The book by Ambassador Satish Chandra covers four decades he served in the Indian Foreign Service from 1965 to 2005. The book is not simply an account of his personal journey. It provides a glimpse into the making of foreign policy. It also covers India’s trajectory from the mid-60s, when it was recovering from the 1962 war to the post-Pokhran phase when it had emerged as a nuclear weapons state. Mr. Satish Chandra saw many of the defining events of this period from close quarters. He was a Second Secretary in India’s Deputy High Commission in Karachi just before the outbreak of the 1971 war.

The latest edition of the Quad Plus Dialogue (QPD) at the think tanks level was held virtually on 09 May, 2023. This time Vivekananda International Foundation hosted the dialogue. Apart from VIF, the think tanks from Quad members included the Heritage Foundation, US and the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA). The Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR) from Taiwan also participated as a Quad-Plus partner.

In the past few years, the international system has increasingly displayed tendencies of being subordinate to narrow national interests. The COVID pandemic revealed the limits of cooperation when countries turned inwards to cope with the deadly virus rather than help each other in dealing with the fallout. Simultaneously, the war in Ukraine has dealt a severe blow to the UN-led system of collective security. Multilateralism in different arenas has witnessed intransigent impasses.

The Vivekananda International Foundation organised a virtual talk by Ms. Cleo Paskal, Non-Resident Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), Washington DC on "Geopolitical Relevance of the Pacific Islands for India and the Indo-Pacific Region" on March 15, 2023 (Wednesday). Dr. Arvind Gupta, Director, VIF, chaired the session and made welcome remarks. The talk was followed by Q& A and discussion. Lt. Gen. R.K. Sawhney (Retd.), Vice- Admiral Satish Soni (Retd.), Gp. Cap. Naval Jagota (Retd.), Dr. Udai Bhanu Singh and others participated in the event.