Global Indian News
Father Tom Uzhunnalil is a happy man as he heads back to his hometown Ramapuram in Kerala on Sunday (October 1) after an agonising year-and-a-half long period of confinement by …
Read More
Projecting Afghanistan as a narrative of economic opportunity, a signature India-Afghan trade show has opened in New Delhi that seeks to nurture and expand economic bonds between Asia’s third largest economy and the resource-rich violence-wracked country.
Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and India’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley jointly inaugurated the three-day India-Afghanistan Trade and Investment show at a luxury hotel in New Delhi on September 27. The show, fittingly entitled “Passage to Prosperity,” could be a potential game-changer in attracting greater Indian investment into a violence-torn country wracked by a festering insurgency led by the Taliban.
The trade fair showcases typical Afghan products like carpets, gems, dry fruits and marble, for which the country is famous for, and seeks to forge business linkages between Afghan traders and entrepreneurs with their Indian counterparts. Over 200 Afghan and 800 Indian companies, encompassing diverse sectors, including health, education, energy, water and agriculture sectors, are participating in the mega show.
The trade fair emanates from India’s declared commitment to bolster Afghanistan economically at the Heart of Asia Ministerial conference, held in Amritsar in December 2016.
In a first of sorts, the US is partnering in this trade show, which underlines a growing connect between India, Afghanistan and the US to proactively cooperate in the economic rejuvenation of the violence-beset country. The trade initiative will reinforce US President Donald Trump’s Afghan policy which envisages a bigger economic and developmental role for India in the stabilisation of Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the coastal Chinese city of Xiamen was important for several reasons. For one, this was the first time PM Modi and President Xi Jinping were meeting face-to-face since the standoff at Doklam, which saw an unprecedented sabre-ratting from the Chinese side. Scheduled ahead of the 19th Communist Party Congress, whose dates – beginning 18 October, 2017 – were announced just after the disengagement agreement, the 9th BRICS Summit – attended by the leaders of India, China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa – was showcased by Chinese President Xi Jinping as a platform for his global leadership. A combination of these circumstances, in addition to concerns expressed by the US and other powers, probably including Russia, the highly tense Korean peninsula and some quiet diplomacy by the Indian side led to the disengagement where the CBMs between the two armies firmly held, despite the jingoistic noises.
On the eve of the Chinese Communist Party Congress, the Chinese leader’s sensitivity about his projection as a global leader, with the new US president becoming less globally engaged, remains a significant domestic political factor. The post-October emergent shape of the Chinese leadership would make considerable difference as to how stable global situation would be where India’s vital interests – and its multi-vector international relationships – remain at stake. Read more….
Two nations, two narratives – “India sets up IITs and IIMs and Pakistan produces jihadis and set up terror organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohamed.” Taking an expose of Pakistan to a new level on the global stage at the annual UNGA jamboree, India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj launched a savage indictment of Pakistan for sponsoring and supporting terror against India and the region.
In her hard-hitting speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 23, Sushma Swaraj was at her acerbic best, launching a scathing criticism of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Abbasi’s address where he had accused India of perpetuating state-sponsored terrorism and human rights violations.
Those listening had only one observation: “Look who’s talking!” A country that has been the world’s greatest exporter of havoc, death and inhumanity became a champion of hypocrisy by preaching about humanity and Human Rights from this podium,” she said at the 72nd United Nations General Assembly.
across the range of human welfare.
“Why is it that today India is a recognised IT superpower in the world, and Pakistan is recognised only as the pre-eminent export factory for terror? What is the reason for this have they ever thought? There is only one reason. India has risen despite the principle destination of Pakistan’s nefarious export of terrorism,” she said.
Is SAARC in danger of becoming irrelevant? India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, for one, certainly thinks so, reinforcing widespread skepticism about the bleak future of the grouping which remains mired in India-Pakistan rivalry and Islamabad’s stonewalling of SAARC’s key initiatives.
In her speech at an informal meeting of the foreign ministers of SAARC member nations on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Mrs Swaraj voiced India’s disappointment with the failure of the eight-nation South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to live up to its aims and objectives. The minister spelled out a host of roadblocks that continue to stall any significant progress made by the eight-nation grouping.
There was no clear indication regarding the SAARC summit, but the minister clarified that unless the high-level meetings translate into concrete actions on the ground, the relevance of the group would be lost. With India and Pakistan intensifying their war of words at the UNGA, the fate of SAARC, as of now, hangs in the balance.
US President Donald Trump’s maiden speech at the United Nations General Assembly unfolded on predictable lines, except for its highly combative tone which left many veteran world leaders and diplomats in the audience squirming in their seats. From vowing to destroy North Korea, to calling Iran a “rogue state” and lashing out at terrorist organisations and countries that provide them safe havens, Mr Trump unleashed his rage at “America’s enemies.”
Speaking from the green-marbled dais he had once mocked as ugly, Mr Trump’s fury was largely directed at the “depraved” Pyongyang and its despotic leader Kim Jong-un whom he referred to as the Rocket Man on a suicide mission. “No one has shown more contempt for other nations and for the wellbeing of their own people than the depraved regime in North Korea,” he said. Mr Trump, who got elected in November last year on America First plank, vowed to “totally destroy” North Korea if it didn’t abandon its nuclear weapons programme.
The birth of a publication is always a reason for celebration. The birth of a publication at a time when print is under some strain is a cause for even greater celebration. But the birth of a print publication in a time of strain, on a subject that is of a close interest to the distinguished audience here, is perhaps the most welcome part of the evening. I hope the subject will actually determine the quality of the publication.
Foreign affairs and diplomacy are two of the most important aspects of government, have always been, particularly now in the current environment and context in which we live. Let me begin with a question that is immediate. What has happened in the last three years that is a significant change with the past? The first articulation of our foreign policy was made in March 1946 at the Asian Relations Conference and it is also an indication of how seriously the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru took foreign policy. He had already begun, in a sense, the concept of multilateralism, established it with that conference, at a time when the post-war world was still searching for some way forward. At a time when colonisation still seemed one power that the world would not easily get rid of.
Now, it’s only in hindsight that we can say that 1947 was a seminal year because, in a real way, Europe’s colonial power began with Britain’s success in India and it also ended with Britain’s collapse in India.
After the British lost their raj, it was only a matter of time before colonialism all across the world collapsed. But in 1946, certainly the spirit of Lord [Satyendra] Sinha was more prevalent. As a law member, he’d famously remarked about Mahatma Gandhi that: “I don’t understand what this man in a dhoti is doing, the British are going to be around here for 400 years.”
That was the prevalent wisdom and that was a prevalent assessment. He wasn’t far off from what conventional thinking in 1917 suggested and yet, when Gandhiji started, the Empire could not survive more than 30 years. The reason was that a man had come who mobilised the will of the people against an elite. Previously, all the colonial powers had to do was to confront and defeat local elites in order to establish their expansion. They never had to deal really with the people.
The deepening standoff with North Korea and the Iran nuclear accord are expected to top President Donald Trump’s agenda when he delivers his debut address to the United Nations General Assembly session next week. He will meet jointly with the leaders of South Korea and Japan for lunch on Thursday to discuss the looming North Korean threat.
In a tweet on September 17, Mr Trump mocked Kim Jong-un as the “Rocket Man” adding to his long line of inflammatory comments directed at the DPRK chief. He said: “I spoke with president Moon of South Korea last night. Asked him how Rocket Man is doing. Long gas lines forming in North Korea. Too bad!”
The Trump administration is getting increasingly vocal about the possibility of a military action if North Korea does not put a lid on its nuclear programme. The United Nations Security Council adopted a new round of sanctions on North Korea last Monday, reducing gasoline exports and crude oil supplies, in response to the nation’s sixth and largest nuclear weapons test. But the defiant regime responded with a fresh missile launch over Japan on Friday warning sanctions will only further accelerate its nuclear programme.
Speaking to CNN, US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said, “If North Korea keeps on with this reckless behaviour, if the United States has to defend itself or defend its allies in any way, North Korea will be destroyed.”
There is nothing like the India-Japan connect that gives an ascendant and assertive China jitters. Given the bonhomie and bonding that was on display between India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe in Ahmedabad and transformative outcomes that emanated from the summit meeting on September 14, the Chinese media’s backlash hardly comes as a surprise.
Dismissing the “growing intimacy” between India and Japan, the Global Times, the hawkish Chinese tabloid which led the propaganda blitz during the Doklam standoff, has warned India not to get into containment games with Japan.
“After the Doklam standoff, more voices in the Indian media instigate the country to step up cooperation with the US and Japan against China and exaggerate the geopolitical significance of closer India-Japan ties. Yet this to a large degree has exposed the vulnerable feeling of the Indian strategic circle in front of China”, the Global Times said in an op-ed article. It attacked Japan by saying “… Japan has been more narrow-minded in looking for allies globally to encircle China.”
Opening a new era in their partnership, India and Japan have inked 15 pacts in diverse areas, including nuclear energy, clean energy, high-speed rail and infrastructural development.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe held wide-ranging talks in Gujarat’s capital Gandhinagar on September 14 that will upscale economic and strategic partnership between two of Asia’s leading democracies.
Against the backdrop of China’s increasing assertiveness in the region, India and Japan decided to expand their defence ties and jointly called for “achieving a free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.” The strategic connect between India and Japan was detailed in the joint statement which envisages an alignment of Japan’s free and open Indo-Pacific strategy with India’s Act East Policy, joint exercises and enhanced collaboration in producing military hardware.