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Subject: International Relations

  • COVID diplomacy 2.0, a different order of tasks

    The article highlights the contrast in India’s diplomacy during the first wave of the pandemic and the second wave. It also discusses the challenges ahead for India.

    India’s diplomatic structure in two Covid waves

    •  In the past month, the focus for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and Missions abroad has shifted.
    • During the first wave of the pandemic, focus was on coordinating exports of COVID-19 medicines, flights to repatriate Indians abroad through the ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ after the lockdown, and then exporting vaccines worldwide- ‘Vaccine Maitri’.
    • After the second wave, Covid Diplomacy 2.0 has a different order of tasks, both in the immediate and the long term.
    • The immediate imperative was to deal with oxygen and medicine shortages that claimed the lives of thousands.
    • The Ministry of External Affairs has had to deal with internal health concerns while galvanising help from abroad for others.
    • Despite difficulties, the Ministry of External Affairs has completed the task of bringing in supplies in a timely manner, and with success.

    Dealing with vaccine shortage

    • Companies manufacturing AstraZeneca and Sputnik-V are stretched as far as future production is concerned.
    • The Chinese vaccines are out of consideration given bilateral tensions.
    • So, it is clear that India is looking to the U.S. to make up the shortfall.
    • This could be done in the following ways:
    • 1) Requesting the U.S. to share a substantial portion of its stockpile of AstraZeneca.
    • The U.S. government is holding up its AstraZeneca exports until its own United States Food and Drug Administration approves them.
    • 2) Asking the US to release more vaccine ingredients which are restricted for exports.
    • 3) To buy more stock outright from the three U.S. manufacturers, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, and to encourage production in India of these vaccines.
    • Production of Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccines in India, as had been announced during the Quad summit, will take some time.
    • The U.S. companies seem set on getting both an indemnity waiver from India as well as Emergency Use Authorisation prior to supplying them.
    • The Government may also need to make a change to its publicly announced policy that States in India will need to negotiate purchases directly, as the U.S. manufacturers want centralised orders, with payments up-front.

    2) Patent waiver

    • The promise of patent waivers, from India’s joint proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) will not reap early benefits.
    • Even though it has received support from world leaders such as the U.S., Russia and China.
    • Many countries including Japan, Australia, Brazil and EU are still holding out on the idea of freeing up intellectual property rights on vaccines for three years.
    • That could ultimately hold up proceedings at the WTO, as it works by consensus.

    3) Diplomatic fallout of vaccine collapse

    • The Government has defended its decision to export more than 66 million vaccines doses to 95 countries between January and April this year.
    • All exports were stopped as soon as cases in India began to soar.
    • Both India’s neighbours and partners in Africa as well as global agencies depending on India for vaccines have been left in the lurch by the Government’s failure to balance its vaccine budget.
    • For example, once India completed delivery of the first batch, of 550,000 Covishield doses, Bhutan completed the administration of the first dose to 93% of its population in a record 16 days.
    • Two months later, Bhutan does not have any vaccines to complete the second dose and has been left requesting other countries for vaccines.
    • It is no surprise that each of India’s neighbours has now sought help from China and the U.S. to complete their vaccination drives.

    4) Tracing virus pathways

    • India, as one of the worst pandemic-hit countries, must be at the forefront of demanding accountability on the origin of the virus.
    • The World Health Organisation (WHO) which studied “pathways of emergence” of SARS-CoV2 in Wuhan, listed four possibilities:
    • 1) Direct zoonotic transmission.
    • 2) An intermediate host.
    • 3) Cold chain or transmission through food.
    • 4) A laboratory incident.
    • China appears adamant on blocking these studies.
    • Even the U.S. appears to have dragged its feet on a conclusive finding, possibly because the U.S. National Institutes of Health had funded some of the Wuhan Institute’s research.

    Way forward on virus pathways

    • India must call for a more definitive answer and also raise its voice for a stronger convention to regulate any research that could lead, by accident or design, to something as the current pandemic.
    •  It is necessary to revamp the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention to institute an implementation body to assess treaty compliance, and build safer standards for the future.

    Consider the question “How different was the impact of two Covid-19 waves on India’s diplomacy? What are the challenges India faces in the near future in dealing with the fallout of the pandemic?”

    Conclusion

    With its seat at the UN Security Council as non-permanent member and its position on WHO’s Executive Board, India could seek to regain the footing it has lost over the past few months of COVID-19 mismanagement, by taking a lead role in ensuring the world is protected from the next such pandemic.

  • Israel and Palestine could take a leaf out of India’s book

    The article suggest the Indian model for peaceful coexistence as a possible solution to Israel-Palestine conflict.

    Brief history of the conflict

    • Britain renounced its Mandate over Palestine in 1948.
    • This paved the way for the United Nations to divide Palestine between the Jews and Arabs, giving them about 55% and 45% of the land, respectively.
    • The Jews, meanwhile, had declared the establishment of the state of Israel for which they had been working for long.
    • The Palestinians, who lacked the resources to conceive of a state, failed to form a state of their own in the land allotted to them.
    • Instead, a coalition of Arab countries invaded the nascent state of Israel to nip it in the bud.
    • Israel defeated the Arab armies.
    • Israel also destroyed about 600 Palestinian villages and expelled about 80% of Arabs from its territory.
    • In 1967, in the Six-Day War, Israel captured not just more Palestinian land but also Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights.
    • During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the Arabs came to realise that Israel is here to stay.

    Need for realisation on both the sides

    • The Arab states failed to impress the realisation of permanency of Israel upon their Palestinian brethren, a sizeable number of whom remain committed to seeking a solution through counter-violence. 
    • Vicious cycle of violence is not going to end unless there is realism on both sides.
    • The Hamas should know that Israel will not give up on holding on to land it has held for years.
    • Israel should understand that total subjugation, expulsion or even decimation of Palestinians will not make it any safer.
    • A solution based on the common humanity of all stakeholders, one that is not riven by racial and religious schisms, needs to be explored.

    Viability of Indian model

    • The Indian model of democracy and secularism, which accommodates religious, ethnic, linguistic and other diversities, could be a viable model for the peaceful coexistence of formerly antagonistic groups.
    •  India evolved a unique model of accommodating the victors and the vanquished, without ever resorting to the latter’s decimation.
    • A modus vivendi has to evolve on the basis of hard realities, the first of which is that neither the Jews nor the Palestinians are going to vanish.
    • If the two-state solution is nowhere in the offing, a single state after the Indian model, i.e., a secular, democratic and pluralistic state, may be the only feasible option.
    • The Palestinian refugees have a right to return.
    • That the altered demographics would impinge on the religio-racial character of Israel is not an argument which behoves a modern democratic state.
    • It is true that a nation state belongs to the group which constituted itself into a nation.
    • A nation is an imagined community.
    • As imagination expands, the foundations of the nation become deeper.

    Consider the question “In the absence of two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, what lessons India could offer to the two parties for peaceful coexistence?”

    Conclusion

    Israel might not offer the right model of conflict resolution for India, but India presents a model of peaceful coexistence for Israel.

  • 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.

  • India must engage with Nepal-without intervening

    The article suggests recalibration of India’s approach towards political turmoil in Nepal.

    Nepal in political crisis

    • For the second time in weeks, Prime Minister K P Oli has persuaded President Bidya Devi Bhandari to dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections.
    • That is, unless the Supreme Court decides to declare the dissolution of parliament as unconstitutional, as it had done in the recent past.
    • The current dissolution has been challenged in the court by five political parties.

    Medhesi demand fulfilled

    • Prime Minister Oli has also delivered on the longstanding Madhesi demand to reverse a constitutional provision which denied citizenship to children born of Nepali mothers who had foreign husbands.
    • The widespread unrest in the Terai adjoining India in 2015 was triggered by this attempt to deny equal rights to the Madhesi population.
    • This provision had directly targeted the Madhesi population, which has close kinship and marital ties across the border with India.
    • While this provision has now been removed through a presidential ordinance, it could well be reversed in future by Nepali political parties dominated by the higher caste.

    Steps India needs to take

    • Political uncertainty in a neighbouring country is never good news for India, particularly in Nepal with whom we share a long and open border.
    • The Indian government has maintained a studied silence on the current political developments in Nepal and this may be the right thing to do.
    • But this silence should not imply the lack of a proper assessment of the political situation in Nepal and what would serve the interests of India best.
    • Following are the steps India need to take:

    1) India should declare it does not support the revival of monarchy

    •  The abolition of the monarchy is a net gain for India and the government must firmly and unambiguously declare that it does not support the revival of the monarchy, which has already been rejected by its people.
    • India should declare its unconditional support to Nepal’s republican democracy.

    2) Remain engaged with Nepal

    • India should remain fully engaged with Nepal at all levels and across the political spectrum.
    • The safeguarding of India’s vital interests demands such sustained engagement.
    • A hands-off policy will only create space for other external influences, some of which, like China, may prove to be hostile.
    • However, engagement must dispense with the recurrent tendency to label Nepali political leaders as friends or enemies.
    • India should advocate policies rather than persons.

    3) Recognise the role of Madhesi population

    • In India’s engagement with Nepal, the Terai belt and its large Madhesi population plays a critical and indispensable role.
    • In an effort to win over the Kathmandu political and social elite, one should be careful not to neglect citizens living in the plains.
    • Our engagement with Nepal must find an important place for Nepali citizens who are our immediate neighbours and act as a kinship, cultural and religious bridge between our two countries.

    4) Appreciate people-to-people link

    • India needs to appreciate that the people-to-people links between our two countries have an unmatched density and no other country, including China, enjoys this asset.
    • The challenge to our Nepal policy lies in leveraging this precious asset to ensure a stable and mutually-productive state-to-state relationship.
    • India has every reason to approach its relations with Nepal with confidence and assurance.

    Consider the question “What are the factors that make India-Nepal relationship special? What are the recent challenges impacting this special relationship? ” 

    Conclusion

    The safeguarding of India’s vital interests demands India’s engagement with Nepal without intervening in its politics. A hands-off policy will only create space for other external influences.

  • Currency swap between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

    Bangladesh’s central bank has approved a $200 million currency swap facility to Sri Lanka.

    Practice question for mains:

    Q. What are Currency Swaps? Discuss the efficacy of Currency Swap Agreements for liberalizing bilateral trade.

    What is a Currency Swap?

    • In this context, a currency swap is effectively a loan that Bangladesh will give to Sri Lanka in dollars, with an agreement that the debt will be repaid with interest in Sri Lankan rupees.
    • For Sri Lanka, this is cheaper than borrowing from the market, and a lifeline as is it struggles to maintain adequate forex reserves even as repayment of its external debts looms.
    • The period of the currency swap will be specified in the agreement.

    A helping hand for SL

    • Bangladesh Bank, the central bank, has in principle approved a $200 million currency swap agreement with Sri Lanka.
    • Dhaka decided to extend the facility after a request by Sri Lankan PM Mahinda Rajapaksa to Bangladesh’s PM Sheikh Hasina.
    • It will help Colombo tide over its foreign exchange crisis, according to media reports from Bangladesh, quoting the bank’s spokesman.
    • Sri Lanka, staring at an external debt repayment schedule of $4.05 million this year, is in urgent need of foreign exchange.

    An unusual move

    • Bangladesh has not been viewed so far as a provider of financial assistance to other countries.
    • It has been among the most impoverished countries of the world, and still receives billions of dollars in financial aid.
    • But over the last two decades, its economy has pulled itself up literally by the bootstraps, and in 2020, was the fastest growing in South Asia.
    • Bangladesh’s economy grew by 5.2 percent in 2020 and is expected to grow by 6.8 percent in 2021.
    • The country has managed to pull millions out of poverty. Its per capita income just overtook India’s.

    A break in monopoly

    • This may be the first time that Bangladesh is extending a helping hand to another country, so this is a landmark of sorts.
    • It is also the first time that Sri Lanka is borrowing from a SAARC country other than India.
    • The presumption was that only India, as the regional group’s largest economy, could do this.
    • The Bangladesh-Sri Lanka arrangement shows that is no longer valid.

    Why didn’t SL approach India?

    • Last year, it requested for a $1 billion credit swap, and separately, a moratorium on debts that the country has to repay to India.
    • But India-Sri Lanka relations have been tense over Colombo’s decision to cancel a valued container terminal project at Colombo Port.
    • India put off the decision, but Colombo no longer has the luxury of time.

    Is SL in a crisis?

    • With the tourism industry destroyed since the 2019 Easter attacks, Sri Lanka had lost one of its top foreign exchange pullers even before the pandemic.
    • The tea and garment industries have also been hit by the pandemic affecting exports.
    • Remittances increased in 2020, but are not sufficient to pull Sri Lanka out of its crisis.
    • The country is already deep in debt to China. According to media reports, Sri Lanka owes China up to $5 billion.

    What about the previous swap facility that India gave Sri Lanka?

    • Last July, the RBI did extend a $400 million credit swap facility to Sri Lanka, which the Central Bank of Sri Lanka settled in February. The arrangement was not extended.
    • RBI has a framework under which it can offer credit swap facilities to SAARC countries within an overall corpus of $2 billion.
    • According to RBI, the SAARC currency swap facility came into operation in November 2012 with the aim of providing to smaller countries in the region.

  • UAE’s Golden Visa Scheme

    A Bollywood actor has recently received a golden visa from the UAE government.

    What is the Golden Visa?

    • The Golden Visa system essentially offers long-term residency (5 and 10 years) to people belonging to the following groups: investors, entrepreneurs, individuals with outstanding talents the likes of researchers, medical professionals and those within the scientific and knowledge fields, and remarkable students.
    • The main benefit of the visa will be security.
    • The UAE government has made it clear that they are committed to providing expatriates, investors and essentially everyone looking to make the UAE their home an extra reason to feel secure about their future.

    Who are eligible to apply?

    • For the 10-year visa, investors having no less than AED (Dirham) 10 million worth of public investment, either in the form of an investment fund or a company, can apply.
    • However, at least 60 per cent of the total investment must not be in the form of real estate and the invested amount must not be loaned, or in case of assets, investors must assume full ownership.
    • The investor must be able to retain the investment for a minimum of three years as well.
    • The long-term visa can also include the holder’s spouse and children, as well as one executive director and one advisor.
    • In addition to the aforementioned, foreign nationals who are looking to set up their business in the UAE may also apply for permanent residency (5 years) through the Golden Business Visa scheme.

    Perks for the talent

    • Besides entrepreneurs, individuals with specialized talent can also apply for the visa. They include doctors, researchers, scientists, investors and artists.
    • These individuals may be granted a 10-year visa following accreditations granted by their respective departments and fields and the visa will also be extended to their spouses and children.
    • Exceptional high school and university students are eligible for a 5-year residency visa in the UAE.

  • 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.

  • As the US exits, Afghanistan finds itself at the crossroads

    The article highlights the implications of the U.S. exit from Afghanistan for the region.

    Status of the Afghanistan peace process

    • The Afghanistan peace process has been in disarray as the conference to be hosted by the United Nations in Istanbul, remains suspended due to the reluctance of Afghan’s Taliban.
    • Now there is some hope of breaking the impasse as the Taliban have expressed an openness to attend the Istanbul summit.
    • United States President Joe Biden is insistent on withdrawing the troops on September 11, even without any power-sharing deal between the warring parties.
    • Taliban leadership, who may feel the urgency to resuming negotiations than completely abandoning them for fear of losing the international legitimacy they enjoy at the moment.

    How the U.S. exit will affect Pakistan

    • After months of negotiations, the U.S.-Taliban deal was signed in February 2020, and Pakistan took full credit for it.
    • As the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan for almost two decades had kept the U.S. reliant on Pakistan for operational and other support.
    • Pakistan smartly mobilised this factor against India.
    • With the disappearance of this lethal dependence, Pakistan faces an uphill task in conducting a viable Afghan policy.
    • Pakistan cannot keep America invested in it on military, economic, and societal fronts without partnering with the U.S. to ensure a smooth transition of power in Kabul.

    Impact on China

    • The Taliban now draw support from a wide variety of regional powers, including Russia, China and Iran.
    • However, these countries too want the insurgent group to moderate its position.
    • China, which has a beneficiary of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, seems confused as the American exit looms large.
    • The U.S. exit would leave Beijing vulnerable to its spillover effects particularly in the restive Xinjiang province.
    • That is why China has remained invested in all major regional Afghan-centric negotiations.

    Implications for India

    • India has been the key regional backer of an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace process.
    • India is concerned that the Taliban-dominated regime in Afghanistan might allow Pakistan to dictate Afghanistan’s India policy.
    • That is why India has underlined the need for a genuine double peace i.e. within and around Afghanistan.
    • But despite being offered a seat at Istanbul at the U.S.’s behest, India remains a peripheral player.
    • The strategic competition between the China and the U.S.,  China’s growing rivalry with India, and New Delhi’s tense relationship with Islamabad are some of the factors which will certainly affect the situation in Afghanistan as the U.S. leaves the country.

    Consider the question “What are the implications of the U.S. exit from Afghanistan for the region? Examine its impact on India.

    Conclusion

    While the exit would bring the U.S.’s “forever war” to an end, it is unlikely to result in peace if Afghan stakeholders show their utter inability to take the process forward.

  • 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”.