Mains Ready By December. Smash Mains & Smash PYQ Admissions Open
Talk to Mentor

Civilsdaily

GS Paper: GS2-18.Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

  • How Pakistan Plays the world

    The article explains evolution of Pakistan’s approach towards forming alliances and maintaining strategic autonomy against the backdrop of U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

    New dynamic Pakistan has to face

    • As the US withdraws its troops from Afghanistan, Pakistan is eager to build a relationship with Washington that is not tied to US stakes in Afghanistan.
    • Pakistan does not want to be totally alienated from U.S. in the new geopolitical jousting between the US and China.
    • How Pakistan copes with the new dynamic between the US and China as well as manages the deepening crisis in Afghanistan would be of great interest to India.

    Striking the balance between autonomy and alliance

    • Autonomy is about the basic impulse for enhancing the degree of one’s freedom.
    • Alliances are about coping with real or perceived threats to one’s security.
    • Both are natural trends in international politics.
    • Joining an alliance does not mean ceding one’s sovereignty.
    • Within every alliance, there is a perennial tension between seeking more commitments from the partner in return for limiting one’s own.

    Explaining Pakistan’s approach to alliances

    • Pakistan’s insecurities in relation to India meant it was eager for alliances.
    •  And as the Anglo-Americans scouted for partners in the crusade against global communism, Pakistan signed a bilateral security treaty with the US and joined the South East Asia Treaty Organisation and Central Treaty Organisation in the mid-1950s.
    • Rather than target Pakistan’s alliance with a West that was intensely hostile to Beijing in the 1950s, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai saw room to exploit Pakistan’s insecurities on India.
    • While Pakistan’s ties with the US went up and down, its relationship with China has seen steady expansion.
    • Pakistan’s relations with the US flourished  after the Soviet Union sent its troops into Afghanistan at the end of 1979.
    • The US and Pakistan reconnected in 2001 as Washington sought physical access and intelligence support to sustain its intervention in Afghanistan following the attacks on September 11.
    • Now the US wants Pakistan to persuade the Taliban to accept a peaceful transition to a new political order in Afghanistan.

    Pakistan’s ability to adapt to shifting geopolitical trends

    • Pakistan worries that its leverage in U.S. will diminish once the US turns its back on Afghanistan and towards the Indo-Pacific.
    • Pakistan does not want to get in the Indo-Pacific crossfire between the US and China.
    • It would also like to dent India’s growing importance in America’s Indo-Pacific strategy.
    • India should not underestimate Pakistan’s agency in adapting to the shifting global currents.
    • Pakistan has been good at using its great power alliances to its own benefit.

    Three problems that complicates Pakistan’s strategic autonomy

    • 1) Relative economic decline: Pakistan’s expected aggregate GDP at around $300 billion in 2021 is 10 times smaller than India’s.
    • 2) Obsession with Kashmir: Pakistan’s enduring obsessions with separating Kashmir from India, and extending its political sway over Afghanistan; both look elusive despite massive political investments by the Pakistan army.
    • Unsurprisingly, there is a recognition that Pakistan needs reorientation — from geopolitics to geoeconomics and permanent war with neighbours to peace of some sorts.
    • 3) Using religion as political instrument: Turning Islam into a political instrument and empowering religious extremism seemed clever a few decades ago.
    • However, today those forces have acquired a life of their own and severely constrain the capacity of the Pakistani state to build internal coherence and widen international options.

    Conclusion

    It will be unwise to rule out Pakistan’s positive reinvention; no country has a bigger stake in it than India. For now, though, Pakistan offers a cautionary tale on the dangers of squandering a nation’s strategic advantages — including a critical geopolitical location that it had inherited and the powerful partnerships that came its way.

  • Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

    West African leaders were due to meet in Ghana to discuss a response to Mali’s second coup in nine months.

    • Since 1960, when Mali gained independence from France, there have been five coups — and only one peaceful transition from one democratically elected president to another.
    • But on Monday, soldiers detained transitional President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, releasing them on Thursday while saying that they had resigned.

    Recent coup

    • Nine months ago, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was overthrown in the wake of mass anti-government protests.
    • Last week, the announcement of a new cabinet was made that excluded two key military leaders. Following this, the army has detained the President and the Prime Minister.

    About ECOWAS

    • The Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) is a regional group of fifteen countries, founded in 1975 via the treaty of Lagos.
    • Mission: To promote economic integration in “all fields of economic activity, particularly industry, transport, telecommunications, energy, agriculture, natural resources, commerce, monetary and financial questions, social and cultural matters.
    • Vision: Creation of a borderless region where the population has access to its abundant resources and is able to exploit same through the creation of opportunities under a sustainable environment.
    • ECOWAS can be divided into two sub-regional blocs:
    1. West African Economic and Monetary Union – established in 1994
    2. West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) – established in 2000
    • ECOWAS is meant to be a region governed in accordance with the principles of democracy, rule of law and good governance.
    • The member countries of ECOWAS comprises: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d’ Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Togo.

  • One-state solution, the way forward in Palestine

    The article highlights the challenges in the success of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict and suggests the one-state solution instead.

    Background of the two-state solution

    • It involves dividing Palestine between the state of Israel and the indigenous population of Palestine.
    • It was first offered by the British in 1937 and rejected by the Palestinians already then.
    •  In 1947 the United Nations insisted that the Palestinians should give half of their homeland to the settler movement of Zionism.
    • The two-state solution, offered for the first time by liberal Zionists and the United States in the 1980s, is seen by some Palestinians as the best way of ending of the occupation of the West Bank .
    • It will also lead to the partial fulfilment of the Palestinian right for self-determination and independence.

    Interpretation of two-state solution

    • The Israeli interpretation, until 2009, was that the two-state solution is another means of having the territories, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, without incorporating most of the people living there.
    • In order to ensure it, Israel partitioned the West Bank which is 20% of historical Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab part.
    • This was in the second phase of the Oslo Accords, known as the Oslo II agreement of 1995.
    • One area, called area C, which consists of 60% of the West Bank was directly ruled from 1995 until today by Israel.
    • Now, Israel is in the process of officially annexing this area.
    • 40% of the West Bank, areas A and B under Oslo II, were put under the Palestinian Authority.
    • Palestinian Authority calls itself the state of Palestine, but in essence has no power whatsoever, unless the one given to it, and withdrawn from it, by Israel.
    • In 2018 a citizenship law was passed known as the nationality law.
    • As per the citizenship law, the Palestinian citizens who live in Israel proper which is Israel prior to the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and who are supposedly equal citizens of the Jewish state, will in essence become the Africans of a new Israeli Jewish apartheid state.

    Issues with two-state solution

    • The endless negotiation on the two-state solution was based on the formula that once the two states become a reality, Israel will stop these severe violations of the Palestinian civil and human rights.
    • But while the wait continued, more Palestinians were expelled and the Jewish settler community in the West Bank grew in size.
    • The two-state solution is not going to stop the ethnic cleansing; instead, talking about it provides Israel international immunity to continue it.

    Way forward

    • The only alternative is to decolonise historical Palestine.
    • New state should a state for all its citizens all over the country, based on the dismantlement of colonialist institutions, fair redistribution of the country’s natural resources, compensation of the victims of the ethnic cleansing and allowing their repatriation.
    •  Settlers and natives should together build a new state that is democratic, part of the Arab world and not against it, and an inspiration for the rest of the region.

    Conclusion

    The one-state solution is the way forward in Palestine and that should be the state for all citizens.

  • China’s 17+1 Cooperation Forum

    Lithuania has decided to quit China’s 17+1 cooperation forum with central and eastern European states that include other EU members, calling it “divisive”.

    About 17+ 1 Forum

    • The forum is an abbreviation for Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries.
    • It is an initiative by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote business and investment relations between China and 16 countries of CEE (CEEC).
    • The countries are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
    • The format was founded in 2012 in Warsaw to push for the cooperation of the “17+1” (the 17 CEE countries and China).
    • Its goals are to promote the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and enhance cooperation in the fields of infrastructure, transportation, and logistics, trade and investment”.

  • India needs to engage with U.S. progressives

    The artcle highlights the role played by the progressive section in the US politics in influencing U.S. governments decision on TRIPS waiver and providing aid to India. Incidentally, these progressives include names such as Pramila Jayapal whose comment on human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir had annoyed India.

    What led to change in U.S.’s approach on aid

    • There was a shift in the U.S.’s approach on providing COVID-19-related aid to India as well as on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver on COVID-19 vaccines.
    • It is tempting to surmise the shift as being driven by the Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership with New Delhi.
    • But it is more than just that.
    • The development was a result of the determined push by some sections of the political and business class, civil society, and Indian Americans.
    • Besides them, the progressives in the Democratic Party made a big difference.

    Role of the progressives

    • Days ahead of the May 5 decision of the Biden administration on the TRIPS waiver, 110 members of the U.S. Congress wrote to President Biden urging him to support the waiver.
    • Thus, the Biden administration’s decision on the waiver and the vaccines, characterised as courageous by many, was a result of the push by the progressives.
    • Joining in this effort, the co-chair of the Congressional India Caucus, and over 50 colleagues wrote last week to President Biden seeking supply of specific items.
    • The overall approach is to work with India in its battle against the second wave and prepare for subsequent ones.

    Conclusion

    It is evident that the progressives have a grip on policymaking. India will have to remain engaged with this section instead of offering a cold shoulder as it did in the recent past. As the adage goes, all politics is local.

  • Explained: India, Israel and Palestine Ties

    Recently India’s permanent representative to the UN made a carefully crafted statement at the UN Security Council “open debate” on the escalating Israel-Palestine violence.

    Must read:

    [Burning Issue] West Asia Peace Plan

    The story so far

    • The violence started on 6 May, when Palestinian protests began in Jerusalem over an anticipated decision of the Supreme Court of Israel on the eviction of six Palestinian families a neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem.
    • Israel’s operation “Guardian of the Walls” began with attacks on Hamas (a fundamentalist Palestinian group) tunnels close to the border fence with Israel.
    • India has adopted a balanced approach to the current Israeli-Palestine conflict that has pushed the volatile region into yet another cycle of violence.

    India’s long-standing position

    • India has since long been maintaining that the Israel-Palestine conflict should be resolved through negotiation resulting in sovereign, independent, viable and united State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
    • India has urged both countries to “engage with each other, including on the recent proposals put forward by the United States, and find an acceptable two-state solution for peaceful coexistence”.

    The dilemma

    • India seems to strive to maintain a balance between India’s historic ties with Palestine and its blossoming relations with Israel.
    • The request that both sides refrain from “attempts to unilaterally change the existing status quo including in East Jerusalem and its neighbourhoods” seems to be a message to Israel about its settler policy.
    • The statement was also emphatic that “the historic status quo at the holy places of Jerusalem including the Haraml al-Sharif/Temple Mount must be respected”.

    Ties with spikes

    • India’s policy on the longest-running conflict in the world has gone from being unequivocally pro-Palestine for the first four decades, to a tense balancing act with its three-decade-old friendly ties with Israel.
    • In recent years, India’s position has also been perceived as pro-Israel.

    From Nehru to Rao

    • The balancing began with India’s decision to normalize ties with Israel in 1992, which came against the backdrop of the break-up of the Soviet Union.
    • There were massive shifts in the geopolitics of West Asia on account of the first Gulf War in 1990.
    • That year, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) lost much of its clout in the Arab world by siding with Iraq and Saddam Hussein in the occupation of Kuwait.
    • The opening of an Indian embassy in Tel Aviv in January 1992 marked an end to four decades of giving Israel the cold shoulder, as India’s recognition of Israel in 1950 had been minus full diplomatic ties.
    • PM Nehru’s reasoning for the decision to recognise Israel was that it was “an established fact”, and that not doing so would create bitterness between two UN members.

    Why did India then support Palestine?

    • In 1948, India was the only non-Arab-state among 13 countries that voted against the UN partition plan of Palestine in the General Assembly that led to the creation of Israel.
    • Scholars ascribe various reasons for this India’s own Partition along religious lines; as a new nation that had just thrown off its colonial yoke; solidarity with the Palestinian people who would be dispossessed; and to ward off Pakistan’s plan to isolate India over Kashmir.
    • Later, India’s energy dependence on the Arab countries also became a factor, as did the sentiments of India’s own Muslim citizens.

    India and Palestine

    • The relationship with Palestine was almost an article of faith in Indian foreign policy for over four decades.
    • At the 53rd UN session, India co-sponsored the draft resolution on the right of the Palestinians to self-determination.
    • In the 1967 and 1973 wars, India lashed out at Israel as the aggressor.
    • In the 1970s, India rallied behind the PLO and its leader as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
    • In 1975, India became the first non-Arab country to recognise the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people and invited it to open an office in Delhi.
    • In 1988, when the PLO declared an independent state of Palestine with its capital in East Jerusalem, India granted recognition immediately.

    Continuity for the cause

    • India voted in favour of the UN General Assembly resolution in October 2003 against Israel’s construction of a separation wall.
    • It voted for Palestine to become a full member of UNESCO in 2011, and a year later, co-sponsored the UNGA resolution that enabled Palestine to become a “non-member” observer state at the UN without voting rights.
    • India also supported the installation of the Palestinian flag on the UN premises in September 2015.

    Changes after 2014

    • For two-and-a-half decades from 1992, the India-Israel relationship continued to grow, mostly through defence deals, and in sectors such as science and technology and agriculture.
    • But India never acknowledged the relationship fully.
    • There were few high-profile visits, and they all took place when the PM Vajpayee was in office.
    • Israel was perceived as an ideal of a “strong state” that deals “firmly” with “terrorists”.
    • It was during NDA-2 that the government under PM Modi decided to take full ownership of the relationship with Israel.

    Balancing act

    • Meanwhile, India continues to improve ties with Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE and feels vindicated by the decision of some Arab states to improve ties with Israel.
    • For instance, even as it abstained at UNESCO in December 2017, India voted in favour of a resolution in the UNGA opposing Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

  • The costs of relying on China to become more apparent to India’s neighbours

    The article explains the implications of China’s assertive foreign policy for India’s neighbours.

    Chinese warning to Bangladesh

    • The Chinese ambassador to Bangladesh warned Bangladesh against joining the Quad and added that it will risk “significant damage” to its relationship with Beijing if it warms up to the Quad.
    • This came as a surprise as China was warning Bangladesh against joining a club that has no plans to invite new members, let alone Bangladesh.
    • China always used tough language when it came to issues of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
    • The aggressive style now covers a much broader range of issues.
    • Beijing is conscious that Bangladesh’s impressive economic performance in recent years as well as its location at the top of the Bay of Bengal littoral lends a new strategic salience to Bangladesh.
    • China notes India’s growing diplomatic investment in developing a strategic partnership with Bangladesh.
    • China is also not blind to the emerging interest in US and Japan to expand cooperation with Dhaka.
    • Bangladesh, which supports China’s Belt and Road Initiative, is open to similar infrastructure cooperation with the US, Japan and India.

    China’s wolf worrier diplomacy

    • The new wolf warrior diplomacy confronts head-on any criticism of China in the public sphere.
    • India has been at the receiving end of this policy for a while — especially during the recent crises of Doklam and Ladakh.
    • But India’s South Asian neighbours, all of whom enjoy good relations with China, are only now getting a taste of Beijing’s new diplomatic medicine.
    • Chinese Ambassador’s public remarks about the Quad were about telling Bangladesh to resist any Indo-Pacific temptation.
    • Pre-emption is very much part of Beijing’s strategic culture.

    What such assertive diplomacy mean for South Asia

    • Delhi has learnt after long that too much diplomatic interference in the Subcontinent has tended to undermine the pursuit of India’s regional objectives.
    • China, as the world’s newest superpower, probably bets that its substantive leverages — including economic, diplomatic, and military — will limit the costs while deterring smaller nations from crossing the markers that it lays down.
    • South Asian elites have always seethed at India meddling in their internal affairs; they have held up China’s non-interventionist policy as a welcome alternative.
    • The controversy in Bangladesh over China’s remark on joining Quad should help update their past images of Beijing
    • India is now more circumspect than before about interventions in the region.
    • It recognises that avoiding knee-jerk interventions is a sensible policy.
    • Our neighbours have always complained about India’s inefficiency in implementing economic projects and contrasted this with China’s speed and purposefulness.
    • But they are also discovering the flip side of Chinese economic efficiency — the capacity to set and implement terms of cooperation that are not always in favour of the host nation.
    • All the regimes in the region have had access to different sections of the Indian elite and some capacity to shape the discourse on neighbourhood policies.
    • They have no political recourse at all in China’s closed political system.

    Consider the question “As Beijing becomes ever more assertive in South Asia, the costs of relying on China are likely to become more apparent to South Asia’s smaller nations. Comment.”

    Conclusion

    Until now, Chinese support against India seemed free of cost. As Beijing becomes ever more assertive in South Asia, the costs of relying on China are likely to become more apparent.

  • Need for West Asia’s diplomatic resets

    The article highlights the unprecedented engagement among the countries of West Asia even among the rivals and explains its significance.

    New diplomatic engagements in West Asia

    • Recently, there have been interactions between senior Saudi and Iranian officials, the first since diplomatic ties were broken in January 2016.
    • Following the removal of the diplomatic and economic blockade on Qatar that was imposed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, Doha has made efforts to mend ties with both Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in tandem with similar initiatives of its doctrinal and political ally, Turkey.
    • On May 5, Turkey and Egypt had their first diplomatic meeting in Cairo after they had broken diplomatic ties in 2013.
    • The two countries, on opposite sides on almost all regional issues, are now exploring how to address their differences.

    Driving force behind these engagements

    • The driving force behind these unprecedented engagements is the advent of the Biden administration at the helm of politics in the United States.
    • He has taken a tough line on Saudi Arabia, scrutinising its human rights record and opposition to the war in Yemen.
    • Besides concerns in West Asian capitals, the broader message is that the U.S. is now likely to be less engaged with the region’s quarrels.
    • These signals of new U.S. policies have occurred even as the novel coronavirus pandemic is devastating West Asia.
    • Finally, one major factor is the recognition that the ongoing regional conflicts, in Syria, Yemen and Libya, despite the massive death and destruction, have yielded no military outcome and now demand fresh diplomatic approaches.

    Long way to go in resolving differences

    • Egypt remains uneasy about Turkey’s ties with the Brotherhood and its regional ambitions.
    • Saudi Arabia has similar concerns about Turkey’s doctrinal affiliations and its relations with Iran.
    • There are difficulties in reshaping Saudi-Iran relations as well.
    • Iran may ease the pressure on the kingdom in Yemen and gradually yield ground in Iraq.
    • However, Syria will test their diplomatic skills as they explore how to accommodate their competing strategic interests in that devastated country.

    Historic period for West Asian diplomacy

    • This is truly a historic period for West Asian diplomacy.
    • The major states are displaying unprecedented self-confidence in pursuing initiatives without the involvement of western powers that have dominated regional affairs for at least a couple of centuries.
    • This has left a pervasive sense of insecurity across West Asia and made the countries dependent on western alliances to ensure their interests.
    • This has left a pervasive sense of insecurity across West Asia and made the countries dependent on western alliances to ensure their interests.

    Role for India

    • Given that regional contentions are inter-connected, third-party facilitators will be needed to promote mutual confidence and prepare the ground for a comprehensive regional security arrangement.
    • This will bring together regional and external states with a stake in West Asia security.
    • This arrangement will have provisions for participating states to uphold regional peace and promote mutually beneficial cooperation in energy, economic and logistical connectivity areas.
    • Given its close ties with all the regional states, India is well-placed to build an association of like-minded states — Japan, Russia, South Korea — to shape and pursue such an initiative for West Asian peace.

    Conclusion

    These new diplomatic engagements with erstwhile rivals could in time overturn existing regional alignments and possibly end ongoing conflicts.

  • Farzad B Gas Field

    Iran gave the Farzad B gas field to a domestic gas producer in a setback move to India.

    Farzad B Gas Field

    • Farzad-B is an off-shore natural gas field 20 kilometres off Farsi Island in Iran.
    • The gas field was discovered in 2008 by a consortium of three Indian companies, led by the state-owned ONGC Videsh with a 40% stake; the other companies were Indian Oil Corporation (40%) and Oil India (20%).

    Deal soured after US sanctions

    • Negotiations between the consortium and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) to develop the gas field stalled due to secondary sanctions against Iran by the US and the European Union in the early 2010s.
    • Following the lifting of sanctions after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was signed in July 2015 the consortium was close to an agreement to invest $US5 billion to develop the gas field.
    • After the United States withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018, and the reinstatement of U.S. sanctions against Iran, the negotiations between the consortium and NIOC broke down.

    Consider the question “Balancing the contrasts has been the basis of India’s relations with Iran. Comment.”

  • Cabinet clears MoU between ICAI and Qatar Financial Centre Authority

    Signing of MoU

    • The Union Cabinet approved the signing of a pact between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and the Qatar Financial Centre Authority (QFCA)
    • The ICAI has more than 6,000 members in the Middle East.

    Increase opportunities and enhance cooperation

    • The MoU would enhance cooperation between the institutes to work together to strengthen the accounting profession and entrepreneurship base in Qatar.
    • The MoU would provide the ICAI members in the entire Middle East better recognition, together with working to support Indian businesses desirous of doing business in Qatar
    • The MoU will endeavour to increase opportunities for ICAI members to provide professional services in Qatar in the areas of assurance and auditing, advisory, taxation, financial services and allied areas.