In anticipation of a verdict to be delivered by the International Tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on Tuesday, China has orchestrated a worldwide campaign to defuse its findings.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday address Members of the British Parliament in London where he promised to open more doors of cooperation between the two countries and delved on issues like terrorism and United Nations reforms.
Following is the full text of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech at the Central Party School in Beijing on Thursday:
With Beijing having had a profound rethink on India's admission as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the tectonic plates of the geopolitics of a massive swathe of the planet stretching from the Asia-Pacific to West Asia are dramatically shifting. That grating noise in the Central Asian steppes will be heard far and wide -- as far as North America, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Japan has the capital and needs to pull out of China, which has been its major destination. India, on the other hand, desperately needs capital especially for infrastructure, argues Rajeev Srinivasan.
'It is in the interest of both sides that the visit of the US President is seen as being successful. Both sides have invested considerable political capital in it. This rapid exchange of visits and the decisions taken have to be justified, beyond the symbolism, which is no doubt important in itself. This opportunity to impart a fresh momentum to ties should not be missed,' says former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
'To consider BRICS anything more than a temporary club with some common interests would be folly. The goal should be to induce others (Japan, ASEAN, South Africa) to align with us -- a non-threatening, democratic nation, rather than with malevolent China or waning America. For us to consider aligning with either China or the US would be absurd. India is just too big to be a sidekick,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'India should think big: About how in a multi-polar world, India can indeed be one of the poles, rather than being a secondary power that has to worry about 'alignment' with one of the poles. A G3 in other words, India should look to getting others to align with itself rather than the US or China,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'Modi's investment in the relationship with Washington is the biggest deliverable of this visit. He means business and that's fantastic!'
This is the joint statement issued by the ministry of external affairs on the visit of US President Barack Obama to India.
In his penultimate State of the Union address, Barack Obama said that the economy is improving.
