South Asia and Beyond

India-Sri Lanka-Maldives Cooperating Closely To Tackle Terror: Gopal Baglay

Nitin A. Gokhale
May 31, 2020 - 9:54 am
1 minute read

NEW DELHI: The Easter Sunday terror attacks in Sri Lanka last year are a grim reminder of the kind of challenges India and its neighbourhood faces, says Gopal Baglay, India’s High Commissioner To Sri Lanka. In an exclusive interview to StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale, Baglay says India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives are closely cooperating to tackle the menace of terrorism. Baglay, who took charge earlier this month, says the leadership in both the countries attaches a very high level of importance to the bilateral relationship. There are no outstanding political issues to settle, so my job is to build on the pre-existing synergies and strengthen ties through constructive engagement, he says.

Nitin A. Gokhale

Left to himself, Nitin A. Gokhale would rather watch films and sports matches but his day job as a media entrepreneur, communications specialist, analyst and author, leaves him little time to indulge in his primary interests. Gokhale in fact started his career in journalism in 1983 as a sports reporter. Since then he has, in the past 41 years, traversed the entire spectrum across print, broadcast and digital space. One of South Asia's leading strategic analysts, Gokhale has moved on from conventional media to become an independent media entrepreneur running three niche digital platforms—BharatShakti, StratNewsGlobal and Interstellar—besides undertaking consultancy and training workshops in communications for military institutions, corporates and individuals. Now better known for his conflict coverage and strategic analyses, Gokhale has lived and reported from India’s North-east for 23 years between 1983 and 2006, been on the ground at Kargil in the summer of 1999 and also brought us live coverage from Sri Lanka’s Eelam War IV between 2006-2009. An alumni of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Hawaii, Gokhale now writes, lectures and analyses security and strategic matters in Indo-Pacific and travels regularly to US, Europe, Australia, South and South-East Asia to take part in various seminars and conferences. Gokhale is also a popular visiting faculty at India’s Defence Services Staff College, the three war colleges, India's National Defence College, College of Defence Management and the IB’s intelligence school.