Home & Away

You can’t go far these days without bumping into an India-Pakistan track-2 shindig. Dotted across swish locales, funded by “do-gooder” organizations and think tanks, these are fantastic sinecures for a growing tribe of public intellectuals in both countries. The Pakistanis are the more enthusiastic lot __ a small army of extremely articulate people, blessed and briefed by their country’s all-pervasive security establishment, come by to say more or less the same things. First, its absolutely imperative for Indians to step off the Siachen glacier. Second, all resolutions of Kashmir, or Sir Creek or water issues needs “political will” __ which is euphemism for India must concede, because India is the “bada bhai”. They will refuse to put “Jammu & Kashmir” into reports and hesitate to acknowledge Gen Pervez Musharraf, because he is no longer the flavour of the season there. But Pakistan wants to make peace with India, that’s apparently the new thinking. You would be forgive...

The head table of global affairs is in for a makeover, marking possibly a new chapter in international relations. In a couple of weeks from now, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s top interlocutors could be new faces, as the US and China head for leadership changes. In the next few months Pakistan will be heading into presidential elections, with Asif Zardari as the first civilian head of government in that troubled nation to last a full term. Japan, whose troubled politics see an almost annual changeover of guard, is also likely to go in for elections, with former PM, Shinzo Abe a surprise draw. Afghanistan is due for the next presidential elections in 2014 when Karzai will have to make way for another leader. But there are signs that he might be considering a 2013 election, in which case the change of leadership alongwith the drawdown timetable could throw up a completely different political landscape. In Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina’s government will be heading into elections in Janu...

India built the Zaranj-Delaram road connecting Afghanistan to Iran in 2008. Four years later, India is being courted to replicate the successful project to connect Afghanistan to its other Central Asian neighbours Turkmenistan, Tajikistan etc. India is returning to centerstage in Afghanistan. Two years after being relegated to the sidelines, India is clawing her way back to relevance. As the US prepares to draw down in Afghanistan, India is emerging as Afghanistan’s key ally. The tide turned decisively with the first trilateral meeting between Afghanistan, India and US in New York last week. Jawed Ludin, Afghanistan’s deputy foreign minister led the proceedings. For the first time, Indian, US and Afghan officials sat together to discuss Afghanistan’s future. The meetings, held at the Afghan mission in NY, were totally under the radar and didn’t attract the attention of Pakistan, which is very wary of the trilateral arrangement. In an unpublicised statement which laid out the co...

Julia Gillard is a woman with that rare attribute, “spunk”, and its not because she attacked sexism with courage and conviction. Or because she responded with the perfect riposte after a shoe malfunction. Its because the Australian prime minister, here this week on a state visit, has assiduously courted India with not a lot to show for it yet, and come back for more. And that’s why India needs to grow up and look at Australia differently. It needed courage to overturn decades of non-proliferation theology to agree to uranium sales to India, which she did last December. Her predecessor, the Mandarin-speaking Kevin Rudd, would not. This week Australia and India agreed to start negotiations on a nuclear agreement with safeguards and other bells and whistles. It will be a long time before India actually buys the yellowcake, but it removed the political mistrust that had persisted. Gillard need not have visited __ its actually the turn of the Indian prime minister to go there __ but s...

Manmohan Singh bemoans its absence. In the halcyon days of his first term, Singh, attempting to change the strategic outlook of this giant nation, was often heard complaining plaintively, “we must develop a strategic culture in this country.” The prime minister joins a large number of Indian intellectuals who decry our apparent lack of ability to plot out India’s “strategic thought” or even plan a “grand strategy”. To a casual observer, India’s actions __ or lack thereof __ appear to be often a result of who the government spoke to last, or based on adhoc considerations that undermine India’s interests. What makes this outlook interesting is that foreign scholars or analysts writing about India, seem equally clear that India does have a vibrant strategic culture. Many of us would agree with George Tanham who wrote in his seminal RAND study on Indian strategic thought __  “(India) is an extraordinarily complex and diverse society, and Indian elites show little evidence of hav...

The US wants India to persuade Iran to return to the negotiating table on its nuclear programme, the first time it has openly asked New Delhi to intercede with Tehran. Speaking to Times of India ahead of his meetings with National Security Advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon and foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai in the US-India strategic security dialogue in New Delhi on Friday, deputy secretary in the US State Department, William Burns, said, "We feel a great sense of urgency, an urgency widely shared in the international community. There is a great deal at stake here, given Iran’s failure thus far to comply with its international obligations — the danger of increased tension, nuclear arms race in a region that already has more than its share of instability and which plays a very important role in the health of the global economy." He said the US hopes India would reinforce this message to the Iranian leadership. Despite almost crippling sanctions against Iran’s energy and f...

As the European Union slapped further sanctions on Iran’s gas, oil and maritime sectors for its nuclear programme, Iran declared there was an “easy solution” to the nuclear question. Seyyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, said all Iran wants is a western “recognition”.  “We want them (the west) to recognize our right to a peaceful nuclear programme under the NPT. If they just say this, we would agree to a settlement,” the Iranian functionary said. The longer “they” delay a settlement, he added, the closer Iran would get to acquiring a complete nuclear programme. Iran’s deputy foreign minister is in India for the tenth round of strategic dialogue with foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai. India now has rupees worth $1 billion in payments to Iran for oil in Iran’s bank accounts in India. India continues to source oil from Iran, though over 40 per cent less than earlier. The bulk of Indian payments are routed through Turkey, which might be stopped if a new set of...