AIR World Service English

After receiving huge popular mandate, Mr. Narendra Modi was sworn in as India's Prime Minister for the second time in a row. President Ram Nath Kovind administered oath of office to the 58-member Council of Ministers led by the Prime Minister. The Council of Ministers drew strength from talent pool within ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and allies, besides India's former secretary Subramaniam Jaishankar. The surprise pick by Prime Minister Modi was indeed Mr. Jaishankar. He had been a key aide in India's foreign ministry. His expertise on China would surely be an asset. BJP President Mr. Amit Shah also was inducted into the Cabinet. He is expected to play a key role in the government. Mr. Modi has often described the mandate as people's aspirations throughout the length and breadth of the country. In tune with popular aspiration, the Council of Ministers sworn in by President reflected a pan-India fervour, with a positive bias for youth. Mr. Modi has already mentio...

The gentleman’s game, Cricket would be in all its glory during the 12th World Cup being hosted by England and Wales, from 30 May to 14 July 2019. The ICC (formerly International Cricket Council) is the organiser for the one and a half month long tournament. It is the fifth time that the Cricket World Cup is being held in England and Wales, following the 1975, 1979, 1983 and 1999 World Cups. Although, cricket is played by only a few countries, that too most of which were the colonies of the British Empire, the ‘game of willows’ is very popular. In terms of spectators and followers, it ranks only after Football & Lawn Tennis. In the sub-continent, the game is almost a religion and cricketers are said to be demi-gods. The rivalry between sub-continental teams is so high that sometimes it borders on fanaticism. It is also a tribute to India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan that they have won 4 world cups between them. The fan following the cricketers have in this part of the world can be well...

The Pakistani minorities are facing the wrath of the country’s discriminatory policy at the hands of the government as well as prejudice and victimization at the hand of people at large, especially the right-wing extremists. For the Hindus, Christians and Sikhs who number around 3 million in Pakistan’s total population, sometimes practicing their faith can be a dangerous business. One of the tools used to discriminate is the notorious blasphemy law under which minorities are booked for insulting the tenets or teachings of Islam. The latest case is of a doctor belonging to a minority community from Sindh Province booked for blasphemy on the pretext that he had desecrated a scripture. A few weeks before, a couple also from a minority religious community in Punjab province was arrested for sending an inappropriate text to a man and booked under blasphemy. Adding to the existing fear of the minorities in Pakistan is another disturbing event, the demolition of the Sikh pilgrimage site call...

The resounding democratic mandate by India’s 900 plus million voters for continuing with the ambitious transformation of India undertaken by Prime Minister NarendraModisince 2014 provides several opportunities for India’s foreign policy initiatives during the next five years. The Prime Minister has announced that inclusive governance under the motto SabkaSaath, SabkaVikas, SabkaVishwas will be the leitmotif of his governance policies. The focus of India’s foreign policy will be to maximize her international engagements to provide the necessary catalysts for inclusive governance to transform India. Calibrating her relations with the major powers, especially China, the United States and Russia, at a time of increasing international disruptions will be a major objective of India’s foreign policy.Each of these relationships plays a crucial role in the flow of investments, equipment and technologies that are required to secure, empower and transform India. They are also critical for India’...

When it comes to setting a higherbar in decision making, no one can match Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This was apparent when he said, his second government would begin a new journey to build ‘a new India with new energy’. The Prime Minister’s statement at the Central Hall of Parliament is in sync with the narrative he has set for building an India of everyone’s dream by 2022. This dream is not merely limited to providing quality health-care, education, housing, and other basic amenities to all Indians in the next three years, but also taking the country to great heightsin the global arena. The Prime Minister coineda new slogan- NARA (National Ambition+Regional Aspirations). In broader terms, the slogan is also in consonance with India’s wish to become a developed nation in the near future. It is in tune with India’s roadmap for becoming a hub of innovation and scientific knowledge. It also adjusts with the country’s strategy to become a powerful voice in the world. However, bef...

After a month long wait, Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, has been declared to have won the presidential election in Indonesia. The elections in Indonesia were held on April 17. Alongside the elections for President and Vice President; elections were also held for the People’s Consultative Assembly and the local legislative bodies. Having completed the complicated process of conducting the elections at all levels in only a day, involving 154 million voters and hundreds of islands in an archipelagic nation, the General Election Commission of Indonesia (KPU) confirmed the results of April 17 polling on May 21. Jokowi’s win gets more interesting in the wider Asian context, where, with the victory of Mr. Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance in India, and Scott Morrison’s victory in Australia, three leading neighbouring democratic countries have completed their biggest collective festival of democratic elections with the people of these countries speaking their hearts in t...

External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj visited Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Foreign Ministers’ Meet earlier this week. This was her last foreign visit as the incumbent Minister for External Affairs. Her visit, just a day before the declaration of the results of Indian general election, shows that the SCO is immensely important for India. Indian leaders have dedicatedly attended the SCO meets over the years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been attending the SCO summits since 15th SCO Summit in Ufa, Russia in 2015. Last year, Mrs. Swaraj, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval attended their respective SCO meetings in China. The meetings provided a platform to engage with Chinese counterparts after the Doklam standoff and also reach out to Central Asia and the Russia in a multilateral setting. On the sidelines of the 2019 SCO meet, the Indian External Affairs Minister also met the Chinese Foreign Mini...

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has been given a decisive mandate by the 900 million plus Indian voters. For the first time in thirty five years, a single party has won 303* seats in the Lok Sabha, the House of People of the Indian government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has thus won a second consecutive term in office on the twin planks of national security and development. The seven phase elections for constituting the 17th Lok Sabha, saw the BJP gaining all round support from the Indian voters. The party managed to make headway into states such as West Bengal and Telangana, where it had a minimal presence. The Indian opposition parties led by the Indian National Congress (INC) could not drive their point home. Also, many voters were swayed by the work done by Prime Minister Modi in the past five years. The NDA was instrumental in launching 133 development projects in the preceding five years. Grass-root issues such as sanitation, cooking ga...

The text-book launch of India’s latest Earth observation satellite RISAT-2B (Radar Imaging Satellite) early on Wednesday morning would substantially enhance the country’s surveillance capabilities as it would be able to effectively monitor the country’s borders round-the-clock and in all weather conditions. Weighing 615 kilograms, RISAT-2B has an estimated mission life of 5 years. The satellite will be used for border surveillance, to deter insurgent infiltration and for anti-terrorist operations. Unlike conventional remote-sensing satellites, which gather images of ground features in visible light but are ineffective at night and under cloudy conditions, RISAT 2B is a radar imaging satellite, equipped with an active sensor called the synthetic aperture radar, which can sense or ‘observe’ Earth in a special way using radar beams from space, day and night and also under cloudy conditions. The X-band synthetic aperture radar of RISAT-2B can give added details such as size of objects on ...

India's second Moon mission Chandrayaan-2 is planned for launch in July this year. It will have 13 payloads developed by various research institutes across the country to carry out a range of scientific experiments and collect data, according to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The spacecraft with a mass of 3.8 tonnes has three modules--Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan). NASA’s passive experimental module is aimed at measuring the distance between the Earth and its’only natural satellite. All the modules are getting ready for launch of Chandrayaan-2 during the July 9-16 window, with an expected Moon landing on September 6, according to the space agency. The orbiter will orbit 100 km from the lunar surface, while lander (Vikram) will do the soft landing near the south pole of Moon, and Rover (Pragyan) will conduct in-situ experiments. Chandrayaan-1, which was a huge success owing to its discovery of water on the moon’s surface, had carried a total of five forei...

The recent war of words involving the US and its regional allies on the one hand and Iran on the other has led to heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf. While the problem between Washington and Tehran is long and complex, the recent escalation started with the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) or the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018. At that time, President Trump had accused Iran of destabilising the region and pursuing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles despite signing the nuclear deal. The Trump administration has since re-imposed unilateral economic sanctions on Iran with an intention to extract “maximum pressure” on the Tehran to renegotiate the deal. However, the Iran has refused to do so and on the first anniversary of the US withdrawal on May 8, 2019, urged the European countries, Russia and China to do more to help ease the pressure on Iranian economy due to the US sanctions within the next 60 days, failing which it will be forced to retract ...

The Seven phase Lok Sabha (lower House of Indian Parliament) elections concluded on a high note amidst overwhelming participation of the electorate. Overall, the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which had about 900 million electors, registered nearly 66 per cent voter turnout. India has once again demonstrated her intrinsic strength and faith in vibrant and participative democracy. The world's largest democracy saw exuberant participation by the electors, with Election Commission of India (ECI) making robust arrangements for senior citizens and differently abled voters. Three feet tall Vinita Jain of Indore in Madhya Pradesh proudly flashed her inked finger after exercising her franchise. In a first, Saba and Farah, the conjoined twin sisters cast their votes as two separate individuals in Patna in Bihar. The Lok Sabha elections inspired the Indian voters staying abroad was evident, as a large number of them flew down just to cast their vote. Indeed, many people including even daily wage...

With the rejection of Theresa May’s Brexit deal by the UK Parliament three times in the past, the British LEADER faces her last and final challenge regarding her withdrawal deal, which if rejected would lead to disastrous results, both for the deal itself and also for the current government. This was announced by the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union Stephen Barclay. He said that, should there be a defeat, the deal would be ‘dead’. Theresa May, who is now in a very fragile position is set to bring the deal back to the House of Commons soon, to seek the approval of Parliament. The primary concern for those who oppose the deal, however, is whether there have been any new changes which have been introduced in it during these six weeks of negotiations. While ‘Eurosceptics’ within her own Conservative Party says that the deal leaves the UK within the Customs Union, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has stood by its statement that the deal can see success of the day only i...

When US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made his maiden visit to Russia and held dialogue with his counterpart Sergei Lavarov and President Vladimir Putin, it was a clear indication of a new strategy by the Trump administration to establish a new détente with Russia. The new but mini-Cold War that had erupted between Russia and the United States in recent years has not gone unnoticed by the international community. Not many in the United States foreign policy analysis community would like to describe the difficult ties between the US and Russia as a mini-Cold War, because they would not like to ascribe power to Russia that is a component, albeit the largest one, of the former Soviet Union. In fact, even during the Cold War, while the academic community in the US would take note of nuclear parity between the US and Russia, successive American administrations were always reluctant to give equal status to Russia. The bipolar power structure was always thought to have been tilted in f...

After prolonged discussions over several months, International Monetary Fund (IMF) has finally granted yet another financial bailout to Pakistan. Advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister on Economic Affairs Dr.Hafeez Sheikh said that the bailout has been cleared in the final round of consultations between Pakistan and visiting IMF team. IMF will provide $6 billion to the country in the next 3 years to overcome its financial crisis. Islamabad is in deep debt and is running a shortfall of $18 billion to meet its financial obligations and run the country’s economy. Eight months ago, when Imran Khan was elected as the country’s Prime Minister; he had said that he would not seek an IMF bailout if it put tough conditions for such assistance. He banked more on friends like China, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. But IMF, has been adding fresh conditions for the package and Imran Khan ended up accepting almost everything the IMF asked for. The conditions include steep monetary readjustments and fiscal ...

A strident pitch for reinforcing the Special and Differential Treatment (S&DT) mechanism enabling the mostly poor and developing nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was made at the New Delhi Ministerial meeting. It called upon the developing countries to make use of the concessions and flexibilities of the various global trade agreements and beefing up the multilateral trading system under the WTO auspices. The just-ended New Delhi conclave for breaking the logjam in the ongoing WTO trade negotiations while preserving the pristine nature of multilateralism was held by senior officials from 22 countries to deliberate on recent developments at the WTO and to explore ways for working with all members to strengthen the global trading system. The stance of the Trump Administration in opposing the due appointment of members to the Appellate Body (AB) of the WTO’s Dispute Settlement so that no unfavorable verdict in trade dispute is rendered to the US in its ongoing trade war ...

Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s visit to New Delhi, came at a time of escalating conflict between the United States and Iran. It signifies India’s position in the Iranian foreign policy calculus. The Iranian Foreign Minister met India’s Minister for External Affairs and held constructive discussions on all bilateral issues of mutual interest between the two countries. This meeting provided the two leaders to indulge in exchanging views on the evolving regional situation, including the Afghanistan issue. While India shares civilizational relationship with Iran spanning millennia, the mutual ties of these countries have recently been deeply strengthened due to their partnerships in the realms of energy and connectivity. Iran is prominently placed in India’s energy security domain, standing amongst India’s top oil suppliers for a long time. Even during the current phase of the US sanctions against Iran in which Washington has declined to extend any oil-import waivers to any coun...

India and Turkey made quiet but definitive progress in the recent past to upgrade their partnership with two back to back meetings at the senior official level. Turkey is aiming to de-hyphenate its ties between emerging ally India and traditional ally Pakistan. Ankara sent its Presidential Adviser Dr. Ibrahim Kalin to New Delhi who sought wide-ranging counter-terror-de-radicalisation cooperation besides steps to add to the economic quotient of the partnership. India sought Turkey’s partnership to address the menace of cross-border terror being its long-standing victim. The issue of recent terror attacks in Sri Lanka was also part of discourse when Ibrahim Kalin met India’s National Security Adisor (NSA) Ajit Doval. The two sides exchanged views on global and regional issues, including those relating to South Asia and West Asia. Both sides underlined the importance for all States to cooperate with each other to eliminate terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and t...

Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu paid a 4-day official visit to Vietnam, which aimed at enhancing India’s comprehensive strategic partnership with Vietnam. It is common knowledge that India-Vietnam partnership has stood the test of time. Besides interactions with top political leaders of Vietnam, Mr. Naidu took time to address the Indian community at an event and hailed the relationship between the two countries.The Indian Vice President held meetings with his Vietnamese counterpart Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Chairwoman of National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan. Mr. Naidu delivered the keynote address at the 16th United Nations Day of ‘Vesak’ Celebration at Tam Chuc Pagoda in Vietnam’s Ha Nam Province. The event was themed as “Buddhist Approach to Global Leadership and Shared Responsibilities for Sustainable Societies”. Regular exchange of visits by top political leaders from either country has led bilateral ties to be elevated to a C...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has announced that Iran is scaling back some of its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA. This announcement was in response to the recent military deployment in the Middle East by the United States under the command of its President Donald Trump, who withdrew from the nuclear agreement after becoming the President of the United States. Since its withdrawal from the JCPOA, the United States has successively taken such decisions against Iran which have widened the conflict between the two countries. Under the new Iran Policy of President Trump, the US has followed an extremely non-compromising attitude towards Iran under which it re-imposed sanctions on the country which were lifted as a result of the implementation of the JCPOA. Thereafter, the United States listed as “terrorist” the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC. It was for the first time that the US had listed an entire wing of a foreign government as...

A meeting of ‘Sherpas’ (representatives) of IBSA countries, a group comprising of India, Brazil, and South Africa, took place in Kochi, Kerala. This was a follow-up to the 9 th  IBSA Trilateral Ministerial Commission Meeting that took place in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly Session in September, 2018. IBSA is a unique Forum which brings together India, Brazil and South Africa which are large democracies and major economies from three different continents. These countries face similar challenges. They are developing, pluralistic, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious nations. IBSA which was launched at their Foreign Ministers meeting in Brasilia in June 2003 celebrated its 15th Anniversary last year. IBSA is a South-South grouping of like-minded countries, committed to inclusive sustainable development, in pursuit of well-being of their peoples and of the developing world. The principles, norms and values underpinning the...