Diplomacy

India’s Act East policy to get cultural and intellectual shine

- by India Writes Network

India’s Act East policy is not simply strategy and business. Taking a long-range view, New Delhi is planning to pitch multifarious cultural linkages to the fore as it moves to transform and reinvigorate this crucial relationship.
Ahead of the next India-ASEAN summit in Malaysia, India has underlined the importance of bolstering cultural linkages to impart a greater resonance to its burgeoning relationship with this enterprising and vibrant region.
Speaking at an international conference on “ASEAN-India Cultural Links: Historical and Contemporary Dimensions” in New Delhi on July 23, Mr Anil Wadhwa, India’s seniormost diplomat handling the region, spoke about ancient cultural linkages that bind India and Southeast Asia.

“India and ASEAN are today at the threshold of a qualitatively more substantive and reinvigorated relationship. As we work to give shape to our Plan of Action for the period 2016 to 2021, setting new goals to move the ASEAN-India Strategic Partnership forward, we not only aim to strengthen the third pillar of our engagement, i.e. the socio-cultural pillar, but also wish to bring it to the forefront of our relationship.”

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War games in Indian Ocean: India-US-Japan Malabar exercise to raise stakes

- by India Writes Network

The stakes in the new game unfolding in the Indian Ocean are rising by the day. Against the backdrop of China’s growing clout and assertiveness in the region, the world’s three maritime democracies, the US, Japan and India, are set to conduct joint naval exercises in October. It’s not official yet, but senior military officials from India, US and Japan met at an American Navy base in Yokosuka, near Tokyo on July 22 to discuss the details of the forthcoming Malabar Naval exercises.
The three countries, who also hold a trilateral meeting every year, are expected to deny that the exercise is targeted at China, but Beijing will be watching closely how the Malabar exercise plays out.
While China objected to Japan’s Defence Review, it has not reacted with the same intensity so far on the proposed joint naval exercises between the three countries. The last time the exercise was held where Australia, Japan and Singapore were also invited by India to its drills with the US navy elicited such a strong reaction from Beijing that it was never held after that. The event is likely to send alarm bells ringing in Beijing, with more alliances being formed in the region against it. While China may have made inroads into the global financial system by setting up new financial institutions challenging the US, the US retains its military clout in the region, and still dominates the seas due to its naval superiority. China sees this strategy of the US as the one similar to forming groups such as NATO and a US-led security grouping in Asia-Pacific.

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Terror strikes Africa again, West African countries forge coalition

- by India Writes Network

In a series of suicide attacks in Nigeria and Cameroon, more than 50 people were estimated to have been killed, signaling a spurt in increasing extremism across a wide swathe of the continent.
Boko Haram is suspected to be behind these attacks. The terror canrage comes in the backdrop of Boko Haram releasing videos on the social networking site Twitter, where it claimed that they were not defeated and said, “We will be coming from where you never expected, stronger than before.”
Boko Haram is among prime drivers of terrorism in the region, which also include outfits like Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb and al-Shabaab. Boko Haram deploys Wahabbi Islam for radical proselytization and is waging a war against what it calls “the evil secular government in Nigeria.” In an hour-long video released on August 24, Boko Haram’s emir, Abubakar Shekau, declared his intention to establish the world’s second Islamic “caliphate.”

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10 years after nuclear deal: How estranged democracies became ‘natural & best partners’

- by Manish Chand

t’s been a transformative decade in the India-US relations, birthed and nurtured by the path-breaking nuclear deal that morphed the once estranged democracies into engaged democracies. The 10th anniversary of the transformational India-US nuclear deal, conceived on a warm summer day in July 2005, deserved a joint op-ed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama, with a soaring vision statement of the brave new future of this crucial relationship. Or better still, the two principal protagonists in catalyzing the deal – then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then US President George Bush – would have found time to pen their reflections, and a thousand visions and revisions that framed the grand bargain. They may still do that, but for now we may have to do with the joint op-ed by the ambassadors of India and the US, published in the Huffington Post.

The two grown-up democracies can’t be expected to agree on every issue, and there are still many imponderables that can challenge this defining partnership, but the horizons for the multi-hued India-US relations remain relatively unclouded. The establishments in New Delhi and beltway Washington may cavil, but the sheer strength of people-to-people relations will ensure that the intricate machinery of India-US partnership will keep humming with new ideas, energy and drive to transform the lives of people not just in the two countries, but around the world. This is the true legacy of the India-US nuclear deal, provided this transformative impulse will endure in the decades ahead.

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Where is conflict? Both US and China can aid India’s transformation

- by India Writes Network

In so far as larger international politics is concerned, India welcomes the growing reality of a multi-polar world, as it does, of a multi-polar Asia. We, therefore, want to build our bilateral relationships with all major players, confident that progress in one account opens up possibilities in others.

An aspect of our current approach, while having implications for the entire world, has a special relevance for its two largest economies – the US and China. India is endeavouring to modernize in the fullest sense of that term. This is expressed in a variety of programmes, ranging from “Make in India”, “Digital India” and “100 Smart Cities” to “Skill India” and “Clean India”. It seeks resources, technology and best practices from international partners. That is very much at the heart of our diplomatic engagement. Both the US and China – and indeed the ASEAN, Japan, RoK and Europe – can contribute to this transformation.

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