Author: Manish Chand

With China watching, India, Vietnam to deepen economic embrace

- by Manish Chand

In a clear signal that Vietnam is a special friend and strategic partner of New Delhi, India will be rolling out the red carpet for Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung Oct 27-28, a visit that comes just five weeks after President Pranab Mukherjee’s high-profile trip to Hanoi.
The core focus of the visit will be economic as strategic and defence ties were dealt with exhaustively during President Mukherjee’s trip. The two countries have already exceeded their trade target of $7 billion set for 2015 ahead of schedule, and will be looking to map out new opportunities emerging in the economic arena. This economic focus will be reflected in the 50-strong delegation comprising a veritable who’s who of Vietnam’s business word the Vietnamese prime minister will be bringing with him to India.
Although the focus of the forthcoming trip by Vietnam’s prime minister will be predominantly economic, the symbolic significance will not be lost on China, which has warily looked at the closer Delhi-Hanoi strategic and economic embrace with a distinct unease. China has repeatedly objected to Indian companies’ involvement in oil exploration in South China Sea, which it claims in entirety. But India has made it clear that its energy cooperation with Vietnam is strictly bilateral, and does not impact the interests of any third country.

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ITEC toasts 50 years: Celebrating South-South spirit of sharing

- by Manish Chand

Made in India! It’s their tryst with India, and the spirit of South-South sharing, that has branded them for life. On the night of October 22, which coincided with the Diwali eve, students and mid-career professionals from dozens of countries across the globe celebrated a unique institution called ITEC, which brought them together to India in an adventure of learning, seeking, sharing and skilling.

Singing and dancing amid animated chatter to Indian pop star Alisha Chinai’s foot-tapping number Made in India, this rainbow brotherhood toasted the golden jubilee of Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme, which has become their ticket to India and the world in more ways than one. The atmosphere was heady and resembled that of a graduation dinner, with ITEC alumni from diverse nationalities exchanging notes, clicking photos and packing their nostalgia bag with memories of India. Noor Mohammed from Afghanistan said disarmingly: It’s a gift. I am so happy to be part of ITEC and come to India.” Catherine from Colombia was also all praise for the ITEC ethos: ”It was an invaluable experience. India is an amazing country.”

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Beyond symbolism: What Nobel Peace Prize means for India and Pakistan

- by Manish Chand

The symbolism of the joint 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for a veteran Indian child rights activist and a Pakistani teenager who defied the Taliban to emerge as an icon of the girl’s right to education is compelling. The Nobel committee may not have envisaged relentless firing and hostility between the border troops of the two countries when they decided to award the Nobel to them, but the timing of the announcement has lent an extra resonance to this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. It has underlined the need for the two estranged South Asia countries to stop firing at each other, but to focus their energies instead on stamping out myriad social evils that hold up the enormous potential of their combined 1.4 billion people.
This is no time, therefore, for self-congratulatory spiel for both India and Pakistan. The struggle against poverty and multifarious forms of social injustice is only going to get harder if both nations persist in self-defeating, destructive spiral of mutual belligerence and recriminations. “The Nobel Committee regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism,” said Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The Nobel Committee has sent a potent message across, and it’s time for the leaders and people for both nations to heed that message, carefully, and in their own national interests.

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No politics please, India has responded to Pakistan’s aggression with courage: PM

- by Manish Chand

Don’t play politics with issues of national security. Talking straight, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned on his critics who has charged him of soft-pedalling Pakistan’s ceasefire violations as he asserted that India has responded to the aggression with courage.
“Today, when bullets are being fired on the border, it is the enemy that is screaming. Our jawans have responded to the aggression with courage,” Modi said at an election rally at Baramati in Maharashtra, India’s poll-bound western state.
The recent wave of violence along the India-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir has been the worst of its kind in more than a decade. The timing of the relentless firing seeing in the last few days by the Pakistan Rangers on the Indian posts, killing and wounding several civilians, shows the hand of Pakistan’s powerful military, which is desperately trying to keep the Kashmir issue alive internationally amid a renewed global confidence in the India Story.

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Why China is wary of India-US statement on South China Sea

- by Manish Chand

The first-ever reference to South China Sea in an India-US joint statement during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Washington has riled Beijing, and revived the latter’s fears about the world’s two largest democracies acting in concert on a larger China containment strategy.
Predictably, China, which, according to the IMF, has taken over the US to become the world’s largest economy on purchasing power parity terms, has asserted that the South China Sea sovereignty issue should be resolved directly by parties concerned and without meddling from any third party.
Much to the discomfort of Beijing, India’s Act East policy and the US rebalance to Asia are converging in some respects to promote peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific theatre.

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India, US open a new bright chapter: Focus on knowledge partnership, security cooperation

- by Manish Chand

India and the US, the world’s oldest and most populous democracies, have put the recent past of drift and plateauing behind to open a new bright chapter in their relationship by launching a new investment initiative to multiply their trade five-fold, enhancing security cooperation and expanding the global compass of their strategic partnership from Afghanistan to Africa.
Piercing through the thicket of diplomatic clichés, the US pitched itself as a lead partner in India’s quest for smart cities and world class infrastructure.
India’s Prime Minister Narandra Modi and US President Barack Obama held all-encompassing talks for more than an hour and a half in Washington DC September 30, with the US shedding its ambivalence and pledging unstinting support for “India’s rise as a responsible, influential world power.”
The big takeaway from the first summit meeting between the leaders of the world’s largest democracies was the forceful assertion on the part of the two leaders to leave the recent past of drifting firmly behind and forge a more vibrant and enduring partnership pivoted around a transformative knowledge partnership and deploying cutting-edge technologies to address all-too-real problems facing millions of people cutting across the rural-urban divide.

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Scripting anew: Obama, Modi co-author vision article on India-US ties in US daily

- by Manish Chand

Chalein Saath, Saath: forward we go together.” This emerging India-US bonding, with its promise of working together on a host of bilateral and global issues, will be reflected in a joint op-ed article co-authored by US President Barack Obama and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The article, which was approved only hours before the two leaders sat down for an informal dinner at the White House, will be published in a leading American daily, likely to be the Washington Post.

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