In the maiden edition of a new monthly magazine, Geopolitics, Sreeram Chaulia argues that Indian foreign policy planners need to do serious work on grand strategy and broadening the scope of interests to far-flung parts of the world.
http://www.usindiafriendship.net/
GEOPOLITICS, MAY 2010
INDIA IN A GLOBALISED WORLD
The MEA’s policy planners will have to cast India’s foreign policy in a new perspective and come up with an inclusive mapping exercise. SREERAM CHAULIA takes a close look...
THE REVIVAL of the long-dormant Policy Planning Division of India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in September 2009 through the initiative of the then Minister of state for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor is a positive step for a country that wants to climb up the rungs of global status and power.
Policy planning bureaus have played a vital role in foreign ministries of great powers by providing broad direction, outlook and blueprints that percolate through the veins and arteries of the system. The famous Cold War doctrine of containment, for instance, was the brainchild of George Kennan, the first Director of Policy Planning in the US State Department. His ‘X’ article in the journal Foreign Affairs (July 1947) recorded his acute observations on the wellsprings of Soviet conduct and laid out the parameters of a global response to the USSR’s “expansive tendencies.” Encouraged by his mentor — the powerful Secretary of State George Marshall — Kennan and his team of researchers produced the fundamentals that became the bedrock of American foreign policy for decades to come.
India’s policy planners must always bear in mind that power of any kind is relative in international relations, and accordingly come up with power-enhancement plans that factor in the prospects of other states in a dynamic environment. For instance, if India keeps growing at around 8-9 per cent for twenty years and China stays the course with double-digit growth, both states will be absolutely better off but India will be relatively weaker. If India’s nuclear deterrent improves through our scientific community’s efforts (the latest figure is that we have the capacity to assemble a 200-kiloton nuclear device) but falls below the shifting definition of ‘credibility’ due to the even more rapid weapon experimentation by other powers, we will continue to be subjected to blackmail and bullying.
Decisiveness about what kind of a power China is and where it is heading has to be a key formulation for the MEA’s policy planners. Just as Kennan instinctively grasped the reality of Stalin’s USSR and made a value judgement that it was characteristically aggressive, India has to make up its mind about its northern neighbour one way or the other and compose a broad set of measures to manage this relationship. At present, vacillation and ambiguity about China’s motives, behaviour and future trajectories predominate in Indian policy circles, leading to a confusing approach that is neither fish nor fowl.
While some degree of open-mindedness and flexibility, to some extent, are definite assets in the highly unpredictable and volatile social world, Indian foreign policy planners cannot be paralysed with a wait-and-see attitude towards a China that is undertaking a rapid revolution in military affairs and has a predatory commodity exports and foreign investment-promotion strategy.
Even the booming bilateral trade between India and China must be tempered with comparisons to China’s trade equations with other countries. This will help New Delhi foresee longer-term tensions and avoid a scenario where Beijing can convert thick economic exchanges into unacceptable political domination through lobbies or infringement of India’s foreign policy autonomy. How and through what means China might attempt to parlay its ballooning trade surplus with India (which stood at $16 billion, as of 2009) into a superior-inferior power relationship must be closely monitored and countered. Comparative examples of China’s relations with Taiwan, South Korea, Russia, Japan, the EU and the USA must be studied extensively by Indian planners before crafting appropriate defensive and offensive mechanisms.
Unlike the days of the ‘Indira Doctrine’, when domination of South Asia was a transparent and suffused aim of Indian foreign policy, we now live in an interconnected world where we must register our strong presence in far-flung parts of the world to be recognised as a genuine, global power. Indian policy planners have to revisit lessons from the gradual displacement of New Delhi by Beijing as the pre-eminent Asian power in Africa: first by means of Mao Zedong’s radical “Afro-Asianism” and later through proactive loans and natural resource-centric infrastructure building sprees.
Be it the 1960s or the 2000s, India has been passive and lacking in concrete tools for courting and winning over African nations and people. It is largely due to foreign policy neglect and underestimation of Africa’s economic and human potential that New Delhi has been left with a tough mission of playing catch-up with Beijing. Given the high priority of gaining traction in Africa, the MEA’s policy planners must devise quickimpact projects, funds and programmes on a war footing that would reconnect African states and societies with their Indian counterparts.
Contemporary India is not known for ‘thinking big’ on foreign policy thrusts despite the legacy of Nehruvian globalism. The narrow educational and experiential backgrounds of the current Indian political class and the obsessive media focus on just the country’s immediate neighbours have reproduced a frog-in-the-well mentality that discourages knowledge accumulation and production beyond a certain geographical radius or comfort zone. There are, for example, countless Pakistan and Sri Lanka hands in and outside government in India but hardly anyone who has a masterly grasp of the politics and predilections of the Caribbean or Bolivarian America.
The revived Policy Planning Division should have the luxury of not being entrusted with one particular brief and instead should have the whole world as its horizon. It must acquire the acumen to interpret the direct or indirect ramifications for India of a disputed election in Ukraine, a coup in Côte d’Ivoire, or a flared up boundary dispute between Thailand and Cambodia. Inputs do come into the MEA from different embassies and consular missions around the world, but more than collating in-house diplomatic cables and emails is required to arrive at comprehensive estimates and policy adjustments that keep relating back and forth to the refrain of pre-eminent doctrinal foreign policy principles. Intellectual talents that are outside the charmed circle of power holders will have to be mined extensively for situating Indian concerns within larger contexts.
MEA’s policy planners should embark on their historic mission with the basic presumption that the entire world is or soon will be India’s backyard. While the primacy of some regions or issues may demand greater attention at times, Indian foreign policy must be ready with doctrines and deeds to exert influence in the remotest of corners. Since all of planet earth and outer space are India’s theatres, a robust and competent foreign policy planning arm to execute this challenging role becomes a pressing imperative.
(The author is Associate Professor of world politics at the O.P. Jindal Global University)
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I decided it was not worth spending my time reading this...THE REVIVAL of the long-dormant Policy Planning Division of India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in September 2009 through the initiative of the then Minister of state for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor is a positive step for a country that wants to climb up the rungs of global status and power.
Our nation is not defined by the British - past or the present. Our nation is not defined by one person such as JLN.brihaspati wrote:The thing was spoiled from JLN, who thought he was the best brain to deal with international strategic moves ever walking on a pair of legs in India. Prior to this, the British practice, gave a large degree of freedom to administrators to influence policy. But they had an advantage in that, these admins were not made accountable to those they immediately ruled in India. With the change of the system, since now babus are accountable to the local elected politician, they have much less freedom.
However, there is a sense that we may not have done adequately rigorous thinking on how to 'manage' our pre-ordained rise to global prominence. With the realisation of our aspirations and greater international recognition will come many more additional responsibilities.
The country cannot afford to be indifferent and non-committal on any regional or global issue -- we must have an objective 'national interest assessment' on all questions of importance.
Bhutan is of strategic importance to New Delhi, as it is located between India and China. It is in India's interest to have better relations with Bhutan, said Mahindra Singh, retired Indian Army major general and independent defense analyst.
Bhutan helped New Delhi track down insurgents operating in India's northeast from their hideouts in Bhutan over the last three years, a sign that relations between the two neighbors can mature into strategic ties one day, said Singh.
As part of the policy to improve ties, India and Bhutan signed several agreements, including four on hydropower during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Bhutan to attend the 16th Saarc summit.
sum wrote:Very, very interesting article and good news if true ( about MMS having given up on Pak and peace with them):
Kashmir: pessimism may be good newsLast month, Noorjehan Baba left her home in Srinagar's Dal Gate area to start a new life across the Line of Control with the man who unleashed a war which claimed her first husband's life. Her husband, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen field commander Khurshid Baba, died in 1995, fighting the Indian forces in central Kashmir. For the next five years, Ms Baba retreated into a dark shroud which widows across South Asia are expected to do. Early this year, though, a family friend approached her with an offer of marriage. Her suitor was much older — but had wealth and status.
United Jihad Council chairman and Hizb supreme commander Mohammad Yusuf Shah's marriage to Ms Baba at his Rawalpindi home drew neither television crews nor newspaper reporters. It ought to have: that the 61-year-old jihad commander had love on his mind this summer, rather than war, tells us not a little about where Jammu and Kashmir is headed. Eight weeks after the November 2008 carnage in Mumbai, Shah told a rally in Muzaffarabad, “Jihad will continue until the independence of Kashmir.” Instead, violence in the State has diminished to an all-time low and the Hizb has all but disintegrated.
This is good news for India — but a serious problem for New Delhi's efforts at peacemaking in Jammu and Kashmir.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's low-key visit to Srinagar this week illustrates the rise of a new caution in New Delhi's policy on Jammu and Kashmir. In an address to students graduating from the Sher-i-Kashmir Agricultural University, Dr. Singh focussed on issues linked to development. For those hoping for a call to Kashmiri secessionists to renew their engagement with the government, there was only the repetition of a long-standing offer to “to hold talks with the representative of any group which shuns violence and terror.” Meaningful dialogue with Pakistan on the State, he suggested, would be “possible only when Pakistan doesn't let its territory be used for acts of terror against India”.Despite concerns at the continued operations of jihadist groups, violence in the State remains in decline. In 2007, there were 170 civilian deaths; last year, 83 were killed. The security forces and the Jammu and Kashmir police lost 79 personnel last year, down from 122 in 2007. Two years ago, 472 terrorists were killed; just 239 were shot dead in 2009. Improvised explosive device use fell from 56 in 2007 to 23 last year; grenade attacks from 107 to 56. Levels of violence were marginally higher in the first five months of 2010 than during the same period in 2009 — but infiltration has been lower, suggesting that no major escalation is imminent.
The decline in violence has, oddly, made it difficult for the two key actors in the peace process — the jihadists and Kashmiri secessionist politicians — to reach for New Delhi's olive branch.
Pakistan-based jihadists have found their political leverage within Jammu and Kashmir severely degraded. India's intelligence services estimate that there are between 500 and 600 jihadists operating in the State today — less than a tenth of the numbers in 2001. Ethnic Kashmiri jihadist groups like the Hizb no longer have the network and infrastructure to benefit from post-peace politics. Islamist elements in urban Kashmir are increasingly supportive of the global jihadist project of organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, not the Jamaat-e-Islami linked, State-focussed politics of the Hizb. None of the five sons Shah left in Kashmir to be brought up by his wife Taj Begum when he left for Pakistan in 1994 has, notably, been drawn to their father's cause; three of them hold government jobs.
Last year, Shah expressly asked the Hurriyat leadership “not to take a hasty decision with regard to dialogue with Delhi, as bilateral talks had proved futile in the past.” In February, he asserted that there was “no option other than the armed struggle”.
Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, for his part, called in a recent speech for closer jihadist-secessionist politics. “The first priority “is to end this [India's] tyrannical occupation, and to end it, it is critical that both armed struggle and political parties must be united.” “The most important thing,” Saeed went on, “is that the people of Kashmir, through their untold sacrifices in the struggle for freedom, have shown that they can give their all in the struggle against Hindu imperialism.”
In practice, this means the jihadists have thrown their weight behind Islamist patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani, whose Tehreek-i-Hurriyat has long rejected dialogue with New Delhi. Pressure from Mr. Geelani and the jihadists has made it difficult for the Hurriyat — the second key actor in the peace process — to move forward. It has deeper problems.
Ever since the Assembly elections were held in 2008, it has been evident to the Hurriyat that its constituency in Jammu and Kashmir is contracting. “Elections are ultimately projected as a sort of referendum by India, and that is why we have called for a complete boycott of such a process,” Mirwaiz Farooq said that November. He issued “a last call to the so-called mainstream politicians to join the separatist movement.” Humiliation followed hubris: starting from a week after the Mirwaiz held out his threat, well over half of registered voters in the State participated in the elections. Interestingly, more than 63 per cent of voters in Shah's home village, Soibug, defied the boycott call.
Last year's protests in Shopian against the alleged rape-murder of two south Kashmir women — later established as accidental deaths by the Central Bureau of Investigation — also demonstrated the Hurriyat's limited reach. Just 17 of 111 documented Shopian-related protests between May 30, 2009 and June 30, 2009 took place in rural and semi-rural areas. More than half of the rural protests, moreover, occurred in villages just outside Shopian town. Fewer than a dozen rallies drew more than 1,000 supporters.
Kashmiri secessionist politicians have come to realise that their political position rests on weak foundations. But they seem to have little idea of what to do about it. Torn between pro-dialogue realists like Butt and anti-negotiation hawks like Shabbir Shah, Mirwaiz Farooq has chosen to retreat into a shell. In a recent interview, he called on Pakistan to evolve consensus on its future position on Kashmir, a process that could, quite obviously, take years. He has also ruled out immediate engagement with New Delhi but offered no alternative.
Prime Minister Singh's speech suggests that New Delhi's patience has worn thin — and that might be just good news. Barring small pockets of Islamist-led protests in Kashmir's inner city neighbourhoods, the State government faces no major political challenge. It has, however, been unable to move forward. For more than a decade, democratic politics in Jammu and Kashmir has had to confront the prospect of a new dispensation emerging as a consequence of the peace process. Elected leaders have thus had little incentive to focus on the kind of long-term issues needed to institutionalise democratic governance. Instead of chasing the chimera of a historic peace deal with Pakistan and the secessionists, New Delhi seems to be realising that doing nothing might, paradoxical as it might seem, yield the best outcomes.
Shashi tharoor) LONDON: The Manmohan Singh Government's foreign policy is in danger of becoming hostage to its "obsession" with securing a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and its pursuit of ever closer "strategic partnership" with America, N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu , has said.
Speaking at the London School of Economics (LSE), Mr. Ram singled out India's decision to vote against Iran at last month's crucial meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as an example of how these two issues threatened to undermine the independence of Indian foreign policy.
He described India's support to the U.S.-led "provocative" resolution on Iran as one of the biggest foreign policy "blunders" of the government and warned that it could not afford to commit more such mistakes.
“progress made based on the common understanding that boundaries could not be redrawn (LIE where has Pakistan shared this understanding ? ) we could work towards making them irrelevant; and people on both sides of the LoC should be able to move freely and trade with one another”.
I thought that is what Pakistan always wanted irrelevant boundaries , total ambiguity around the demarcation of the border and finally extending the claims to other areas apart from J&K only to serve as excuses for GOI apologists and fellow chanakians to defend the GOI when someone drops the ball.“irrelevant boundaries”
Ok will some chanakian help me understand as to why is that Baki demands become worthy of being taken into consideration and even responded to ? This crap being propagated by the phoren ophice only legitimizes Pakistan's claim that "India is stealing Pakistan's water and that the two parties need to talk over it".“The myth of water theft does not stand the test of rational scrutiny or reason. India has never sought to deny Pakistan its fair share of the Indus waters.” But in a sign that New Delhi wants to be “reasonable” and “forward looking”, India offered to set up another bilateral mechanism to share “best practices” in water utilisation and irrigation. It might give Pakistan a face-saver on the water issue.
what a visionary...hail you Sir.ajit_tr wrote:^^GOI is really chanakian here by making border irrelevant GOI is bringing POK and NA in its fold.I think MMS should move one extra mile more to make whole international border with pakistan as irrelevant so that people can move freely in both side of the border.We 've to return to pre 1947 borders of british india and have to claim back our lost land and lost people.thats the dream of every indian ,pakistani ,PA,even L-e-T,RSS, and even BRFites here but only thing is every one call their deam with different names like indic for bfrites,bharat for rss, Caliphate for PA and L-e-t.but dream is same as that of united land of british india from afghanistan to burma....Different name doesnt mean different dream.Btw as Shakespeare said whats there in a name......
Ayni air base in Tajikistan was supposed to become a showpiece for India. In the mid-2000s, India's military began renovating the facility, and New Delhi appeared poised in 2006 to announced that Ayni had become operational. But four years later, the base sits largely dormant - an airfield without any fighter jets. The reason that Ayni is still idle, many in Dushanbe believe, is Russia: Moscow does not want any other country to have use of the base. "They [Tajik officials] don't know what to do with this airbase. We don't need it for ourselves, but to give it to someone else would create problems with other countries," said Faridoon Khodizoda, a political analyst in Dushanbe
India has renovated runways and hangars at Ayni, but the Indian government has never publicly stated what its longer-term intentions were for the base. Reports in the Indian press suggested that India hoped to base a squadron of MiG-29 fighter jets there, in an effort to bolster its political clout in Central Asia, and to create a counterweight to Pakistani influence in Afghanistan.
Some analysts said India's foray into base politics was motivated by a desire to play the role of great power. "India is playing a game," said Imran Baig, a Washington-based analyst of South Asian security. "To maintain a base with no aircraft is not expensive at all," he said. "But to deploy a high-tech fighter squadron full time at a remote location far from the country of origin is a very, very costly affair and can only be afforded by superpowers."
Russia's defense minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, said last year that Tajikistan and Russia would jointly use the base, but Tajikistan has never confirmed that. Russia, which already maintains a large military base for its 201st Division at Dushanbe, does not appear interested in actually using Ayni, but merely in keeping other countries from using it, said Zafar Sufiyev, editor in chief of the newspaper Ozodagon.
There has been speculation that the United States., facing continuing uncertainty over the use of the Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan, might be interested in Ayni as a possible replacement. The Tajikistan government would allow US forces to use Ayni at the right price, said Safiyev. "If the government gets more for it than the Americans pay for Manas, they'll be interested," he said. "It's a market."
http://idsa.in/idsacomments/Successfull ... ele_160710Another important aspect of the latest PSLV mission is the launch of an Algerian satellite. This is for the first India has launched a satellite for an African country. Particularly, with regard to Africa, this launch needs to be viewed beyond commercial interests. Africa is a region of significant geopolitical importance to India. States like China are committing sustained investments in Africa, including the development of space infrastructure for countries like Nigeria. With this launch it could be said that India has started using ‘space diplomacy’ as a foreign policy tool in Africa. It appears that India is attempting to use ISRO’s expertise both for commercial as well as political purposes.
A case in point could the opportunity used by India’s External Affairs minister Mr. S. M. Krishna during his mid-Jun 2010 South Korea visit. Since 1992, South Korea has launched 11 satellites, but all with the help of foreign countries. For the last couple of years South Korea has been attempting to develop its independent space programme. With the help of Russia it is attempting to develop a launch capability though all its attempts so far to launch satellites using Korea Space Launch Vehicle (known as Naro) have failed, the most recent being on June 10, 2010. Sensing an opportunity, Krishna, during his June 17-19, 2010 visit to South Korea, made an offer in the form of a suggestion that South Korean satellites could be launched using Indian launch vehicles, which was immediately accepted by the South Korean government.
India and Vietnam agreed in Hanoi on Tuesday to strengthen their defence cooperation.The modalities of implementing the 2009 memorandum of understanding in this domain were discussed by Vietnam's National Defence Minister Phung Quang Thanh and Indian Army Chief General V. K. Singh. India's Ambassador to Vietnam, Ranjit Rae, and defence officials were present at the talks.
Gen. Singh, marking the first visit to Vietnam by an Indian Army Chief in over a decade, also met his counterpart there, Deputy Chief of General Staff Pham Hong Loi, for talks on follow-up action. Two areas spotted for immediate cooperation were training of military personnel and dialogue between experts on strategic affairs on both sides.
The National Defence Academy and the Strategic Institute in Hanoi played host to Gen. Singh, who will travel to Ho Chi Minh City for similar interactions at the provincial level before concluding his visit on Thursday.
Defence Minister A. K. Antony is expected to visit Vietnam in October to participate in the first-ever regional meeting of political leaders in the defence field. Vietnam, now chairing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), has invited India to the Asean+8 Defence Ministers meeting. The 10-member Asean will be joined by Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.
The Asean, as the prime mover of this process, has also initiated efforts to convert such a grouping of countries into an expanded East Asia Summit. The Summit, an organisation as different from just a conference, does not include the U.S. and Russia at present.
If Talmiz Ahmad gets the top job, expect a huge push for GCC relations. He is extremely well connected. He also was instrumental in extradition of terrorists from Dubai in the 90s. He also played an important role in securing the release of 3 Indian truck drivers held hostage in Iraq.Incumbent Nirupama Rao has five more months to go, but the race for the foreign secretary's post is already getting hot. It's another matter that she might get an extension in the backcloth of the cabinet secretary's term, which has been fixed at four years.
Curiously, the talk of Rao's extension is being linked to the extension that Meera Shankar, India's current US envoy may get after her term expires this October. Rao and Shankar belong to the 1973 batch and are reportedly close to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
Shankar, who had earlier served as director in the PMO also enjoys the PM's confidence, sources said.
However, they pointed out that debate on extension of a foreign secretary's tenure has been common in the South Block. There was only one instance in the 1990s when a secretary's term was extended.
This is the first time in recent years that several names have emerged for the coveted post. Key contenders include Ranjan Mathai, a 1974 IFS batch officer and India's current envoy to France. Besides handling the important Bangladesh-Sri Lanka-Myanmar division, Mathai had served as ambassador to Israel (1998-2001), which is considered an important diplomatic posting.
Mathai's competitors include his IFS batchmates Alok Prasad, the deputy national security adviser, and Hardeep Puri, the permanent envoy to UN. Appointed for two years last October, Prasad was envoy to Colombo when the war with LTTE ended.
Formerly with the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), Prasad was also high commissioner in Singapore and deputy chief of mission in Washington. As joint secretary for America's Division for five years, he oversaw key decisions that boosted Indo- US ties.
Puri was earlier India's envoy to Brazil besides being India's ambassador/ permanent representative in Geneva and deputy high commissioner in London.
An expert on World Trade Organisation issues, he was secretary at headquarters before leaving for New York.
India's current envoy to Saudi Arabia Talmiz Ahmad, too, cannot be ignored, sources said. This is his second stint in Riyadh. His first stint as envoy was in 2000- 03.
Also from the 1974 batch, Ahmad has expertise in energy security, having served in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas as additional secretary for international cooperation in UPA-I. The high commissioner to UK, Nalin Surie, is another contender. A 1973-batch IFS officer, Surie was among the top contenders when Rao was chosen.
However, he is scheduled to retire in mid- 2011.
High commissioner to Pakistan Sharat Sabharwal is also in the reckoning.
The 1975-batch officer had served as envoy in Tashkent and in Indian missions in Africa and France.
India does have several opportunities to play the game of strategic diplomacy more adroitly, in part thanks to China's own wider missteps in maritime Asia. From the waters off South Korea to the South China Sea, Beijing's recent assertiveness has gone down badly with many states, including South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia. These nations, like the United States, are keen to boost economic and security ties with India. New Delhi could credibly portray its rocky relations with Beijing as being of a kind with their own, and cultivate security partnerships accordingly.
While China has legitimate interests in Indian Ocean security thanks to its shipping and energy-importation, India has a growing and justified stake in sea lanes east of the Malacca Strait, too. Its seaborne trade with Asia-Pacific powers is rising rapidly—China, ironically enough, foremost among them. So the Indian Navy has a rationale to step up exercises with partners beyond its old horizons. And if India seeks energy from locations far afield, whether Sakhalin gas or Vietnam's claimed zone of the South China Sea, then China with its own global quest for fuel can hardly feign surprise.
In more familiar waters, India has plenty of scope to expand its maritime surveillance and patrolling. This could be combined with support to weak, well-situated nations such as Mauritius, Madagascar and Maldives, as strategist C. Raja Mohan has argued. For instance, it might not be too late for Indian commerce to play a role in the second stage of building Sri Lanka's China-funded Hambantota port, due to begin receiving cargo ships in November. Engagement of this type could be a springboard to cooperation with external powers, including China. Once it is bargaining from a position of confidence in its own regional relationships instead of paranoia over China's, India's strength will become apparent.
Despite its promising return to 8.8% economic growth, India is right to follow the advice of its former Naval Chief Sureesh Mehta to not try to match China's military weapon-for-weapon, dollar-for-dollar. Instead, New Delhi could pursue something like the asymmetry that Beijing seeks against Washington, including in the maritime, cyber and nuclear realms. A mix of development, deterrence and diplomacy will make India ready for rivalry.
Emphasising the country's "strategic autonomy", Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said it was "an article of faith" and India was "too large a country to be boxed into any alliance or regional or sub-regional arrangements, whether trade, economic or political."
On the global terms, the Prime Minister said, there was a shift of economic and political power to Asia, with the Asia-Pacific region, including the South East Asia needing more attention from India.
"This must seep into our defence and foreign policy planning as never before. This is a palpable desire on the part of the countries of this region to enhance cooperation with us which we must reciprocate," he added.
Hope this is reflected in our foreign and defence policies.Describing the nations of the Gulf region, West and Central Asia as "natural partners", he said India had tangible interests in these regions, among which energy security was most important.
That was a garbage article. Here are just two of the nuggets from that dumbo:Sanjay M wrote:Why Does India Both Give and Receive Aid?
Clearly this demonstrates that assisting Bangladesh, our neighbor, is not purely altruistic
How does she know our aid to Bangladesh was not purely altruistic? The poverty in Bangladesh is higher than the poverty in Haiti and that was the reason the amount of aid to Bangladesh was higher than that of Haiti.By contrast, we gave a paltry sum of $5 million to Haiti after the devastating earthquake that struck the country earlier this year.
