Search

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Bangladesh after the land boundary settlement is a step with far-reaching strategic implications. The two countries can now take their bilateral ties to a much higher level.

On the eve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit, M. Ganapathi, former High Commissioner of India to Mauritius, analyses India-Mauritius ties and suggests areas of cooperation to further strengthen the relationship.

One hopes that by the time Modi gets to places like Janakpur, Lumbini and Muktinath, India would have taken concrete steps towards the promotion of trans-border connectivity and tourism between the two countries.

Given its proximity to India and its importance in global value chains, ASEAN is in a vital zone of India’s strategic interests.

A key element of the 44-page document entitled ‘India’s National Security Strategy’ (INSS) is the view that India must be prepared for unilateral, limited military actions against terror groups in Pakistan.

Six months in office, Narendra Modi has set a scorching pace, but mainly in the area of foreign policy. He has undertaken eight foreign trips, of which six were to the Asia-Pacific region. And, there can be little doubt that the subtext of his visits to nine countries has been China.

When Modi meets Xi, he will be talking to a leader positioning himself and his country as a global power. It is important for India to be in some of the calculations, just as much it is necessary for India not to overstretch by wanting to be seen everywhere.

Narendra Modi came to power with an unexceptional agenda: push economic growth; transform the infrastructure; bring about a social transformation. But this agenda appears to be in danger of being drowned out by a cacophony of voices from Hindutva organisations.

The new Prime Minister will also have to wrestle policy decisions out of the hands of the media panels at primetime. Less than 10% per cent of homes with TV sets watch news and less than ten per cent of those homes watch English news.Yet, anchors and media personalities claim to speak for the nation.

If all goes well, India and the US could partner at the ICANN high table, in the sort of Security Council of Internet governance. In engaging with the tech community in California, Modi was bolstering India's credentials for such a role.

No longer just a balancer, the prime minister wants to make India a major power in its own right. And his cabinet pick shows he’s serious about doing so.

The Government's honeymoon is perhaps already over and realistically it has another 6 to 12 months to start putting flesh on the bare-bone schemes and ideas announced this past year. If these do not eventuate, one may well witness emptier stadiums abroad and hear shriller voices at home.

PM Modi must shed the self-acquired role of the sole, vote gatherer. He needed this image to overcome inner-party contestation and become the Prime Minister. Today, this image is a handicap. On this score, ironically, Modi could usefully emulate the laidback, apolitical Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.

EGoMs were a useful device that helped decide many contentious issues in India in the past. It was pioneered by the Vajpayee government. It may be useful for the Modi Govt to note that 18 "leading small groups", four presided by President Xi Jinping, exist in the Chinese system as well.

Even though India's defence, security and economic relations with Israel have been on the upswing since the 1990s, Modi has been credited with elevating the strategic dimension of India-Israel partnership by bringing relations "out of the closet".

India must improve relations with both Washington and Beijing and not limit ties with one because of the other. India, as Modi says, has the bandwidth to engage both China and the US. The objective must be to build India's comprehensive national power through whatever cooperation is possible with both America and China.

Experience has shown us that governmental systems run by bureaucrats cannot be reformed by them. Reform and restructuring is something only the political class can bring. But the Modi government has sought to rely on the bureaucracy. The result is a seriously underperforming government.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi winds down an intensive phase of foreign policy activism, one surprising feature of his diplomacy has been the frequent evocation of Buddhism. The PM has put Buddhism at the heart of India's vigorous new diplomacy.

Prime Minister Modi's visit to Australia, taking place nearly 30 years after the last Indian Prime Ministerial visit (Rajiv Gandhi in 1986), comes at a critical time for both countries - when strategic equations are being redrawn, creating new Asian security dynamics.

As one of the world's largest economies and as a rising power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is suggesting that India needs "multi-alignment", or more intensive partnerships with all great powers, including America and China.

Cricket has always come in handy for India and Pakistan leaders to break political ice at difficult moments. And this World Cup has provided Modi with an opportunity to end the current diplomatic impasse. Modi called up Sharif to wish Pakistan well in the Cup and offered to send the new foreign secretary to Islamabad.

Under Modi, India must find the right balance between a strong national leadership, popular expectations for change and an optimistic vision of progress. Change can certainly be achieved, but Indians need more than just the will of a strong leader.

Is it realistic to expect the new Prime Minister and his team to bring about a turnaround when some of the key economic indicators have been stagnating for so long? He struck the right note at his inaugural speech by asking people to build a developed and inclusive India.

India has signalled that it will embed its regional policy within the framework of SAARC. This should reduce the disquiet among our neighbours arising from the sheer size of India and its economy. This has a history since India's Pakistan policy of today is rooted in Vajpayee's visit to Islamabad to attend the 12th SAARC summit.

The IOR tour was not just about declarations and MOUs, proof of this is that New Delhi has put down money through Lines of Credit for infrastructure development in various island states. The challenge now is to ensure that it is effectively utilised.

India is on the path to becoming a cashless society. The Prime Minister's Jan-Dhan Yojana is one more step towards a more developed India. And possibly a big step, if successful.

Indian industry stalwarts have welcomed the arrival of Narendra Modi. The first priority of Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be to ensure the revival of economic growth, which has gone below 5 per cent in the past two years and also tackle food inflation and price rise.

Continuity, rather than change, is the true hallmark of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's foreign policy. True, he has been far more vigorous and muscular than his predecessor Manmohan Singh, but the difference is in tone and emphases, rather than substance.

For the next government, tough rhetoric on the boundary question is no substitute for coping with the multiple challenges arising from China's new status as a first-rate power. With China emerging as the second-largest economy in the world, comprehensive commercial cooperation with Beijing is an imperative that no Indian government can ignore.

Delhi's foreign policy discourse continues to be dominated by the metaphor of "non-alignment" and the mindset of a weak state. Are there other ways of thinking about India's grand strategy? Delhi could turn to classical geopolitics in understanding the global power shift.

The decision to invite US President Barack Obama to be the chief guest at the 66th Republic Day is the clearest indicator of the directions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's strategic outlook.

Enabling a stable Asian strategic framework to the mutual benefit of both New Delhi and Tokyo should be a compelling factor for both prime ministers, Mr Narendra Modi and Mr Shinzo Abe.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's fluent Hindi, through which he engages foreign interlocutors and the rhetorical instinct for catchy phrases, is helping expand India's diplomatic lexicon.

Modi's forays into the global investment hot spots will pay dividend only if we reform ourselves, if we decide once and for all that this is the economic agenda which we need to chart out for future proofing India, one that improves our structural inadequacies bogged down by an iron willed bureaucracy.

The Chinese and Russians have replaced the US and the West as the lead singers in the international orchestra for Indo-Pak amity. Instead of telling them to mind their own business, Modi appears to have recognised that he can use the weight of Beijing and Moscow to facilitate India's engagement with Pakistan.

No matter how you nuance the outcome of the recent Sharif-Modi meeting, the fact is that continuity, rather than change, marks the Indian PM's new Pakistan initiative. And, Time has shown the success of this strategy because India has, if anything, become more resilient, while Pakistan has come to the brink of collapse.

The prime minister has shown a refreshing approach towards Indian agriculture, but for the real challenges to be surmounted he needs a massive dose of digital technology in all part of the value chain.

Modi needs a credible domestic strategy to ramp up India's maritime infrastructure. A strategy of seeking multiple partners for India's maritime development would help Modi end New Delhi's current defensiveness on China's Maritime Silk Road initiative.

Other than neighbouring countries, any future Indian government's principal focus will be on the vast swathe that begins in Sri Lanka and ends in Sydney, and can be described under a variety of rubrics: Look East, Indian Ocean Region, the Indo-Pacific. Countries such as Japan, Indonesia and Singapore present India big windows as it strives to become an economic and maritime power.

To improve South Asian regional cooperation, Modi has three options. The first is to focus on a two-speed Saarc. The second is to build on transregional institutions like the BIMSTEC. However, it is the third way -- unilateral action -- that offers Modi the greatest opportunity. For example, Modi has already proposed to build a Saarc satellite for use by its neighbours.

As he swings across the Indian Ocean this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's biggest challenge is not about countering China. His real problem is in Delhi, afflicted by a condition called continentalism, which has proved rather difficult to overcome.

For a bilateral visit at the highest-level after an undesirable and inexplicable gap of 28 long years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three-day tour of Sri Lanka was noted as much for what it achieved as for the optics.