India’s core foreign policy challenges in 2011 will be no different than in 2010, but we enter the New Year with a somewhat strengthened diplomatic hand. Coincidentally, leaders of all P-5 countries visited India in 2010 in quick succession and all
China has been strikingly inept in its international diplomacy over the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Chinese dissident Lui Xiaobo. China’s global stature today is formidable. Its economic growth in the last three decades has been spectacul
Chinese PM Wen Jiabao’s visit has hardly done much to allay India’s fears about its hostile, powerful neighbour Of all the visits made by P-5 leaders to India in 2010, that of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao proved the least productive. At one leve
An objective evaluation of changing contours of our engagement with Africa, especially in light of significant developments in 2010, might interest Africa watchers and others. Conceptual richness and consistency appear to characterise recent inter
Behind the usual bonhomie exhibited after the issue of joint communiqué by India and China post Prime Minister Wen Jia Bao's visit basic issue that needs to be addressed is what are the major take aways? Were the concerns of the two countries add
The failure of our diplomatic offensive against Pakistan after the 26/11 attacks rests in part on our faulty tactics. The Wikileaks disclosures are a part of the classified US diplomatic traffic comprising, as is the norm, not only of reporta
India’s China policy has been marked by friendship, sentimentalism, fear, diffidence, appeasement, brinksmanship, wishful thinking and engagement. Of late, despite positive political overtures, there are undercurrents of growing negativism in the r
Why is Premier Wen Jiabao’s Visit Now? A return visit by Chinese Premier was due for over two years since Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh visited China in January 2008. China’s assertive policies could be said to have bec
President Obama’s much heralded visit to India produced mixed results. The inordinate coverage given to the visit has exaggerated the positives and obscured some deficient outcomes. On the credit side, we can list a “forward looking” US posi
Satish Chandra, the former deputy national security adviser, wonders whether India's core interests were addressed during President Obama's meetings with Prime Minister Singh. That the three-day Obama visit to India was an indisputable su