Foreign policy expert C Raja Mohan has said that the recent disengagement of troops with China in eastern Ladakh has given a small opening to India, but the "big issues" remain. He also stressed the importance of strengthening India's ties with the US for technological and economic growth.
Increasingly, the space for India to engage other countries is shrinking and hardening, primarily because post-Sharm El Sheikh, we have a leadership that worries about the public backlash all the time, and because the two communities who should be tasked with preparing the ground for engagement --the ministry of external affairs and the media -- are instead drawing red lines.
Former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed who is in New Delhi for the last five days trying to drum up support for his demand for establishing a popular government in Male, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday and discussed the political situation in the Maldives and its future.
'If at all,' says Suhasini Haidar, Foreign Affairs Editor, CNN-IBN, 'Devyani Khobragade is to avoid facing a full trial, the process of that negotiation must start immediately, for which the current acrimonious atmosphere must be improved. It is no more than the US was willing to do for Raymond Davis; the Italian government for its sailors; and India for Captain Sunil James and Vijayan in Togo. Devyani Khobragade is not accused of charges anywhere as serious they were, and whether Preet Bharara's office recognises it or not, she is a diplomat who represents a proud country that has taken the insult to her as a personal insult to the country.'
The media has given the PM and his government a far easier time than it probably deserves.
