Author: Manish Chand

Cultural diplomacy poised for a bigger role, to promote Brand India: ICCR chief Amarendra Khatua

- by Manish Chand

Politics divides, culture connects. In Shanghai, a pact was signed between India and China to recreate Raj Kapoor’s 1951 classic Awaara into a contemporary Chinese opera.
Amarendra Khatua, the new director-general of Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), who was in Shanghai to deliver the keynote address at the 18th China Shanghai International Arts Festival (CSIAF), struck an upbeat note on long-standing civilisational ties and promoting cultural exchanges in Tier-II and Tier-III cities in India and China. The joint theatrical remake of Awaara, which remains the most popular Indian movie in China, hints at more such collaborative cultural tie-ups India is set to pursue in days to come.
“Cultural diplomacy is poised to play a bigger role in India’s foreign policy calculus in days and months to come and promote Brand India,” said Khatua, a veteran diplomat who is also famous as an accomplished poet who writes and translates in English, Hindi and other Indian languages.

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BRICS ratings up: Focus on terrorism, growth, institution-building

- by Manish Chand

The 8th BRICS summit ended on a high note with the birth of new institutions and initiatives like a credit rating agency which is set to provide greater strategic traction and cohesion to this grouping of emerging powers. In many ways, the Goa summit was a festival of ideas as many of India-backed initiatives were endorsed and found reflection in an all-encompassing 109-para Goa Declaration.
Institution Building
Sustainable institution building was the mantra that animated wide-ranging discussions between the leaders of India, China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa on October 16, with the five countries agreeing to set up a credit rating agency for emerging powers, BRICS Agriculture Research Platform and BRICS Railways Research Network and BRICS Sports Council.
The 8th BRICS summit was also marked by a striking convergence of views on the imperative need to jointly combat terrorism, with the joint declaration emphatically stating that states should not allow their territory to be used for terrorism, a veiled reference to Pakistan.
India tried hard to put explicit references to the Uri attack and cross-border terrorism – a shorthand for Pakistan’s use of terror against India – but it seems Pakistan’s powerful friend China was not in favour of naming and shaming in the joint declaration. India would have liked the Goa Declaration to specifically mention anti-India terror outfits like Jaish-e-Moahammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Muzahideen, but in the end it was decided to focus on firming up a broad architecture of counter-terror cooperation in the BRICS.
The Goa Action Plan has raised the bar for invigorating intra-BRICS cooperation across the spectrum, and should silence sceptics who are prone to scoff at the BRICS as a glorified talk shop. The BRICS is not only talking big, but is also thinking big, and walking the talk.

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BRICS summit: Modi targets ‘mother-ship of terrorism’ Pakistan, jihadi mindset

- by Manish Chand

Putting terrorism on top of the BRICS agenda, India’s Prime Minister Narendra launched a blistering attack on the “mother-ship of terrorism,” an all-too obvious reference to Pakistan, and exhorted emerging powers and the region to rally together in combating this scourge.

“The most serious direct threat to our eco prosperity is terrorism; Tragically, its mother-ship is a country in India’s neighbourhood,” Mr Modi told leaders of other BRICS countries at the plenary of the 8thsummit of emerging powers at the majestic Dome of the Taj Exotica hotel in Benaulim.

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Getting real: India, China to step up anti-terror cooperation, hope for NSG progress

- by Manish Chand

Taking a realistic and long-term view of their burgeoning but challenging relationship, India and China have decided to adopt an incremental approach to resolving contentious issues like the UN proscription of international terrorist Masood Azhar and New Delhi’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, without letting these affect the larger relationship, bristling with possibilities.
In their third meeting this year, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed key issues, including terrorism, NSG and enhancing trade and investment, that have a direct bearing on the future trajectory of the relationship between the two Asian giants.
Looking ahead, India and China are set to focus on ramping up the economic relationship, which has emerged a key pillar underpinning the crucial relationship. In this context, President Xi called for co-operation between India and China in railways, industrial parks, vocational and skill training, space and ICT. This “economics first” approach suggests realism and pragmatism, but to focus only on the economic relationship has its limitations. The real breakthrough that will release pent-up energies of the India-China relationship will be Beijing’s explicit support for India’s global aspirations, including membership of the NSG and New Delhi’s long-standing claim for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

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Rejuvenating BRICS in Goa: What’s on the agenda?

- by Manish Chand

Amid the festering recession in wide swathes of the world and a conflicted geopolitical landscape, India is poised to host the 8th BRICS summit in the picturesque resort city of Goa, which is expected to unveil a raft of new ideas and initiatives,designed to provide an added strategic traction to this influential grouping of emerging powers.

India has declared I4C or IIIIC as the framing mantra for the 8th BRICS summit, which includes Institution Building, Implementation, Integration, Innovation, and Continuity with Consolidation.In a deft word game, the BRICS acronym has been reinvented, with the overarching objective of “Building Responsive, Inclusive and Collective Solutions” to pressing global challenges.

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Behind India’s BIMSTEC-BRICS gamble: How to isolate Pakistan

- by Manish Chand

Marking the near complete isolation of Pakistan in the region, terrorism is set to dominate the agenda of dual summits of BRICS and BIMSTEC countries India is hosting in Goa October 15-16.

With Pakistan showing no sign of abandoning terrorism as an instrument of state policy, the overarching focus of India will be to get both BRICS and BIMSTEC groupings to back a collective approach to combating the scourge. India will be pressing these groupings to support a non-segmented approach to terror, which is necessary in view of the propensity of some countries to portray terrorists as freedom fighters, as Pakistan has done in the case of militants active in Kashmir.

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Isolate Pakistan: In Nigeria, Ansari targets terror-sponsoring states

- by Manish Chand

In a veiled reference to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism against India, Vice-President Hamid Ansari has made a compelling case for bolstering counter-terror cooperation with Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, and underlined that “the use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy should be unequivocally condemned.”

Invoking the common suffering experienced by Nigeria and India from the scourge of terrorism, Mr Ansari exhorted the world community not to make any distinction between good and bad terrorists and speak in one voice against this trans-national menace.

“Your country, like mine, has suffered the horrors of this scourge of terrorism. Terrorism today has global reach, no city remains safe,” Mr Ansari said at the National Defence College in the Nigerian capital Abuja on September 28. “Use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy is to be unequivocally condemned. There can be no distinction between good and bad terrorists.” Delinking terrorism with religion, the vice-president argued that a terrorist can’t have any religion or be afforded political sanctuary.

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Bypassing OIC to isolate Pakistan: Ansari to seek support of Nigeria & Mali, says OIC is just another club

- by Manish Chand

India is looking to step up its outreach to Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries to muster their support against Pakistan-sponsored terror, with Vice-President Hamid Ansari set to take up the issue with the leaders of Nigeria and Mali. However, even as India ratchets up its ongoing diplomatic campaign to isolate Pakistan in the wake of the Uri terror attack, Mr Ansari sent a subtle but strong message across by underlining that one should not exaggerate the significance of OIC.

Mr Ansari touched down in Abuja on September 26 on a three-day visit to Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and most populous country. Nigeria rolled out the red carpet to welcome Mr Ansari, with Nigeria’s vice-president Yemi Osinbajo personally receiving him at the Abuja International Airport. Dancers dressed in colourful attire welcomed the Vice-President, the first high-level visit from India in the last nine years since then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Nigeria in 2007.

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