India and the World

Post-surgical strikes against Pakistani terrorists, Modi says India not hungry for land

- by India Writes Network

Days after Indian troops carried out special strikes targeting Pakistani terrorists across LoC, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has underlined that India has never coveted any territory or attacked another country though it made sacrifices for the freedom of others.
“…It is neither hungry for land. But in the two World Wars (in which India had no direct stake), 1.5 lakh Indian soldiers had laid down their lives,” Modi said after inaugurating the Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra, a majestic complex dedicated to nearly 27 million Indians living abroad.
“In the last two years, you have seen how the government rescued people from conflict situations, not just Indians but foreigners too,” Mr Modi said while alluding to his government’s rescue missions in conflict zones, including Libya, Iraq, Yemen and Ukraine.
Mr Modi’s remarks were aimed at the international community which has expressed concerns over escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan following the Indian Army’s special operation to target seven terror launch pads across Line of Control, in response to the Uri terror strike perpetrated by Pakistani militants. Read more…

Read More

Hamid Ansari in Mali: Amid Pakistan strikes, India quietly bolsters anti-terror front with Africa

- by India Writes Network

Amid headline-hogging strikes by India to hit back at Pakistan for the Uri massacre, thousands of miles away Vice-President Hamid Ansari engaged in quiet and effective diplomacy to forge a united front against terror with two key West African nations, including Nigeria and Mali. In Bamako, the capital of Mali, the vice-president outlined a template of mutual empowerment with the African continent by dovetailing India’s Africa policy with the vision of African resurgence crystallized in Agenda 2063.

In the first high-level visit from India to Mali, Mr Ansari pledged India’s unremitting support for the reconstruction and flowering of this nation of poets, scholars and musicians and underscored that New Delhi will work closely with Bamako to restore the glory of Timbuktu, which has been savagely assaulted and scarred by al-Qaeda in Maghreb militants.

Read More

Ansari backs Mali’s reconstruction: ‘India’s ties with Africa not transactional’

- by India Writes Network

India’s outreach to Francophone Africa has acquired a new ballast with the first high-level visit from New Delhi to the land-locked West African nation, home to scholars, musicians and historians.

India has strongly rallied in solidarity with Mali, the gritty West African nation ravaged by terrorism, but is determined to script its resurgence. In a defining speech at the National Assembly of Mali, Vice-President Hamid Ansari underscored key pillars of the burgeoning India-Africa partnership and pledged India’s unstinting support for the reconstruction of Africa’s seventh largest state. Mr Ansari underlined that India’s relations with Africa go beyond merely transactional partnership, but is rooted in emotive people-to-people connections, political solidarity and an emerging contemporary partnership animated by mutual resurgence. Here are key highlights/excerpts of Vice-President Hamid Ansari’s speech at Mali’s parliament on September 30:

In recent years we have sought to close the distance that separates us physically. We were happy to welcome His Excellency President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta when he participated in the 3rd India – Africa Forum Summit hosted by India in October last year. We value the contribution of Mali to the success of the Summit.

Read More

Walking the talk: India’s surgical strikes on terror pads in Pakistan a fitting response to Uri attack

- by India Writes Network

The audacious surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) by India has underscored India’s resolve to punish Pakistan for the Uri terror strike and its continued use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy.

The special operation launched by the Indian Army on the intervening night of September 28 and 29 in a nearly five-hour-long operation to destroy terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has been widely welcomed in India and is seen a fitting retaliation for the killing of 18 Indian soldiers in Uri the terror strike.

The surgical strikes have also demonstrated to Pakistan and the world that India is not going to suffer any more Pakistan’s duplicity and nuclear blackmail by deploying techniques it considers necessary for the country’s honour and self-defence.

The details of the special operation are not clear, but reliable sources disclosed that the launch pads in PoK were located in the range of 2 to 3km from the LoC and were under constant surveillance for over a week.

Read More

Isolate Pakistan: In Nigeria, Ansari targets terror-sponsoring states

- by Manish Chand

In a veiled reference to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism against India, Vice-President Hamid Ansari has made a compelling case for bolstering counter-terror cooperation with Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, and underlined that “the use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy should be unequivocally condemned.”

Invoking the common suffering experienced by Nigeria and India from the scourge of terrorism, Mr Ansari exhorted the world community not to make any distinction between good and bad terrorists and speak in one voice against this trans-national menace.

“Your country, like mine, has suffered the horrors of this scourge of terrorism. Terrorism today has global reach, no city remains safe,” Mr Ansari said at the National Defence College in the Nigerian capital Abuja on September 28. “Use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy is to be unequivocally condemned. There can be no distinction between good and bad terrorists.” Delinking terrorism with religion, the vice-president argued that a terrorist can’t have any religion or be afforded political sanctuary.

Read More

India snubs Pakistan, says no to SAARC summit

- by India Writes Network

In a major step aimed at isolating Pakistan in the region, India has announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not participate in the SAARC summit in Islamabad due to cross-border terrorist attacks, an obvious reference to the Uri assault by Pakistani terrorists.

In a diplomatic retaliation for Pakistan’s diversionary posturing on the Kashmir issue, India has underlined that the current environment is not conducive to then holding of the SAARC summit.

Read More

India, Nigeria open new avenues to energise ties: Focus on nuclear energy, food security

- by India Writes Network

Bolstering their economic and energy partnership, India and Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, have decided to open new avenues of cooperation in areas of civil nuclear energy, energy, space and food security.

The talks between India’s Vice-President Hamid Ansari and his Nigerian counterpart Yemi Osinbajo in Abuja on September 27 culminated in an ambitious template for scaling up the India-Nigeria relations in key areas that included, among others, hydrocarbons, renewable energy, defence, space and counter-terror cooperation.

Read More

Bypassing OIC to isolate Pakistan: Ansari to seek support of Nigeria & Mali, says OIC is just another club

- by Manish Chand

India is looking to step up its outreach to Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries to muster their support against Pakistan-sponsored terror, with Vice-President Hamid Ansari set to take up the issue with the leaders of Nigeria and Mali. However, even as India ratchets up its ongoing diplomatic campaign to isolate Pakistan in the wake of the Uri terror attack, Mr Ansari sent a subtle but strong message across by underlining that one should not exaggerate the significance of OIC.

Mr Ansari touched down in Abuja on September 26 on a three-day visit to Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and most populous country. Nigeria rolled out the red carpet to welcome Mr Ansari, with Nigeria’s vice-president Yemi Osinbajo personally receiving him at the Abuja International Airport. Dancers dressed in colourful attire welcomed the Vice-President, the first high-level visit from India in the last nine years since then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Nigeria in 2007.

Read More

India’s response to Uri attack: Strategic patience, not restraint shows the way

- by India Writes Network

The September 18 attack on the Uri military camp, launched by Pakistan-based terrorists, has agitated the entire country and ignited serious, high-decibel debate as to how these repeated provocations need to be handled by the leadership.
Pakistan appears to have hit upon a ‘no cost’ grand strategy which is backed by its nuclear weapons capability with its announced first use policy. The aim, clearly, is to show Prime Minister Modi as a weak leader, to keep India unsettled by negatively impacting its international image and a calculation that the state response to terrorism can widen India’s potential internal fault lines. By applying this strategy, it feels that it has the strategic and tactical initiative for escalation of tension and, indeed, in the bilateral relations as a whole.
Costs for Pakistan can, certainly, be raised. Its grand strategy is anchored in waging an asymmetrical, ‘irregular’ war against India, backed up by its military and nuclear capability: this ‘irregular’ war involves non-uniformed, ‘civilian’ elements trained in subversion and guerrilla warfare in urban areas and the countryside. Conventional military action, as seen in the ‘Operation Parakram’ mobilisation of the Indian troops on the India-Pakistan border after the Parliament attack, cannot be the response.
As it needs to leverage all aspects of a country’s strength, countering asymmetric warfare is a protracted affair and cannot take the form of a short, swift conventional war. Ultimately, it is the strength and resilience of a political system which actually prevails in a war of attrition, against the strategy of ‘death by a thousand cuts’. The answer to our Pakistan dilemma, in short, is not ‘strategic restraint’ but ‘strategic patience’.

Read More