Inviting the neighbours
By inviting the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) leaders to his swearing-in ceremony, Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi has sent out a powerful message on foreign policy.
India’s record of engagement
The other important move he has made is a quieter one — calling all economic ministries, to which the external affairs ministry could soon be included, to send in reports on policies that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) failed to implement, as well as the impractical policies it adopted.
In fact, there are many parts in his predecessors’ foreign policy book that Mr. Modi might well want to take a leaf out of:
The first is Dr. Singh’s creative thinking on the neighbourhood. Despite India’s many broken promises of the past decade, Dr. Singh will be remembered as a leader with both vision and a heart, even as the Indian foreign policy establishment learnt to give more than it sometimes received from its neighbourhood. Whether it was Dr. Singh’s focussed drive for better relations with Pakistan, or Indian concessions on trade with Bangladesh, or the massive reconstruction and infrastructure-building efforts undertaken in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, India’s SAARC engagement has helped its standing in the region.
The other feature that marked Dr. Singh’s tenure was his loyalty to multilateral forums in the face of opposition. It was not just SAARC and the Non-Aligned Movement but also the building of BRICS (along with Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa) that gave India a prominence on the world stage that held it in particular stead in the past few years. It remains to be seen if Mr. Modi will place as much weight on India’s bid for a U.N. Security Council permanent seat, or if that is even desirable, but it is important for India to be seen as dealing with the world on its own terms. To that end, Mr. Modi will engage with BRICS leaders as early as mid-July, when he is expected to travel to Brazil to attend the summit along with Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Stepping up economic diplomacy
Perhaps the part of Dr. Singh’s foreign policy that Mr. Modi will most want to take forward will be the focus of the economist prime minister on economic diplomacy. This is one aspect “Candidate” Modi has been most positive about, on show even at a lecture he delivered at the University of Madras last year entitled “India and the World.” “A strong economy is the driver of an effective foreign policy,” he is quoted as saying. “We have to put our own house in order that the world gets attracted to us.”
Interestingly, the other part of Dr. Singh’s economic diplomacy is the quest for nuclear energy as an alternative source, and officials in Canberra will hope that Mr. Modi’s visit will also see the signing of the India-Australia uranium deal.
Meanwhile Mr. Modi’s push for “economic officers” in every embassy could pave the way for a much needed revision of the Indian Foreign Service’s size. In 2012, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) recorded a strength of about 815 officers, a fraction of the roughly 20,000 the United States has, or the 5,000 that China appoints. Built into that will be the need for more “lateral entrants,” experts on regions, security and trade from other services, as well as from outside the government, who could then be posted worldwide.
In these endeavours, Mr. Modi will not have to carry many of the burdens of his predecessor. To begin with, his electoral mandate means that he isn’t dependent on the approval of State governments that could try to block him, in the manner in which the Mamata Banerjee government blocked the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) on the Teesta deal with Bangladesh, or the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) governments in Tamil Nadu threatened ties with Sri Lanka over the UNHRC vote. While Mr. Modi has often said that he wants State governments to drive foreign policy with the neighbouring country concerned, he is hardly likely to regard their opposition to policies he chooses, as is clear from his decision to invite Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa for his swearing-in despite the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s statement of protest. Moreover, if he decides to build better business ties with Pakistan, he will only be helped by governments in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir who stand to gain from border and LoC trade.
Unlike Dr. Singh, Mr. Modi’s policies will be unchallenged by his party. The Congress party’s disavowal of the Sharm el-Sheikh declaration will probably stand out as a watershed moment in Dr. Singh’s foreign policy, and he never quite stopped looking over his shoulder after that on ties with Pakistan. If UPA-II began on that note, it ended with Dr. Singh’s humiliation on the international stage, when hours before his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, his party’s vice-president Rahul Gandhi addressed a press conference “tearing up” his government’s policy ordinance on corruption. Mr. Modi’s tight control over the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was clear during his electoral campaign indicates that the party will probably not undermine him in that manner.
Nor will Mr. Modi be hampered by the opposition that Dr. Singh had. The Congress is not just short of numbers to do so; leaders of the party will hardly oppose the National Democratic Alliance’s policies, if they choose to forge ahead on ties in the neighbourhood with anything nearing the ferocity with which the BJP and the Left parties ripped into Dr. Singh’s foreign policy initiatives on Pakistan and the U.S. respectively.
Perils of the past
Despite all that, Mr. Modi faces the perils of the past — terror groups for example, and some within the establishment in Pakistan who will attempt to sabotage any plans for peace talks with an attack. Already, the attack on the Indian consulate in Herat is being chalked up to Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)-backed Taliban elements. Moreover, every skirmish at the LoC with Pakistan or the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China will also be looked at closely by those who expect a tougher stance from Mr. Modi; he will have to establish a stronger control of the narrative, that has often been left to the military and security establishments in the past few years.
Some of the perils arise from Mr. Modi’s own past and his record on the 2002 Gujarat riots. As a result, his government’s actions on internal disturbances — riots and insurgencies — will be scrutinised by India’s neighbours for any hint of “majoritarian” bias.
Nepal glaciers shrink by quarter in 30 years: study
Climate change has caused Nepal’s Himalayan glaciers to shrink by nearly a quarter in just over 30 years, raising the risk of natural disasters in the ecologically fragile region, a scientist said on Friday.
Glacial melting is creating huge, expanding lakes that threaten to burst and devastate mountain communities living downstream, Mr. Bajracharya said. The accelerated glacial loss raises concerns over future access to water resources, particularly in regions where groundwater is limited and monsoon rains are erratic.
The findings, published earlier this month, also sound alarm bells for Nepal’s push to develop hydropower projects.
A government report in India recently blamed hydropower projects for devastating floods last year that killed thousands in India and Nepal.
Warheads at supersonic speeds, on the ground
A new facility on which missile warheads can be propelled at supersonic speeds has been inaugurated at the Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory (TBRL), Chandigarh.
The Rail Track Rocket Sled (RTRS) Penta Rail Supersonic Track comprises five precision-aligned rails, each four-km long; specially designed rocket motors; aerodynamic sleds; and advanced instrumentation. It allows the simulation of interception of a missile coming in at a supersonic speed.
It can also be used for simulating the velocities encountered during the re-entry of crew capsules to be used in India’s manned missions to space and the parachutes that will be deployed to bring back the Indian astronauts safely to earth. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has built the facility at the Chandigarh laboratory.
Centre recommends anti-dumping levy on U.S., Chinese solar cells
The Commerce Ministry has recommended levying anti-dumping duty on solar cells imported from the U.S., Malaysia, China and Chinese Taipei, a move that would provide relief to struggling domestic manufacturer s. Concluding the one-and-a-half year long probe into allegations that cheap solar cells are being dumped into India, the Ministry has suggested restrictive duty in the range of $0.11 to 0.81 per watt.
Excellent article explaining how USA's pivot to Asia has not worked out whereas it is Russia who is making most out of the pivot to Asia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a spectacular energy deal — $400 billion of Siberian natural gas to be exported to China over 30 years. Implications of this:
- It deflates the post-Ukraine Western threat (mostly empty, but still very loud) to cut European imports of Russian gas. Putin has just defiantly demonstrated that he has other places to go.
- The Russia-China deal also makes a mockery of U.S. boasts to have isolated Russia because of Ukraine.
Example of USA's failure:
He went to Japan last month also seeking a major trade agreement that would symbolise and cement a pivotal strategic alliance. He came home empty-handed.
Indeed, at this week’s Asian cooperation conference, Xi proposed a brand-new continental security system to include Russia and Iran (lest anyone mistake its anti-imperialist essence) and exclude America. This is an open challenge to the post-Cold War, U.S.-dominated world that Obama inherited and then weakened beyond imagining.
If carried through, it would mark the end of a quarter-century of unipolarity. And herald a return to a form of bipolarity — two global coalitions: one free, one not — though, with communism dead, not as structurally rigid or ideologically dangerous as Cold War bipolarity. Not a fight to the finish, but a struggle nonetheless — for dominion and domination.
Shortage of ‘kasturi’ in Puri temple
The Puri Jagannath Temple is facing a shortage of ‘kasturi’ (musk collected from a stag’s navel) and the Odisha government has urged the Centre to ensure procurement from Nepal.
Government sources confirmed that the Chief Secretary had written to the Foreign Secretary, seeking assistance in procuring ‘kasturi’, which is used during the Navakalebara festival. The last festival was held in 1996. The next will be in 2015.
Other than the Puri Shankaracharya and the Gajapati King of Odisha, only the Nepal king is allowed to ascend the Ratna Vedi (the altar on which Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra are placed).
Gyaan:
The term Nabakalevara is derived from the Sanskrit words Naba or new and Kalevara or body, literally meaning New Body. It is an ancient ritual associated with most of the Jagannath Temples when the Idols of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra and Sudarshan are replaced by a new set of Idols.
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