India and the World

Amid souring China ties and South China Sea churn, PM Modi to visit Vietnam

- by Manish Chand

Amid China’s hardening posture on the South China Sea ruling by an international tribunal, senior officials of India and Vietnam have held strategic talks in New Delhi to bolster their military and economic relations, which could pave the way for a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Hanoi early next month.
The volatile situation around the South China Sea in the wake of The Hague tribunal’s ruling rejecting Beijing’s “historic claims” over the disputed water body and the so-called nine-dash line figured prominently in discussions.
The discussions in New Delhi saw a striking convergence of perspectives between the two countries on the South China Sea issue.
The visit by PM Modi to Hanoi will take place at a time when the India-China relations are under strain following China’s stalling of India’s bid for the NSG membership and India denying extension of visas to three Chinese journalists working for state-run Xinhua news agency. Mr Modi’s visit to Hanoi, as and when it happens, will be closely watched in Beijing, which has resented growing proximity between New Delhi and Hanoi, and sees India as engaged in a containment game with the US, Japan, Australia and friendly ASEAN countries.

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China’s defence minister warns of possible ‘people’s war’ over South China Sea

- by India Writes Network

Stung by the ruling of an international tribunal rejecting its claims over the South China Sea, China has upped the stakes, with its defence minister warning of a possible “people’s war at sea” and exhorting the nation to be prepared for it.
China’s Defence Minister Chang Wanquan has asked the military, police and general population to be ready to defend the country’s territorial integrity in case of a direct confrontation in the South China Sea – a veiled reference to the US military build-up around the disputed islands.
The minister’s comments indicate China’s hardening position and the growing tide of nationalism over the South China Sea issue in the aftermath of the ruling by the Hague tribunal rejecting its historic claims over the disputed maritime region. The comments are seen as a message to the US, which has been sending warships and military planes close to the South China Sea islands as a possible hedge against China’s military assertion. Beijing has slammed the US’ provocative behaviour in the wake of the tribunal’s ruling.

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Emirates plane explodes into fireball at Dubai airport, all 300 on board evacuated

- by India Writes Network

It was a miraculous escape for 300 people, including 282 passengers and 18 crew, as an Emirates passenger jet crash landed at the Dubai Airport before exploding into thick black smoke.
For all the 300 people on board, it was a near death experience as they watched the Emirates Boeing 777 in which they were flown in, erupted into flames clouding the fabled Dubai skyline.
“We can confirm flight EK521 from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai has been involved in an accident at Dubai International,” the Emirates said on its Twitter account.
All flights to the Dubai airport have since been diverted and all take-offs and landings have been suspended. The media office of the Dubai tweeted that all operations, including any departures, from Dubai International have been halted “until further notice.”

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Food crunch for Indian workers in Saudi Arabia: Indian minister sent to Jeddah

- by India Writes Network

In an unprecedented crisis, around 10,000 Indian workers, most of whom worked with Saudi construction companies, are stranded in Saudi Arabia without food and money, with the Indian government working overtime to alleviate their suffering. Minister of State for External Affairs Gen (retd) V.K. Singh is set to leave for Jeddah tonight (August 2) to make an on-the-spot assessment of the situation.
The pitiable plight of hungry and penniless Indian workers in Saudi Arabia has come as a shock to the Modi government, which has made diaspora outreach and welfare a key plank of its foreign policy. The food crisis afflicting Indian workers in Saudi Arabia has erupted barely four months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Saudi Arabia and was assured by the top Saudi leadership about the welfare of the Indian community, including migrant workers, in the Arab world’s largest economy. Mr Modi interacted with the Indian workers as well as the well-heeled Indian community in two separate outreach events in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia is home to around 3 million Indians, the largest expatriate population in the Gulf powerhouse.

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Decoding Hague tribunal’s award on South China Sea

- by India Writes Network

In the immediate aftermath of the arbitration award, all sides are trying to calm the situation which, however, remains combustible with, potentially, disastrous consequences. The attention is to analyse each and every word of the principal protagonists to parse the intentions behind them. Apart from the involvement of the Coast Guards in support of the respective fishing boats which is a daily occurrence, several key countries have been exploring – and, eventually exploiting – hydrocarbon reserves within the NDL area. Militarisation of the existing infrastructure in the Spratlys and the Paracels, especially on the part of the Chinese, can completely alter the existing balance of power in the region.

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India to Pakistan: Stop supporting terrorism, getting Kashmir a delusional dream

- by Shweta Aggarwal

In a hard-hitting statement exposing Pakistan’s duplicity and support in fomenting unrest in Kashmir, India has made it clear to Pakistan that its embrace and encouragement to terrorism won’t succeed and underlined that the dream of Pakistan of acquiring Jammu and Kashmir will never be realised till eternity.
A day after Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif alienated New Delhi by asserting that Kashmir will one day be part of Pakistan, India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj read out the strongest statement yet on Islamabad’s role in inciting violence in Jammu and Kashmir, which has killed over 60 people and left hundreds injured.
“Behind Pakistan’s unabashed embrace and encouragement to terrorism lies its delusional though dangerous dream that ‘Kashmir will one day become Pakistan’, as Prime Minister Sharif said yesterday,” said Swaraj, flanked by Ministers of State M. J. Akbar and General (retd.) V K Singh in New Delhi on July 23.
The minister’s statement indicates a hardening of stand on Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and violence by the Modi government, which had taken path-breaking initiatives to mend fences with its estranged neighbour, but without much success due to the continued intransigence by Pakistan’s ruling establishment.

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Indian abducted in Kabul rescued

- by India Writes Network

In a piece of good news for all those who have been working tirelessly in Afghanistan amid violence, an Indian woman who was abducted in Kabul six weeks ago has been rescued.
“I am happy to inform you that Judith D’Souza has been rescued. Judith was abducted in Kabul on 9th June 2016,” India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said in a tweet on microblogging social site on July 23. The identity of the captors and the details of rescue mission have not been disclosed yet.
D’Souza, who was working for the Aga Khan Foundation as a senior technical adviser, was abducted by suspected militants from outside her office in the heart of Kabul on June 9.

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Terror in Munich mall: No end to this barbarism, 9 killed

- by India Writes Network

The arc of savagery is widening by the day, with the latest terror rampage in a Munich mall shows. Dhaka, Nice and now Munich – these terror attacks across continents in less than a month underlines the increasing ferocity of terrorists inspired by radical Islamism and neurosis.
The latest lone wolf attack at the Olympia Einkaufszentrum shopping center wherein a man with a rifle went on a killing spree, slaughtering nine people and injuring over 20, is deeply distressing as it shows some freak deranged creature can go on a mayhem anytime anywhere.
The mayhem was the third act of terror to rattle Europe in eight days. The Bastille Day massacre by a Tunisian-born man who ploughed his truck into revellers in the French Riviera city of Nice killed 84 people on July 14. This week, an Afghan teenager wounded five people on a train with an axe near the Bavarian city of Wurzburg. These increasingly idiosyncratic modes of attack shows that the Islamic State and other assorted terror outfits are able to infiltrate impressionable minds of young zealots, leaving no place in the world safe from their barbaric grip.

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Mapping global cooperation for Indian Ocean economy

- by India Writes Network

The Indian Ocean region has acquired an added salience in India’s geo-strategic and foreign policy calculus under the Modi government. In this speech Indian Council on World Affairs on India and the Ocean Economy on July 12, Sujata Mehta, Secretary (West) in India’s external affairs ministry, maps the way ahead for India’s strategy for harnessing Blue Economy and calls for global cooperation to maintain IOR as a zone of peace and prosperity.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that every academic/quasi-academic/informative paper about the oceanic economy serves to reinforce the importance of the subject and every occasion such as this one is a reiteration that whether one takes a historical perspective, or a strategic view into the future, the importance of the oceanic dimension only increases. The interesting themes that have been discussed in this Seminar highlight the issues that are salient today and which reflect the different layers of our interests.

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