The IBSA task list
Why this unique grouping of India, Brazil and South Africa must be revitalised
Why this unique grouping of India, Brazil and South Africa must be revitalised
The Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been returned to power for another five years, till 2024. In the run-up to the national elections, the author travelled to Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, two of India’s most important states, to gauge the mood of the electorate, and to assess the economic and political conditions on the ground since the last election in 2014. She found a new generation with big dreams, and a population whose basic needs were being met. Economic citizenry has trumped identity politics. Modi is the leitmotif for this India, and they look to him to lead them into a middle class future.
The following are remarks given by Ambassador Rajiv Bhatia, Distinguished Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, Gateway House at a panel discussion on ‘Contemporary Global Governance and the Role of IBSA’, at the IBSA Academic Forum hosted by RIS and the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
The Indian elections 2019, being conducted over seven phases, reaffirm all the values electoral democracy stands for, but this time, it has also become a referendum on Prime Minister Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party which had won a clear majority in 2014. Outcomes are therefore unpredictable
The recently concluded CII-Exim Bank Conclave on the India-Africa Project Partnership elicited in-depth discussions on how to increase economic cooperation between the two countries. Three themes emerged, the infrastructure deficit continuing to be one of Africa’s greatest preoccupations
Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s coronation on May 1, marking the dawn of the Reiwa Era, is a milestone also for the Indian merchant diaspora, which began arriving during the reign of the Meiji Emperor in the 1870s. The strength of the India-Japan bilateral relationship lies in the 150-year-old narratives of these family-run firms and the success of many Indo-Japanese collaborations
Egypt, which is the 2019 chair of the African Union, is critically positioned to exert a geostrategic influence across Africa. In a conversation with Gateway House, Egyptian ambassador to India, Dr Heba Salaheldin Elmarassi, spoke on a wide range of issues that link India and Egypt, including trade, investment and security, North Africa’s political turbulence and the expanding Chinese footprint in the continent
Maldives’ new president, Ibrahim Solih, has had two election wins in a span of six months – his own in September 2018 and his Maldivian Democratic Party’s landslide victory in the Majlis elections about three weeks ago. An analysis of what this win says about democratic politics in Maldives, improved relations with India and the complex equation it shares with China
The growing use of technology in the election process has made cyber security a crucial issue. Instances of the spread of fake news, manipulation of voter behaviour and hacking show how digital technology can be misused. These issues need to be addressed in the long term
This account of India’s foreign policy under Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi is an accomplished body of research into a period, usually studied primarily for India’s Non Aligned Movement. The author suggests that Nehru’s larger Asian, more global, view for India has therefore gone unnoticed