Daily Hindu Editorials

For Offline Reading => Click here 👉When you have complicated ties with neighbours, it makes sense to strengthen ties with your neighbours’ neighbours👈 Sandwiched between U.S. President Donald Trump’s acrimonious public exchanges with other leaders at the G-7 (group of seven industrialised countries) summit (June 7-8) and the headline-hogging U.S.-North Korea summit (June 12), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Qingdao, China (June 9-10) attracted little international attention. It was the first SCO summit attended by India as a full-fledged member (It has been an observer since 2005.) The SCO grew out of the Shanghai Five grouping — of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan — which was set up in 1996 to resolve boundary disputes between China and each of the four other members. It admitted Uzbekistan in 2001, re-christened itself the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and broadened its agenda to include political, economic and security c...

👉India’s involvement and stakes have increased in the Central Asian region👈 India joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) as a full-fledged member for the first time at the Qingdao summit this month, a development that may over time influence Central Asian geopolitics. The historical rivalry between the British Empire in the Indian subcontinent and Tsarist Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries, known as the Great Game, was a clash of imperial ambitions between two great powers, in which the territory of Afghanistan helped minimise the risk of direct confrontation between them. In the early and mid-19th century, British officials of the East India Company feared that the advance of Tsarist Russia into the Khanates of Central Asia might prove detrimental to British interests in the Indian subcontinent. The officials were worried that if the Russians crossed Afghanistan, it would be easier for them to cross over the plains of Punjab and advance deep into the...

👉With India recalibrating its relations with other powers, the India-U.S. equation is not quite balancing out👈 At his speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last week, billed as a major foreign policy statement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of India and the U.S.’s “shared vision” of an open and secure Indo-Pacific region. Yet his words differed so much from those of U.S. Defence Secretary James Mattis, who spoke at the same event, that it seemed clear that New Delhi and Washington no longer see eye-to-eye on this issue, and several others as well. 👉Oceanic gulf To begin with, Mr. Modi referred to the Indo-Pacific, a term coined by the U.S. for the Indian and Pacific Oceans region, as a natural geographical region, not a strategic one, while Mr. Mattis called the Indo-Pacific a “priority theatre” and a “subset of [America’s] broader security strategy” for his military command, now renamed the Indo-Pacific Command. While Mr. Modi referred to India’s good relati...

👉With India recalibrating its relations with other powers, the India-U.S. equation is not quite balancing out👈 At his speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last week, billed as a major foreign policy statement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of India and the U.S.’s “shared vision” of an open and secure Indo-Pacific region. Yet his words differed so much from those of U.S. Defence Secretary James Mattis, who spoke at the same event, that it seemed clear that New Delhi and Washington no longer see eye-to-eye on this issue, and several others as well. 👉Oceanic gulf To begin with, Mr. Modi referred to the Indo-Pacific, a term coined by the U.S. for the Indian and Pacific Oceans region, as a natural geographical region, not a strategic one, while Mr. Mattis called the Indo-Pacific a “priority theatre” and a “subset of [America’s] broader security strategy” for his military command, now renamed the Indo-Pacific Command. While Mr. Modi referred to India’s good relati...

👉With his Shangri-La Dialogue address, the PM signals a foreign policy re-orientation👈 Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, three of India’s most important partners in Southeast Asia, could not have come at a more important moment in Indian foreign policy positioning. In the past few months, the government has shifted considerably in its signalling, with Mr. Modi visiting China and Russia for informal summits with Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, respectively. The fact that these visits have taken place at a time the U.S. administration has sharpened its aim at China and Russia with sanctions and threats of a trade war suggests Mr. Modi is also attempting to moderate India’s strategic posturing on the global stage, and striving for a more balanced approach in what it increasingly sees as an uncertain world. India has also maintained its commitment to relations with the U.S. in order to build a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region, mai...

👉Political uncertainty hovers over Madrid as the new PM tries to stabilise his government👈 Spain’s conservative-led minority government, which fell on Friday, has been swiftly succeeded by a wobbly minority government led by the Socialists. It counts on support from, among others, Catalan and the extreme left parties. In this sense, the changeover represents continuity of the relative uncertainty that has characterised Spain since the 2016 general election. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who had held office since 2011, was voted out after top functionaries of his People’s Party were convicted for operating a slush fund during Spain’s construction boom in the last decade. The judicial verdict centre-staged Pedro Sánchez, the Socialist Party chief who masterminded the no-confidence motion against the government. Ironically, Mr. Rajoy had managed to form a minority coalition in October 2016 only after Mr. Sánchez’s failed bid for premiership and ouster as party leader, breaking a pro...

👉Why is India abandoning its commitment to secure the Indian Ocean as a zone of peace?👈 Three hundred people live on the small Mauritian archipelago of Agaléga. They watch as their home is turned slowly into an Indian naval base. There is little that they can do. The government of Mauritius knows that there is far more to be gained from India than from the people of Agaléga. Mauritius is one of the main routes for foreign direct investment (FDI) into India. It earns Mauritius a considerable fortune in fees — money that is enough for Mauritius to renege on its pledge to its own citizens. In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Mauritian counterpart Anerood Jugnauth watched as Navtej Sarna (Ministry of External Affairs) and Sateeaved Seebaluck (Cabinet Secretary, Mauritius) signed an agreement that allows India to “develop infrastructure” on the islands. The phrase is a euphemism for the building of military bases, which India is doing not only on Agaléga but also on Assu...

👉Deep questions of equity are raging in India and the U.S. — hyper-nationalism is blurring the debate👈 Debates over taxation and representation have been central to the evolution of democracy over centuries. India and America, the biggest and oldest democracies, respectively, are in the midst of a renewed debate over these subjects in recent months, the repercussions of which will be felt decades into the future. 👉The two cases In the U.S., the Donald Trump administration’s decision to include a question on citizenship in the 2020 Census form is being challenged by several States and cities. Unlike India, the U.S. reallocates the 435 seats in the House of Representatives after each Census. This process of reapportionment also leads to a redistribution of the 538 electoral college votes that elect the President. Besides determining how many seats each State will have in the U.S. House, the Census will also determine allocation of federal, State, and local government fun...

👉A more concerted and intensive engagement will serve both India and Indonesia well👈 Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Southeast Asia this week has the potential to spark a new period of maritime cooperation between India and Indonesia. An uptick in India-Indonesia relations will be a welcome development for both President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and Mr. Modi, who through their respective ‘Global Maritime Fulcrum’ and ‘Act East’ policies have envisaged sharper maritime collaboration in the region. 👉China, the common concern The visit comes against the backdrop of an offer from the Indonesian government to grant India access to its Sabang port for the development of the port and an economic zone. Located at the mouth of the strategically important Strait of Malacca, Sabang is only 100 nautical miles from the southern tip of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. India and Indonesia share multiple common concerns, one of which is China’s growing maritime footprint in the easter...

👉India must help the development of Sri Lanka’s Northern and Eastern provinces👈 The discourse on fundamental issues concerning Sri Lankan Tamils continues to revolve around political settlement, the two key components of which are greater devolution of powers to provinces and the merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces. These two aspects featured in the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka peace accord and continue to resonate with Tamil leaders of different political hues. R. Sampanthan, Leader of Opposition and Tamil National Alliance chief, and Suresh Preamachandran, leader of the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front, are emphatic that the 1987 Accord remains valid. In their view, India was duty-bound to ensure full and proper implementation of some provisions of the agreement, which had been incorporated into the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution. Their observations are pertinent given that Sri Lanka is contemplating drafting a new Constitution. Days after these ...

👉PM Modi’s meeting with the Russian President signals a necessary recalibration👈 With his visit to Sochi to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for a day-long “informal summit”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared to set a new normal in his foreign policy outreach. As was his Wuhan meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Sochi visit was aimed at resetting and rebalancing bilateral ties that have weakened over the past few years. The special understanding between India and Russia has frayed, with India drifting closer to the U.S. and Russia to China. The personal touches — hugs, handshakes, a boat ride on the Black Sea — projected the impression of two strong leaders addressing each other’s concerns “man to man”. Substantively, Mr. Modi’s visit was premised on a number of new realities facing India. First, India’s existing dependence on Russian military hardware, with orders for about $12 billion more in the pipeline, must not be jeopardised at any cost. These have been...

👉Recent strategic decisions indicate a post-normative turn in India’s foreign policy👈 In India’s evolving foreign policy imagination, the pursuit of power and influence seems to eclipse the country’s traditions of normative behaviour and principled positions. The jury is still out on whether by shedding its normative shibboleths New Delhi is finally doing what states typically do, and whether or not its post-normative turn will negatively impact its national interests. 👉The rise of realpolitik Around three months ago, the Central government frankly told the Supreme Court, “we don’t want India to become a refugee capital,” even as the Border Security Force (BSF) had been pushing back Rohingya refugees from the eastern borders. India’s stand vis-à-vis Rohingya refugees is an indication of how new India proposes to deal with humanitarian issues in its neighbourhood. Its approach to the Rohingya crisis (i.e. its refusal to admit people fleeing for their lives into the co...

👉The ‘informal summit’ must be seen in the context of Beijing preparing for a pole position in the global sweepstakes👈 On the cards was a possible reset of ties between India and China in the wake of the ‘informal summit’ in Wuhan (April 27-28) between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The outcome is uncertain, however. The choice by China of Wuhan, a city situated in the middle reaches of the Yangtze, though was not accidental. Wuhan is symbolic of China’s resilience and economic might today. It was possibly chosen by Mr. Xi to showcase China’s progress since Mr. Modi (as Chief Minister of Gujarat) had last paid a visit to the region. As Mr. Xi proceeds towards his next goal, ‘Made in China 2025’, he may also have wanted to demonstrate the wide gulf that seems to separate his programme from Mr. Modi’s own struggles to make a success of India’s ‘Make in India’ programme. The visit to the museum and the boat ride on the lake, in turn, were possibly i...

👉Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit was high on symbolism but India must do more to deliver on the bilateral agenda👈 Last week, Narendra Modi visited Nepal, his third since he became Prime Minister in 2014. Each of the visits has been markedly different, in terms of both atmospherics and outcomes. This is due to the political backdrop against which it took place, reflecting the evolving Nepali domestic political transition from a centralised monarchy to a federal republic and the complex nature of India-Nepal relations. Nepali Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli was in Delhi from April 6-8. Mr. Modi’s return visit coming within a month (May 11-12) was not just good neighbourliness but more a realisation that the relationship had deteriorated in recent years and there was an urgent need to arrest the slide. 👉Nepal’s importance After coming to power, Nepal was among Mr. Modi’s first destinations abroad (August, 2014), in keeping with his ‘neighbourhood first’ policy. A bila...