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SAARC conjures up an image of jamborees and no results. The South Asian Association of Regional cooperation with its seven members ( India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh) remains one of the most dysfunctional trade blocs and there is hardly any freedom of movement of goods, services and people. The next (13th) SAARC summit is going to be held in Dhaka in the beginning of January 2005.
India has said that the regional efforts to counter terrorism in South Asia continue to face significant challenges though there are various SAARC frameworks on suppression of terrorism since 1987.
The SAARC energy agreement signed may have given some hope for the realisation of energy cooperation in South Asia. But, it needs to be understood that an overarching agreement has little impact on project-based cooperation, owing to the centrality of India in the South Asian geography.
Amb M Rasgotra, International Affairs Adviser, Observer Research Foundation, and former Foreign Secretary of India, was invited as Chief Guest at the Convocation of the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lnaka, held on June 23, 2005. The complete text of his Convocation Address is reproduced below:
The 17th SAARC Summit was held at Addu Atoll, Maldives on the 10th and 11th of November 2011. The venue, in the words of the Bhutanese Prime Minister, reflected the vastness of South Asia.
Despite SAARC's failures of the past, the repeated declarations by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the need to reinvigorate ties with neighbouring states have created a renewed interest in the possibilities of multilateral cooperation under SAARC.
The failure of SAARC to nurture cooperation in South Asia has pushed regional players to search for an alternative. BIMSTEC, grouping the nations in the Bay of Bengal region, is popularly favoured as the viable option. Two decades since its inception, however, BIMSTEC’s successes have been minimal. How workable is BIMSTEC as an option for pursuing regional cooperation in South Asia? Are SAARC and BIMSTEC competitors or do they complement each
The 17th SAARC Summit, held on 10-11 November at Addu City in Maldives, will be remembered for three things - for the inspiring speech of the outgoing Chair,
In context of SAARC, the reality of the situation demands that India handles Pakistan separately. India also has to approach the rest of SAARC neighbours with a more accommodative mind-set. Such mind-sets cannot be confined to sharing history and culture, economic prosperity and development-spending.
SAARC is nearly 30 years old yet is still weak. Today, South Asia is one of the world's least integrated regions. Members have weak economic ties, issues of national identity persist, and political tensions remain. What lies ahead for SAARC?
संगठन को पूरी तरह अपंग होने से बचाने के लिए सार्क से अफ़ग़
As he packs his bags for the first foreign policy venture in the new year ¿ the annual summit of the South Asian nations in Dhaka ¿ Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has two options. The default one would be to let the foreign office bureaucracy work out an anodyne declaration of good intentions on future cooperation.
The lack of initiative and political will has led to the marginalisation of the SAARC sector of disaster management from mainstream efforts in South A
SAARC remains the only viable vehicle for South Asian integration, a project vital for India because a viable South Asian economy is a necessary pre-condition for our ability to engage effectively with ASEAN and China. And when we look at SAARC, the key hurdle it must overcome is the India-Pakistan problem.
The Indian proposal for a SAARC power-grid, revived by Union Minister Piyush Goyal, has the potential to increase power-generation in South Asia. It also has the potential to reverse the way the South Asia thinks about itself - and the world thinks about South Asia, besides cutting oil bills of countries like India.
India will gain very little by taking the lead in this venture. It already holds the rather envied position as the strongest economy within the region. SDB can hardly be expected to raise its global image or position.
The eight-member SAARC is the only important regional institution where both India and Pakistan are members.
In aftermath of the Indian army’s ‘surgical-strikes’ on ‘terror launch-pads’ inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) has claimed it's first c
The emphasis ever since Dr Manmohan Singh Govt came to power in 2004 has been on 'making borders irrelevant without redrawing them'. To ensure this, there has been a continuing stress on connecting India's border provinces with those of its neighbouring countries.
The SAARC should plan a billion dollar Infrastructure Fund for developing water and energy projects in areas with high unemployment and poverty rates, a ORF Policy Brief issued on the eve of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee¿s visit to Islamabad to attend the 12th SAARC Conference.
The most important feature of the 17th SAARC Summit was the one pertaining to the promotion of maritime and rail connectivity among three of the region's eight countries.
The meeting of Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh with his Pakistani counterpart, Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, on 10 November 2011 on the sidelines of the 17th South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) summit in the Maldives, should be welcomed.
Making a case for suspending Afghanistan from SAARC to prevent the crippling of the organisation
Looking beyond SAARC and engaging with Myanmar to make the most of BRICS-BIMSTEC and engaging with Suu Kyi
SAARC becoming a forum to embarrass rather than a tool to cooperate?
Is India stepping into global and regional leadership mode?
The meeting has paved way for further interaction among the top leadership of the two countries.
The current Indian government has given clear indicators that it is likely to place regional integration high on its economic diplomacy agenda, be it SAARC, ASEAN or BCIM. The last two are especially important to India's Act East Policy.
As India’s interests move beyond its borders, the fixation with South Asia-centric notion of neighbourhood can no longer serve as a useful analytica
The changing dynamics of the world order could provide BIMSTEC the opportunity to expand beyond the South Asian region
The Nepal-India-Bangladesh (NIB) energy trade is only the tip of the iceberg. The true potential of the NIB region can be realised through the creatio
ASEAN presents a very bright instance of how to deal with the situation that holds within itself the potential of being a great example for BIMSTEC.
History is all set to repeat itself in the subcontinent. As usual, the search for a permanent thaw in the India-Pakistan relationship seems to be hitting a big bump in the days ahead that might possibly derail the bilateral negotiation process initiated during the Islamabad SAARC Summit in January this year.
The SCO is not another SAARC, and its member states will most likely not sit by and watch their agenda hijacked by a bilateral dispute.
How India’s island neighbours react to this new geopolitical reality and whether this will result in an emergence of a new Cold War is yet to be see
The growing unstable political scenario in Afghanistan has created a refugee problem for Nepal despite having no common borders
With the SAARC summit only days away, the focus should be as much on re-positioning India, both in the regional and emerging global context, as on terrorism and security. Prime Minister Vajpayee set the mood a fortnight ago by referring to a 'common currency' for, and hydro-power cooperation among member-nations.
As Prime Minister Modi prepares to signal India’s leadership role in Kathmandu, an analysis of India’s role in the MVA process will prove instruct
