Modi visit to South Africa

Modi sells the India Dream in South Africa: H.O.P.E Unbound

July 9, 2016July 9, 2016 - by India Writes Network

Mahatma and Madiba. Interlinked dreams of India and Africa. Rise of India. Resilience and Resurgence. These were key theme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stirring address to ain South Africa on July 1. Sporting a Madiba shirt, Mr Modi enthralled nearly 11,000 PIOs with his resonant vision of a new India and cited myriad cultural and historical links that bind India and South Africa.

Here are some quotable quotes from PM Modi’s speech that encapsulate his views on the transformation of India, the bright future of India-Africa relations and the pivotal place of the Indian diaspora in India’s resurgence.

NSG support, stronger defence ties signal a new era in India-South Africa ties

July 9, 2016July 9, 2016 - by Manish Chand

Ending weeks of speculation, South Africa has declared support for India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a key takeaway for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Africa’s economic powerhouse.
Getting the support of South Africa, a non-proliferation hawk which renounced its nuclear programme decades ago, was on top of Modi’s agenda in Pretoria.
Modi’s wide-ranging talks with South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma on July 9 firmed up a substantive agenda for galvanising India-South Africa relationship across the spectrum, with special focus on collaboration in defence, value-added manufacturing and information technology. Taking a long-range view of strategic partnership, Zuma ended ambivalence by conveying his country’s support for India’s entry into the NSG, which will enable greater access for India to civil nuclear technologies.

Modi’s Africa odyssey: Raising the Bar

July 5, 2016July 5, 2016 - by Manish Chand

2016 is set to be the year of Africa for India’s diplomacy, with Narendra Modi heading on the first-ever four-nation tour by an Indian prime minister to the continental Africa in decades. PM Modi’s visit, preceded by President Pranab Mukherjee’s visits to Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire and Namibia and Vice-President Hamid Ansari’s trips to Morocco and Tunisia, has raised the bar for India’s diplomatic outreach to Africa, and underscores the emergence of the resurgent continent as an important pole in the country’s foreign policy calculus.
The clichéd narrative of competition and rivalry between India and China in Africa is a tad overplayed as the two Asian powers have different core strengths and models of engaging Africa. India can’t possibly surpass China in terms of trade volumes in the near term, but Modi’s visit to the four African countries is meant to signal that India is raising the game and is ready to match its rhetoric with resources and core strengths to expand and transform a mutually empowering partnership with the renascent continent.