Global Indian News
India’s diplomatic profile in the Mediterranean Sea region became a few notches higher when visiting Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades sought New Delhi’s support for the reunification of Cyprus, a part …
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WARSAW: Imparting a fresh momentum to burgeoning ties with India, Poland, the economic powerhouse in Central Europe, has reaffirmed support for New Delhi’s bid for membership in the Nuclear Suppliers …
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Mixing business, Bollywood, culture and diplomacy, India and Armenia, a strategically located country in the Caucasian region between Asia and Europe, have opened a new chapter in their bilateral ties by firming up a roadmap for upscaling economic partnership that will include greater trade, connectivity and tourism.
Building upon their cultural connections spanning centuries, the two countries signed three pacts in areas of peaceful uses of outer space, cultural connections and youth exchanges. The pacts were inked after wide-ranging talks in Yerevan between India’s vice-president Hamid Ansari and Armenia’s top leadership, which included including President Serzh Sargsyan, Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan and Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian.
The vice-president’s visit has brought a new vigour and opened a new chapter in bilateral ties as the two countries mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, Preeti Saran, secretary (east) in India’s external affairs ministry, told Indian journalists in the Armenian capital on April 25.
The two sides zeroed in on agriculture, jewellery, stone-cutting and watch-making as focus areas for enhancing economic engagement. They also agreed on a series of steps, including the holding of a business conclave and liberalisation of visas, to enhance the quantum of trade and investment.
Given the surging popularity of Indian films in Armenia, Bollywood is set to play the role of a catalyst in boosting tourism. “Armenia has invited Indian film industry to shoot films in their country. A team from Bollywood is expected to come Armenia to explore the possibility,” said Ms Saran.
Armenian president told Mr Ansari that Bollywood films are popular in his country and his grand-daughter was fond of Bollywood music.
Against the backdrop of proliferation of radical Islamist terrorist groups in the Eurasian region, the two countries converged on a unified response to international terrorism.
India’s intensified drive to secure membership of the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group, Vice-President Hamid Ansari will be in Warsaw this week where he is expected to seek a fresh reaffirmation of Poland’s support for New Delhi’s NSG bid and discuss a roadmap for expanding economic ties with Central Europe’s largest economy.
Poland has been supportive of India’s NSG membership, Mr Ansari told journalists travelling with his delegation on board his special aircraft. The vice-president began his five-day trip to Armenia and Poland on April 24. In EU, most countries, who are members of the elite nuclear cartel, support India’s NSG membership except for sceptics like Austria and Ireland. As the NSG operates by consensus, getting support of each of 46 countries of the NSG is critical for India’s quest to get inside the NSG which controls global flow of nuclear material and equipment. China remains the most formidable opposition in India’s drive for global nuclear rapprochement through the NSG membership. China is pushing for criteria-based approach for non-NPT signatories which are aspiring to join the NSG, which includes India and Pakistan. This move by Beijing is seen in New Delhi as a dilatory tactic which is meant to stall India’s legitimate NSG aspiration.
Mr Ansari touched down in Yerevan, Armenian capital, on a two-day visit on April 24. Alluding to centuries-old cultural connections between India and Armenia, Mr Ansari admitted that the economic ties have remained much below potential.
The NSG will be an important issue in the talks between India and Poland later this week, but the overarching focus of the vice-president’s visit will be on scaling up economic relations with Poland, the EU’s sixth largest economy and an influential regional player. The vice-president struck an upbeat note about the Poland opportunity, and underlined that Poland is a strong trading partner for India in Central Europe. The vice-president identified clean coal technology and agriculture as promising areas of bilateral cooperation between India and Poland.
Diplomacy and real-politick will blend with culture and business during Vice-President Hamid Ansari’s visit to Poland and Armenia this week that is expected to re-energise India’s relations with these two emerging economies in Central Europe and the Eurasian region.
In India, public attention has largely focused on the country’s relations with countries in Western Europe, but not many know about the unfolding story about New Delhi’s deepening connect with Central and Eastern Europe, a region that is suffused with love for Indian culture, philosophy and ethos.
“These are two important countries with whom we have excellent relations. I think any relationship no matter how strong or deep the economic, cultural, political, scientific and other areas of cooperation might be can only be sustained through high level visits,” said Preeti Saran, Secretary (East) in India’s external affairs ministry ahead of the visit.
Looking to fulfil one of his major election promises, US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to revamp a temporary visa programme that allows foreign workers, mostly Indian IT professionals, to find jobs in the US, a move that is set to hit the Indian IT sector.
Riding on his rallying cry of “Buy America, Hire America,” Mr Trump visited a manufacturing firm in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a state he snatched from Democrat rival Hillary Clinton in the presidential election last year, before putting his signature on the order that would seek to address alleged abuses in the H-1B visas which are used largely by the tech industry. H-1B visas allow 65,000 workers and another 20,000 graduate student workers each year.
The Associated Chambers of Commerce cautions the Indian IT industry to brace for taking a hit by Mr Trump’s signing the executive order pointing out that nearly 86 per cent of H-1B visas issued for workers in computer space go to Indians. This number is expected to dip to 60 per cent or even less, an ASSOCHAM study says.
US National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster is known for his plain-speak. And he did precisely that by sending out a tough message to Pakistan for its sponsorship of cross-border terror, ahead of his visit to New Delhi during which he focused on expanding counter-terror and defence cooperation with India.
In New Delhi, Lieutenant General McMaster held a series of meetings with the top leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, and Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. “NSA McMaster emphasized the importance of the U.S.-India strategic relationship and reaffirmed India’s designation as a Major Defense Partner,” said a statement from the US embassy. “The two sides discussed a range of bilateral and regional issues, including their shared interest in increasing defense and counterterrorism cooperation.”
In Kabul, just before he reached Islamabad, McMaster had some blunt talk for Pakistan. “As all of us have hoped for many, many years, we have hoped that Pakistani leaders will understand that it is in their interest to go after (militant) groups less selectively than they have in the past and the best way to pursue their interest in Afghanistan and elsewhere is through diplomacy and not through the use of proxies that engage in violence,” Mr McMaster told an Afghan news channel in Kabul.
What is equally significant is that he nudged Pakistan to abandon the path of selectively targeting terrorists, a blunt message which found resonance in New Delhi. The US Embassy in Pakistan said as much in a statement that Mr McMaster “stressed the need to confront terrorism in all its forms.”
Amid China’s increasing forays in South Asia and its deepening relations with Kathmandu, Nepal’s President Bidya Devi Bhandari is in India this week on a five-day visit (April 17-21) that provides an opportunity to both sides to address each other’s concerns on a number of issues that shadow bilateral ties.
Mrs Bhandari, the first woman president of Nepal, will hold talks with President Pranab Mukherjee, who had visited Kathmandu in November last year, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to explore ways to expand cooperation between the two fraternal neighbours. Mrs Bhandari’s visit comes in the backdrop of “intensified bilateral engagements” and these exchanges have been “immensely useful” in ensuring steady progress in co-operative ties across diverse sectors, said Sudhakar Dalela, joint secretary in charge of Nepal in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, ahead of the Nepal president’s visit. The canvas of India-Nepal ties, rooted in robust cultural and people-to-people ties, encompasses he entire spectrum, including trade, economic investment, water resources, energy sector including power trading, defence and security, oil and gas sector.
Reflecting US President Donald Trump’s changed strategy in the battle against the Islamic State, the American army has used its most lethal non-non-nuclear bomb on a maze of caves and tunnels, considered a bastion of the deadly terror group in Nangahar province in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 36 suspected militants of the terror group.
Afghan officials ruled out any civilian casualties after “the mother of all bombs” (MOAB) which decimated a deep tunnel complex used by the Islamic State. This is the largest non-nuclear weapon used by the US army in its 15th year of fight against terrorists in Afghanistan. The operation came a few days before Mr Trump’s National Security Adviser H R McMaster flies to Afghan capital Kabul and reviews the security scenario on that country and the future of nearly 9,000 American troops stationed in Afghanistan. Mr McMaster is scheduled to visit Pakistan and India thereafter.
The 21,600-pound (9,797-kg) GBU-43 bomb, which has 11 tonnes of explosives, was dropped from a MC-130 aircraft in Achin district of Nangarhar, bordering Pakistan, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said on Thursday. The bomb is a GPS-guided weapon that had never before been used in combat since its first test in 2003 when it produced a mushroom cloud visible from a distance of 32 km.
The MOAB offensive was part of a joint operation between Afghan and international troops, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s office said in a statement.
The use of MOAB, which had been earlier used in Iraq four years ago, indicates a changed military strategy by the Trump administration from the one under the previous Barack Obama dispensation. Under Mr Trump, Washington appears to have given greater room to the US military in taking decisions on the battlefield, shifting it away from the White House.
Dark clouds are once again hovering over the future of already strained relations between India and Pakistan, following a Pakistani military court’s handing out death sentence to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav on the charge of espionage and India’s sharp reaction to it. But more importantly, the international community is outraged by the court ruling which did not follow any norms of a fair trial and any law giving chance to Mr Jadhav, a former Indian Navy commander, for self-defence.
Pakistan says it had captured Mr Jadhav, 46, in Balochistan on March 3, 2016 on the charge of espionage. India refuted the charge and hit back with political parties cutting across the ideological spectrum condemning the Pakistani court’s ruling and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj telling parliament that New Delhi would consider execution of Mr Jadhav as a “pre-meditated murder.” India’s Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar summoned Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit, and issued a demarche in which he said that Mr Jadhav was kidnapped last year from Iran and there had not been a credible explanation for his subsequent presence in Pakistan.
The whole episode raises several serious questions about Pakistan’s status as a law-abiding and civilized country. Mr Jadhav’s trial in a military court is a mockery of the due process of law and defies all cannons of natural justice. He never got a lawyer to present his case in the military court and all that used by Pakistani military authorities was a so-called “confession” by him.
India must immediately adopt a two-pronged strategy: bearing down on Pakistan to refrain from carrying out the death sentence and launching a diplomatic campaign to highlight the flawed trial process in Pakistan. The Jadhav trial has once again driven home the point that it does not always require a major terror attack in India to jeopardize India-Pakistan ties.