Global Indian News
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 …
Read MoreI am happy to be in this enchanting city and grateful to the Rector and the faculty of the Yerevan State University for inviting me today.
I have come to a land some distance from India but not far from the individual and collective memory of Indians. I myself was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), and spent many years in the city. Amongst its historic features are Armenian churches and other signs of its Armenian inhabitants. Father Michael Chamich’s History of Armenia was translated and published in Calcutta in 1827. More recently, historians like Mesrovb Jacob Seth and George Bournoutian have recorded the Armenian contribution in India to trade and commerce as to various cultural and charitable activities.
Less known but nevertheless a part of spiritual history of my land is the personality of Armenian descent known in medieval chronicles as Sarmad, a mystic of who travelled from somewhere in this region to India, led an unconventional life and was executed for blasphemy in 1660 because he espoused a creed that distinguished between states of ‘negation and affirmation’. One of the leaders of our freedom movement and a close aide of Mahatma Gandhi, Abul Kalam Azad, was deeply influenced by Sarmad’s free thinking and humanitarianism.
It is thus evident that well before modern times; the flow of people, trade and ideas was not an unusual occurrence. My purpose today, however, is to talk about the future, not the past.
The older generation in this audience knows and the younger ones have been told that the 20th century was a period of organized insanity characterized by metamyths and megadeaths. These led an eminent historian to conclude that ‘our world risks both explosion and implosion;’ hence ‘it must change’.
The expectation that the changes in the last decade of the century would bring forth a more harmonious world in which international cooperation in solving international problems would be addressed by peaceful means in conformity with the principles of justice and international law did not materialize. On the contrary, older patterns of thought and practice persisted and, aided by newer technologies, resulted in explosions as well as implosions in different parts of our world. The promise of globalization also showed its limitations; the financial crisis of 2008 demonstrated, in the words of one analyst, a ‘systemic vulnerability to unregulated greed.’ Both, in the final analysis, exhibited failures of governance at national and global levels.
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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.
India’s military strike capability of hitting land targets from the sea has received another dose of much-needed firepower with the successful test-firing of the supersonic land-attack cruise missile from a stealth frigate in the Bay of Bengal. The land-attack variant of the BrahMos missile, a joint product of India-Russia collaborative effort, was tested in March this year with an extended range of 450-km from the earlier 290-km. And on April 21 this year, it was fired from an Indian Navy frigate INS Teg, giving it the power to precisely hit targets from the sea deep into the enemy land,
“The land-attack variant of BrahMos provides Indian warships the capability to precisely neutralize selected targets deep inland, far away from the coast, from stand-off ranges at sea,” said an Indian Navy Officer. The land version of the missile has been built keeping in mind the steep mountains and gorges which characterize the topography of the Himalayas dividing India and China and India and Pakistan.
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.