allowed to squat,esp. China.
Later on,we will have to spend tens of billions to counter a permanent Chinese or some other foreign power that squats in Trinco.

Who knows,the Lankans may even offer Trinco to the US (which would grab the opportunity at once!)if our ignoramuses can't think beyond the confines of the landmass of India!
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by ramana »

MEA mandarins like to munch on apple tarts and sip champagne while discussing global politics dressed in that silly Nehru jacket which is a cross between the desi and videshi costume.
Not one peep about Indian interests.

They represent foreign posers in India.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Philip »

Distinguished ,veteran diplomat High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka takes charge.
Taranjit Sandhu presents his credentials to President
2017-01-25
Taranjit Singh Sandhu, the new High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka presented his credentials to President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday (24) at the President's House yesterday.

Prior to his current assignment to Colombo, High Commissioner Sandhu has served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at Embassy of India in Washington D.C. from July 2013.

He has also served as the Consul General of India in Frankfurt from 2011 to 2013. He served in the Ministry of External Affairs from 2009 to 2011 as the Joint Secretary (United Nations) and later as Joint Secretary (Administration) heading the Human Resource Division. High Commissioner Sandhu was at the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations, New York from July 2005 to February 2009. He was First Secretary (Political) at Embassy of India in the US.

High Commissioner Sandhu has earlier served as the Head of the Political Wing in the High Commission of India, Colombo from December 2000 to September 2004.

In a distinguished career spanning nearly thirty years after joining the Indian Foreign Service in 1988, High Commissioner Sandhu’s various assignments have included working in the former Soviet Union (Russia) from 1990 to 1992 as Third Secretary (Political) / Second Secretary (Commercial). Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, he was sent to open a new embassy in Ukraine. He served as the Head of Political and Administration Wings in Indian Embassy in Kiev from 1992 to 1994. On his return to India, he served as Officer on Special Duty (Press Relations), Ministry of External Affairs from 1994 to March 1997. He was responsible for liaison with foreign media in India.

Born on 23 January 1963 to a family of educationists, High Commissioner Sandhu studied at The Lawrence School, Sanawar and graduated with History Honors from St. Stephens' College, Delhi. He pursued a Masters Degree in International Relations at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Incidentally, Mr. Sandhu assumes duties as the High Commissioner of India in Sri Lanka on the eve of the 68th Republic Day celebrations of India tomorrow.

High Commissioner Sandhu is married to Mrs. Reenat Sandhu, who is Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of India, Washington DC. They have two children.

Ambassadors of Mongolia, Lithuania and Panama also presented their credentials to President Maithripala Sirisena at the President’s House yesterday.

- See more at: http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Taran ... Otmm5.dpuf
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Nick_S »

Delhi Defence Review ‏@delhidefence 22m22 minutes ago
Indian delegation led by @PMOIndia @narendramodi and attended by minister's of Defence, Commerce, Road & Transport, Petroleum & MoS MEA

Image

Delhi Defence Review ‏@delhidefence 22m22 minutes ago
Here are the list of 14 agreements signed between Government of India and Govt of UAE

Image

Image

Image
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by abhishek_sharma »

Maj Gen SK Sinha ‏@SKSk785 · 7m7 minutes ago

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar's term extended by one year
https://goo.gl/Ixf3ZE
-via @inshorts
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by kit »

Philip wrote:Grapes are sour! The US was desperate during the Cold War to absorb Lanka into becoming a US client state like the Philippines and lusted after Trinco.The pro-US govt of Jayawardene was on the point of doing so but the ethnic crisis flared up and the country slid into a 25 yr old conflict that encompassed most of th north and east.Trinco was a very vital base for the SLAF and SLN ,apart from the SLA,as from it ,it could pivot to the north and eastern coastline. There was atime whn even the militant pro-Sinhala JVP wanted to offer Trinco to India to help curtail the LTTE.

Look,for just a few billion,we will get a foothod for a century at least in one of the worlds most fantastic naval anchorages with a huge hinterland where there are large numbers of oil tanks in the WW2 oil tank farm.Trinco/Ceylon was Lord Mountbatten's HQ in WW2. The entire IN fleet can base itself in Trinco,which has avery narrow entrance to the harbour and v.deep waters where even whales have been spotted. We would be asinine to reject an offer to develop Trinco.The problem with our asinine mandarins in the MEA is that they should (as China is trying to do and has done with Pak),look at Lanka as an island that is an Indian protectorate-another Bhutan,which is beholden to us and from which no foreign power can be allowed to squat,esp. China.
Later on,we will have to spend tens of billions to counter a permanent Chinese or some other foreign power that squats in Trinco.

Who knows,the Lankans may even offer Trinco to the US (which would grab the opportunity at once!)if our ignoramuses can't think beyond the confines of the landmass of India!
Indeed the US can take the trincomalee if they lose Diego Garcia .. :mrgreen: .. but not quite likely
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by ranjan.rao »

as i posted earlier that things are moving in a big way with UAE. Seems like Modi has prioritized UAE over Iran. May be good for us economically, but certainly in strategic terms iran would have been a better bet for our calculus in Afhganistan. We still are playing a passive game rather than an active one. Most likely due to our current economic and military situation.
My sense is modi govt is using every avenue to first grow the economy for long term in a sustainable way. Military calculations are not preceding that.
ramana
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by ramana »

abhishek_sharma wrote:Maj Gen SK Sinha ‏@SKSk785 · 7m7 minutes ago

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar's term extended by one year
https://goo.gl/Ixf3ZE
-via @inshorts

I agree he is great but extending the MEA Secy term by one year squashes the promotion chances of his juniors all the way down to the new recruits. They should have used his services as consultant in PMO.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by Cosmo_R »

ranjan.rao wrote:
as i posted earlier that things are moving in a big way with UAE. Seems like Modi has prioritized UAE over Iran. May be good for us economically, but certainly in strategic terms iran would have been a better bet for our calculus in Afhganistan. We still are playing a passive game rather than an active one. Most likely due to our current economic and military situation.
My sense is modi govt is using every avenue to first grow the economy for long term in a sustainable way. Military calculations are not preceding that.
Not 'prioritized', just playing all sides. Iran's quarrels are not ours and our quarrels are of no interest to them. We want Chahbahar to CA and Afghanistan and they want us to buy oil. They want to play us off against the Chinese, we sign with UAE for for oil reserves.

It's the old "I've friends with benefits" whatcha gonna give me? game.
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Re: Indian Foreign Policy

Post by arun »

India-UAE condemn state-backed use of religion to sponsor terrorism

PTI
New Delhi January 26, 2017 19:23 IST
Updated: January 26, 2017 19:45 IST

The two sides agreed to coordinate efforts to counter radicalisation and misuse of religion by groups and countries for inciting hatred and perpetrating acts of terrorism.

In a veiled attack on Pakistan, India and the UAE have condemned efforts by states to use religion to sponsor and sustain terrorism against other countries, and resolved to cooperate in countering terrorism by adopting a policy of “zero tolerance” towards the menace.

An India-UAE joint statement on Thursday, said the two sides agreed to coordinate efforts to counter radicalisation and misuse of religion by groups and countries for inciting hatred and perpetrating acts of terrorism. ………………….

Our Foreign Policy big wigs have clearly not learned the lesson of a similar bilateral declaration on Terrorism involving Saudi Arabia where the Mohammadden Terrorist Fomenting Islamic Republic of Pakistan was similarly not named. The lesson is that for a Sunni Mohammadden majority nation like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the declaration may have nothing to do with the Sunni Mohammadden majority Mohammadden Terrorist Fomenting Islamic Republic of Pakistan that our Foreign Policy establishment thinks that the UAE has signed on for via the declaration but instead has everything to do with that other Islamic Republic, the Shia Mohammadden Islamic Republic of Iran which is of no interest to India as a fomenter of Mohammadden Terrorism. For the lesson, article by Indian Express dating back to April 2016:

Pakistan or Iran in anti-terror statement? India, Saudi Arabia interpret their own
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