India and the World

Global climate change: Modi draws red line, focuses on India’s clean energy plans

- by India Writes Network

Months before the Paris global climate summit, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has laid down red lines, saying said he would not succumb to foreign pressure to commit cuts in carbon emissions and stressed on the country’s plan to focus on ramping up the production of clean energy and home growth methods to combat climate change.

He underlined that respecting nature is engrained in our cultural values and India could lead the world in battling climate change, rather than merely following Western guidelines.

Inaugurating a two-day conference of state environment and forest ministers in New Delhi, he said that “we have a legacy of thousands of years in this field… India can show the way to the world out of this crisis”.

India is today the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Though our per capita emissions remain way below the developed countries (1.7 metric tonnes per capita, as opposed to China (6.2 mtpc) and USA (17.6 mtpc)), they are slated to increase with economic growth and development. There is pressure on India to restrict emissions, especially after the US and China committed to reductions in a land mark announcement last year (China agreed to cap emissions latest by 2030 and have 20% share of renewable energy in energy mix). Mr Modi highlighted India’s initiatives in solar and wind energy sectors and the need to switch to renewable energy and find innovative solutions to global warming.

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Modi’s Europe yatra: Cruise with Hollande, cleaning up Ganga via Rhine

- by Manish Chand

It promises to be a memorable evening in Paris, redolent of the famous Bollywood number of the late 1960s. When India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande go on a boat ride on the shimmering moon-lit Seine river next week, expect sparks to fly, and illuminate the multi-hued tapestry of India-France relations. The evening boat ride will be a time to do some small talk, think big, and map out an ambitious trajectory for one of India’s most crucial strategic partnerships in the European continent.
The planned Modi-Hollande boat cruise shows how the Indian diplomacy has changed in its tone, texture and atmospherics since Mr Modi took charge of the world’s most populous democracy and Asia’s third largest economy, nearly a year ago. In the staid and stuffy world of diplomacy, it has taken Modi, a former tea-seller, to reinvent the rules of the game and understand the value of spectacle and gestures in the media-saturated landscape.
From Make in India to Skill India and Clean Ganga, Prime Minister Modi will be looking to rope in two of Europe’s most powerful economies and influential players, for the overarching project of India’s economic resurgence. If it takes a boat ride with the French president and serenading the India Story with the German chancellor, so be it.

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Celebrating India’s pluralism: Muslim girl wins Gita contest

- by India Writes Network

It’s a showcase story of India’s vibrant multi-religious pluralistic society. A Muslim girl, studying in the sixth standard at a Mumbai school, has emerged as the winner of an inter school Gita competition – the Gita Champions League – organised by International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). She stood first in the written examination, which had about a hundred questions, leaving behind more than 4,000 other students. The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to felicitate the 12-year-old girl for attaining the first position. The award is expected to send a powerful message across in the state about knowing and respecting all religions in the society, and should have special relevance in India’s largest state that is known for intermittent religious tensions and bouts of communal violence.
Mariyam Asif Siddiqui, a student at the Cosmopolitan High School, Mira Road in Mumbai, underwent a month of preparation to understand deep teachings of religious Hindu poem-text, which encapsulates key tenets of the Hindu philosophy and way of life, with its focus on karma and dharma.

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Flowering feuds: China, Japan start cherry blossom war

- by India Writes Network

As the cherry blossom season starts in East Asia, a perennial debate has been raked up, this time with an added claimant over the birthplace of the popular sakura (cherry) trees. A Chinese industrial group has asserted that it is the Middle Kingdom, not Japan (with which the flower is traditionally associated) or South Korea (which has often claimed that its Jeju Island is the place of origin).
Cherry blossoms have a unique place in the Japanese society, which has guarded its traditions (tea ceremony, flower arrangements, origami) closely in the face of onslaught of Westernization, especially since the US occupation post World War II. The period over which the trees blossom sees a spate of traditional activities and festivities (much like monsoons in India).
Given its revered place in Japan’s cultural system, and acerbic relationship with China on the cultural front, China’s attempt at appropriation of the cherry blossom is often taken as assault on national identity (imagine the backlash from India, if say Pakistan says that yoga has its roots on the other side of the border). Group identities are an integral part of our being in the world, and often intangibles (such as concepts of honor, apology, food), have a potent emotional resonance to rake up political storms. Call it flowering feuds if you like: cherry blossom wars are here to stay.

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Belt and Road Action Plan: Choices for India

- by India Writes Network

In search of economic expansion and to gain strategic depth in the region, China has proposed a revival of the ancient trading route- the ‘Silk Route’- which connected East Asia to Eastern Europe, via Central Asia. While China maintains that its motives are purely commercial gain, others remain wary. India has been uneasy about the heavy investments made by China in South Asian countries, traditionally considered a part of India’s neighbourhood, and the hardliners see the ‘one belt, one road’ initiative as just a velvet coated ploy to further encircle India, as a possible extension of the ‘string of pearls’. In such scenario, there is a need for a nuanced examination of the initiative itself and India’s concerns and options.

‘Belt and Road’ initiative

In a very significant move, the blue print for the ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative was spelt out by Xi Jinping in the recently concluded Bo Ao Forum for Asia, convened in Sanya, Hainan.

Xi JinpingThe concept was first proposed by Mr. Xi in a speech at Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan, in 2013. He said that to “forge closer economic ties, deepen cooperation and expand development” in the Euro-Asia region, there was a need to build an “economic belt” reviving the ancient trading routes, which had historically linked Asia to Europe. He proposed that traffic connectivity and economic integration needed to be promoted to open the strategic regional thoroughfare from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea, and gradually move toward the set-up of a network of transportation that connects Eastern, Western and Southern Asia.

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India hails P5+1 nuclear deal as triumph of diplomacy

- by India Writes Network

The historic nuclear deal between the West and Iran has sparked a wave of applause from around the world and elicited a strong welcome from India.

The P5+1 (US, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany) have reached what US President Barack Obama has called a “historic understanding with Iran”. The framework agreement chalks out the agenda for future negotiations, the nuanced details of which shall be worked over the next three months. It allays the fears of Iran gaining nuclear weapons under the guise of pursuing a civilian nuclear programme (under these conditions the “breakout time” would be a year, if the deal is broken), and is a big step in ending the decades of sanction and diplomatic apartheid Iran has faced from the West and its allies.

Calling it a triumph of dialogue and diplomacy, India, which has shielded its partnership with Tehran from Western pressure, has promptly welcomed the accord in Lausanne. “A significant step seems to have been taken with agreement on the parameters of a comprehensive settlement to be negotiated by June 30,” India’s external affairs ministry said in a statement.

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Real Battle in Nigeria: Buhari versus Boko Haram

- by India Writes Network

After a clear victory in elections, Nigeria’s President-elect Muahmmadu Buhari has identified his top most priority and mission: ending the deadly mix of insurgency and terrorism as epitomised in the rise of Boko Haram and its barbaric activities.

With his party, the All Progressive Congress, elected by huge margins in the states most affected by the Boko Haram group, Gen. Buhari has the requisite popular support to take on the country’s insidious enemy.

Moreover, judging by past trends, Boko Haram cadre usually either move further North East towards Chad, while maintaining pressure on security forces within the North Eastern states or disperse towards the North West, which includes Katsina-the state Buhari belongs to and has won from.

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India condemns Kenya attack, calls for global fight against terror

- by India Writes Network

India, a key partner of New Delhi in East Africa and home to a large Indian diaspora, has strongly condemned the terrorist attack on a university campus at Garissa in north-eastern Kenya and underlined the need for intensified international cooperation to combat the scourge of terrorism that cuts across terrorism.
“We stand in solidarity and sympathy with the bereaved families and the injured, and convey our heart-felt condolences to the Government and people of Kenya,” India’s external affairs ministry said in New Delhi a day after the barbaric terror attack on April 2.
“This outrageous terrorist act is yet another reminder that the menace of terrorism continues to threaten us all and the international community needs to further strengthen its fight against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” said the ministry.
In the deadliest attack in the country since US embassy bombings in 1998, at least 147 students were slaughtered when Somalia’s Shebab Islamist group attacked a Kenyan university.
The attack lasted some 16 hours from before dawn until well after dark and has ended with all four terrorists killed.
The university attack came barely a couple of years after the spectacular mall terror attack in the heart of Nairobi, and put the spotlight on the proliferation of terror networks in the African continent.

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India banks on yoga export: Blending soft power and commerce

- by India Writes Network

India is banking on the global popularity of yoga to cash in on the success of its most famous cultural export. In the recently unveiled new Foreign Trade Policy, yoga has been included under the services export section, a move that shows the government’s enterprise in leveraging its soft power.

The trade policy focus on the ancient Indian discipline of wellness has come in the run-up to a host of events India will be hosting for celebrations relating to the International Day of Yoga on June 21, a pioneering step that was possible only with India’s proactive diplomacy.

The new trade policy aspires to make India a star player in world trade by 2020 – currently Asia’s third largest economy accounts just about 2% of global trade.

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348 Indian nationals evacuated from war-torn Yemen

- by India Writes Network

As the Gulf country descended deeper into violence and anarchy, India evacuated 348 Indian nationals from the war-torn Yemen. They are being taken to Djibouti across the red sea on the horn of Africa, where the Indian Air Force is waiting to fly them home.

INS Sumitra, India’s major petrol vessel, was deployed to rescue Indian nationals after New Delhi got permission to dock its ship at Aden Harbor in Yemen, and evacuate Indians who were stranded in the port city. The Indian government has launched a massive operation through sea and air to bring back around 4,000 citizens stuck in different part of war-ridden Yemen.

The Indian Navy ship departed from Yemen to Djibouti with 348 Indian nationals on March 31 night. They have reached Djibouti on April 1 morning, from where they will be airlifted to India.

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