NEW DELHI: As the seven member states of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical & Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) ready for the fifth summit in Sri Lanka in August, the major takeaway of a free trade area (FTA) appears elusive. Discussions over the last 15 years have got nowhere, and under the present Indian […]Read More
NEW DELHI: The barometers of cooperation between India and Africa span a wide range. To take only two examples: last month India signed a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement with Mauritius, which would enable Indian goods to enter the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) duty free. Another example is India’s aid and assistance […]Read More
NEW DELHI: India’s ‘Vaccine Maitri’ is creating ripples on foreign shores as it has in our near and extended neighbourhood. And as India extends the geographic reach of its vaccine diplomacy—from immediate neighbours like Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives to countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America—China is scrambling to play catch-up. Over 55 […]Read More
NEW DELHI: A day before Australian PM Scott Morrison let it out that he was looking forward to the first meeting of the heads of state of the Quad, India called for Vietnam’s active participation in the “Quad Plus” (an emerging arrangement that would also draw in New Zealand and South Korea). At a webinar […]Read More
NEW DELHI: On Thursday, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar heads to Dhaka to finalise the agenda for Narendra Modi’s summit with Sheikh Hasina later this month (March 26th). It will be the first physical summit for Modi post-Covid and will kick off celebrations marking 50 years since Bangladesh was liberated from Pakistan’s yoke. Jaishankar will […]Read More
NEW DELHI: The figures are impressive: India has offered nearly $13 billion as lines of credit to 43 African states, 189 projects have been completed while 77 others are under various stages of execution. By any yardstick, India’s “Development Partnership” has given African governments the flexibility of choosing what projects merit priority, and with financing […]Read More
NEW DELHI: The Government of India successfully undertook the mammoth repatriation exercise—Vande Bharat—under the shadow of Covid-19, bringing back over five million stranded Indian nationals from across the globe. But not everyone knows it was an “alert” from External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in February last year that galvanized the ministry and different government departments […]Read More
NEW DELHI: The army coup in Myanmar may have set back India’s ambitious Act East Policy, putting a question mark on completion of key connectivity projects linking the landlocked Northeastern states with Southeast Asia. Delhi has been pushing to complete the already-delayed India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway project and the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project that would […]Read More
NEW DELHI: Three years after it was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor is yet to get off the ground. The corridor was touted as the rival to China’s mega trans-continental Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), so the lack of movement is disappointing. “There has been some stalemate in the process… […]Read More
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