Author: Manish Chand

Smart diplomacy: India, Singapore to focus on smart cities, skills upgrade

- by Manish Chand

Think smart, and Act East. This twin mantra of the Narendra Modi government will be telescoped during Singapore President Tony Tan Keng Yam’s visit to India which will focus on spurring collaboration in smart cities, skill-building and enhancing two-way investment.
Singapore president’s February 8-11 trip to India marks a milestone and is part of the ongoing celebrations of 50 years of mutually nourishing diplomatic ties between the two countries.
The reform-minded India’s prime minister has created much excitement among Singapore’s political leadership and the business class. In May 2014, after the change of guard in New Delhi following the national elections, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong congratulated Mr Modi on his election victory on Twitter and Facebook.
Smart cities and skills collaboration are the twin pillars of the new phase of cooperation between India and Singapore. Prime Minister Modi sees Singapore as a key partner in his pet project of building 100 smart cities in India. The forthcoming presidential visit will see some progress in firming up the contours of smart city cooperation. Singapore is also expected to be an important partner in the new Indian government’s skill development mission.

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Juggling US and China: Modi to visit Beijing

- by Manish Chand

In a delicate diplomatic waltz, after rolling out the red carpet for US President Barack Obama, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit China by May, underlining the new Indian leader’s foreign policy of multi-alignment, which entails forging closer ties with the world’s leading power centres.
India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who is currently on a three-day trip to China, has told Indian journalists in Beijing that Mr Modi will visit China before the end of his first year in office. Government sources indicated that the visit is expected around April-early May.

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India-Africa summit: Making Ideas Work

- by Manish Chand

Resurgence, Renewal and Renaissance. Democracy, Development, and Demographic Dividend. Trade, Technology and Training. 2015 promises to be a year when the narratives of a rising India and Afro-optimism are set to intersect, and impart a fresh resonance to the emerging vocabulary of the multi-faceted India-Africa engagement. The increasing convergence of interests, values and a burgeoning web of win-win opportunities will be crystallised in the third India-Africa Forum Summit New Delhi will host later this year. This will be the first India-Africa summit to be hosted by the Narendra Modi government, and will reflect the mantra of “skill, scale and speed” in dynamic and evolving relations between the two growth poles of the world.

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Obama Moment for India’s youth: American dream still burns bright

- by Manish Chand

It was the ‘Obama Moment’ for India’s young and restless dreamers. Barack Obama knows the power of oratory as he spoke in crisp, luminous sentences infecting the overwhelmingly young audience with his mantra of ‘The Audacity of Hope’ which made him the first black president of the US in a country which only a few decades ago discriminated on the basis of the colour of the skin.
In his parting shot before he wrapped up a three-day historic trip to India, Obama sang a full-throated song of India and spoke about the intertwining of the Indian and American dreams, and what the world’s oldest and largest democracies can do to make the world a safe and secure place in which women are respected, diversity is the way of life and religious tolerance is the clean air you breathe in.
At the town hall-style meeting at Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi on a wintry morning, he spoke warmly and eloquently about the promise of India, cited Swami Vikekananda’s famous invocation in his hometown Chicago a century ago as he addressed his audience as “sisters and borthers of India” and injected some robust common sense into what he has called many a time “the defining partnership of the 21st century.”
But what struck a powerful chord with the young audience was his paean to the power of youth and the limitless possibilities of human achievement as embodied in the American dream. “If the grandson of a cook can become president, and the tea seller can become the prime minister, so can young people from the humblest of origins dare to dream big and realise their aspirations,” he said to ringing applause.

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Modi-Obama bonding: The new normal high in India-US relations

- by Manish Chand

First-name bonding, “Barack and I.” Tete-a-tete over tea, “chai pe charcha.” Bear hugs, hand-holding and a walk around the rose garden, “chalein saath saath”. Footfalls echo in the memory… Well, one is not talking about puppy love of besotted lovers, but a tightening embrace of the world’s two largest, engaged democracies in an all-embracing agenda whose reverberations are going to be felt in the years to come.
In Delhi’s deepening chill, sparks flew and lit up a moribund nuclear deal and shone a new path of “shared effort, progress for all,” as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama firmed up an ambitious template for re-igniting the defining partnership of the 21st century and walked the talk to deliver substantive outcomes. The new normal in India-US relations, which was construed to mean habituation to sub-optimal engagement, has morphed into the “new normal high.” The big-ticket outcome of the Modi-Obama summit talks on January 25 was not just the nuclear deal, but the decisive shedding of ambivalence and diffidence, which will lead to the interlocking and intermeshing of the two engaged democracies across the full spectrum of economics and geopolitics.
Talking openly, resolving differences, joking with each other, and smiling naturally. This is the way to go for natural partners, and this hopefully should be the new normal high in the India-US relationship. No time for Mr Modi to lose sleep, the deal is done.

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The nuclear deal is done: India, US break liability logjam

- by Manish Chand

Ending six years of a festering impasse, India and the US have ended their long-standing logjam by sealing administrative arrangements for implementing their pathbreaking nuclear deal, with the two sides agreeing on an insurance pool to address the liability issues.
The negotiations went down the wire, but were successfully concluded with a joint push from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama.
At a joint media interaction, both Mr Modi and Mr Obama looked upbeat as they declared to scale up the India-US relations to new heights in days to come and also announced a breakthrough in the nuclear deal negotiations.

In the last few months, I see new excitement and confidence in this relationship. I see renewed energy in our engagement,” an upbeat Modi said, while underlining personal chemistry and bonding he has developed with President Obama since he met him first in September 2014 in the White House.
Mr Obama also spoke about a breakthrough in the nuclear deal.
The setting up of an insurance pool proved to be a game-changing moment to address the US’ concerns over India’s nuclear liability. After tortuous negotiations, the two sides agreed on the Rs 750 (around $130 million) insurance poll as part of risk management strategy for both suppliers and operators.

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Obama’s India journey: Pomp, symbolism and mapping next steps

- by Manish Chand

Blending pomp and ceremony with substantive outcomes, US President Barack Obama’s forthcoming visit to New Delhi promises to “reinvigorate” the multifarious India-US strategic partnership and reinforce the centrality of Washington as “a key partner” of New Delhi in the ongoing transformation of India and its aspiration to play a bigger role on the global stage.
Ahead of the trip, both India and the US have struck an upbeat note. “We see President Obama’s visit as strengthening our ties across the full breadth of our relations – ties between our governments, our peoples and our institutions,” said Syed Akbaruddin, spokesperson of India’s ministry of external affairs, in New Delhi January 22.
Washington is also betting big on Obama’s visit and has underlined multiple advantages for the US in building a closer and multi-faceted relationship. Headline-hunters may be disappointed though; breakthroughs and big-ticket outcomes may not be immediately visible, but the broad paradigm of the India-US has shifted to a point when there is greater comfort and assurance in the relationship so that the two countries can shed the temptations of hype and quietly and incrementally fructify what they have promised to do, and sustain an enduring and mutually empowering partnership.

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Why Obama is not going to Pakistan

- by Manish Chand

If there is one country which is closely watching US President Barack Obama’s trip to India, and with a twinge of anxiety, it is Pakistan. Islamabad and the country’s military establishment are none too happy with Mr Obama’s standalone visit to India and the promise of closer strategic ties between New Delhi and Washington.
Pakistan, according to some reports, tried hard to lobby with the US administration to get Mr Obama to also include Pakistan in his itinerary, but for all its powerful PR machinery in Washington DC, it could not succeed in its mission of seeking parity with India in the American strategic calculus.
This is, however, no time for gloating or schadenfreude for India, which has been at the receiving end of multiple terror attacks from Pakistan-based militant outfits. In fact, Pakistan should be and will be an important theme of conversation between President Obama and Prime Minister Obama when they sit down for talks in New Delhi on January 25. Prime Minister Modi should ask Mr Obama to use the US’ enormous leverage to get Pakistan to dismantle anti-India terror networks and expedite the prosecution of 26/11 masterminds and perpetrators. India should also reiterate its protest against the US clearing a fresh tranche of aid to Pakistan, which New Delhi suspects could be again diverted for anti-India armoury and activities. But the conversation should go beyond airing the oft-repeated grouse.

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