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For a country on track to have the world's largest population by 2030 and one of the world's largest economies by 2050, there is no doubt that India will be consequential for New Zealand. Even if the trade relationship is put aside, India matters. It is also true that the relationship is set to become more complicated, as India grows and seeks to put its own mark on world affairs. But differences aside, India and New Zealand are clearly of strategic value to each other: in the Indian Ocean region, in the Pacific, in the Quad and as members of the wider Indo-Pacific region where many of India's values and interests directly align with New Zealand's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing contention between Mauritius and the UK over the sovereignty of the Diego Garcia presents a difficult challenge for Indian foreign policy-makers. New Delhi's principled opposition to colonialism and its historical relationship with Port Louis has made it steadfastly support the Mauritian claim. However, such principled foreign policy militates against India's quest to balance the growing Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean. Insofar, Diego Garcia allows the US Navy to maintain an active presence in the Indian Ocean, thereby keeping the Chinese naval power at bay. Balance of power considerations notwithstanding, the expanding trajectory of the Indo-US strategic partnership also demands New Delhi to weigh the burden of its policies on Diego Garcia carefully. This article juxtaposes India's historical record on Diego Garcia during the Cold War with its contemporary approach to the issue. In doing so, it sheds further light on India's strategic decision-making in the Indian Ocean, its dilemmas in confronting a genuinely hostile maritime power in the region, and deliberates on potential options for dispute resolution which can not only satisfy Mauritian demands but also ensure a healthy balance of power in the Indian Ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to analyze whether the United Progressive Alliance government in India (UPA, which was in power from 2004–14) was successful in implementing its Look East Policy (LEP). It will discuss to what extent it was effective in realizing its vision of a community of nations conscious of their historical ties, cultural heritage, and connective identity in the Asian platform. This article argues that the government's idea of a 'shared destiny' has formed the core of an emerging 'identity' in India, and has acted as the main anchor of India's approach towards the South East Asian region. The paper also examines whether the UPA government was successful in its vision of strengthening institutional cooperation, capability, and connectivity, in the region and how the implementation of the LEP has impacted on India's economic and security interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has adopted the Indo-Pacific concept with uncharacteristic speed. This article examines India's Indo-Pacific strategy, which evolved out of its earlier 'Look East' and 'Act East' policies but is much more focused on strategic concerns than on trade or connectivity. As such, the strategy is subset of its China policy, and includes contradictory elements of balancing China by building partnerships with the United States as well as with regional powers, while simultaneously pursuing a reassurance strategy to convince Beijing that India is not really balancing China. The combination of these contradictory elements is characterized as evasive balancing, which is a more useful concept than either pure balancing or hedging for understanding the policies of India and of many other countries in the region that are trying to manage China's rise. However, reassurance strategies rarely work and the combination of balancing and reassurance is even less likely to be viable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies looking at India's external policies continue to "black-box" the actual process of how Indian foreign policy is made. More specifically, most studies generally overlook how India's complex domestic polity and bureaucratic apparatus shape India's foreign policy outlook. Unlike works on India's security policy which have built from and contributed to broader academic debates, studies on India's foreign policy have failed to directly engage with concepts and theories developed by the sub-discipline of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). Why have these concepts and approaches not been consistently applied to the Indian context? There are various reasons for this, ranging from these disciplines' excessive reliance on Western case studies, or the lack of interest in mainstream International Relations scholarship by South Asianists (in contrast to disciplines such as economics, political theory, and developmental studies, all of which have benefited from the Indian experience). This special issue is a step towards bridging this gap and to encourage a greater dialogue between FPA and the systematic study of Indian foreign policy. Through the careful analysis of specific case studies, the different papers offer a conceptually grounded and empirically innovative reading of India's foreign policy across time, space, and themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unabated protests in Manipur against India's boundary with Myanmar and the lack of demarcation of some boundary pillars, despite the signing of the India-Burma Boundary Agreement in 1967, makes it an important case to study how center-state relations impact India's foreign policy decision-making and implementation processes. Based on fresh archival material, this article explains why New Delhi refused to consult state governments in Northeast India before signing the boundary agreement, and the limiting consequences of such a top-down decision-making approach during the demarcation phase. A postcolonial entity that struggled to generate legitimacy in and assert sovereign control over the Northeast, India's approach on this issue offers an opportunity to reflect upon the (limited) conceptualization of, and ongoing debates around, the idea of a 'state' within foreign policy analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do Indian regional parties influence foreign policy and under which conditions? Some foreign policy studies have shown that certain coalition-building configurations have facilitated the inclusion of the concerns of small parties in the foreign policy debate. Other works have looked at the role of decentralization and federal power-arrangement in providing more control to political sub-units over the external affairs of a state. Those separate scholarships provide interesting insights to account for the multi-level nature of coalition-building in a federal and pluralistic polity like India. Bridging these two literatures, I argue that the interdependence of regional and national coalition building processes (visible in federal settings) create locked-in alliances between national parties and regional parties which affect foreign policymaking. In these contexts, India's national parties have to, under certain conditions, take into account the preferences of regional parties when designing foreign policies. This article looks at the hypothesized causal mechanisms and expectations through two illustrative case studies of India's foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a March 2015 speech delivered in Mauritius, India's current Prime Minister Narendra Modi outlined what he described would be India's vision for the Indian Ocean Region. Under the acronym, SAGAR or "Security and Growth for All in the Region," five key points were elucidated. At the time, the speech was praised for articulating a proactive approach to the Indian Ocean and the various visits to, and agreements that followed with, littoral and island countries, appeared to confirm this. This paper seeks to assess the extent to which India has been able to deliver an agenda of security and growth for the maritime region. Despite the enthusiastic reception to SAGAR, the critique is often made that India is slow to deliver on the promises made as part of the country's maritime and naval diplomacy. The paper highlights a selection of decisions and actions taken since 2015, which have contributed to maritime governance in the region and argues that there is a substantial change in the way SAGAR provides a framework for strategic action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores new lines of conceptualization to understand India's regional behavior. It argues that the twin concepts of relational power and domestic balance of forces provide better insights into India's post-Cold war responses than some of the available explanations. It allows us to connect the domestic and external dimensions of policy and identify the cluster of state and non-state actors that shape policy responses. Imagining India's regional behavior in relational terms allows us to better explain the gap between power and policies, what current literature has identified as the key puzzle in India's foreign policy behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came into the helm of affairs, he has stressed the role of the Indian Diaspora in Indian foreign policy making because he had realized the importance of the Diaspora in his development strategy. More than 25 million members of the Indian Diaspora are scattered around the world, which includes more than 3 million Indian origin Diaspora in the United States (US). According to the Ministry of Indian Overseas Affairs [This Ministry has been scrapped during National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government], the Indian Diaspora is the second largest in the world after China. Thus, it is imperative to give importance to Indian foreign policy framing. This trend is new in Indian policy making as India had hardly focused on its Diaspora to tap their resources, potential and assets that they have. In 2015, former Indian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said that 'India's soft power diplomacy now goes beyond books, culture and cinema'. Mr Modi made a total of 49 foreign trips by May 2017 to woo the Indian Diaspora. In almost every meeting during his foreign visit, he urged the Indian Diaspora to be a part of Indian development by investing in the Indian economy, by donating to the clean river Ganges program, and participating in Indian rural development programmes as well. In this context, this article expounds the role of the NDA government's cultural diplomacy in Indian foreign policy making. This article also seeks to answer what the Indian government's strategy to tap the 'resources' of the Indian Diaspora is. Finally, the article examines the role of the Indian Diaspora in the development strategy of India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent visit of the Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, as the chief guest at India's celebration of its Republic Day in January 2020 has given a new impetus to India-Brazil relations. While a 'strategic partnership' had been formalised in 2006 (during the visit of the then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Brazil), in the course of this visit, an Action Plan was formalized to further strengthen that partnership. This paper defines what 'strategic partnership' means for India, tracing its usage in Indian foreign policy. While assessing briefly the importance of the partnership for Brazil's foreign policy goals, an attempt is made to discuss whether the India-Brazil strategic engagement is an effort at political image building or whether it is more a move towards a concrete economic relationship? The paper analyses and evaluates the significance of Brazil as a 'strategic partner' for India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in 2000, and in almost every year since, Comparative Connections has carried an annual assessment of India-East Asia relations; on occasion this assessment has been combined with one on India-United States relations. The approach to this series of articles has been to review India's relations with East Asia's individual countries and subregions such as Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. This year our annual assessment of India-East Asia relations takes a new approach: assessing India's involvement and integration with East Asia thematically (diplomacy, defense, trade/investment and multilateralism) incorporating updates on select/relevant countries during 2018. The impetus to the change is to arrive at a better appreciation of the most important elements of India's involvement and integration into East Asia's diplomatic, defense-security, and economic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of Parliament in foreign policy with particular reference to examples from India. Topics covered include the reasons why the India Parliament does not exercise direct control over the making of foreign policy, the instances in which the India Parliament's interest in foreign policy issues was eloquently displayed, and the interest shown by the Parliament of India in the country's nuclear doctrine.

This paper examines the Narendra Modi administration's use of three specific soft power assets of India - Buddhism, Diaspora, and Yoga - in diplomacy in service of the country's national interests. It attempts to address the following questions: What is the main purpose of the Modi administration's soft power strategy and the reasons behind the promotion and utilization of these three assets? What are the impediments to India's soft power projection ability? Finally, how can the Modi administration better exploit India's soft power advantages? This paper demonstrates how the Modi administration is making efforts to project India's soft power in the service of larger strategic goals. The use of soft power is designed to complement India's conventional diplomacy, boost its international image, project it as a peaceful rising power, improve relations with other countries, and help attract foreign investment, technology, and tourists in order to promote economic growth and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Largely driven by Japan's strategic outreach to India, Tokyo and Delhi have rapidly improved relations and enhanced their strategic cooperation since the turn of the century. Today, developments in bilateral relations are moving faster than journalists and analysts can track, leading many observers to posit the emergence of Japan–India alliance. This article analyses the reasons behind Japan's strategic outreach to India and explores the conditions under which an alliance—understood as a formal association of states for the use (or nonuse) of military force in specific circumstances against a third party—might emerge between the two countries. It draws on existing scholarship on interstate alliances to examine the possible objectives, contours, operation and impact of such an alliance. It concludes that there are major obstacles in the way of an alliance forming and operating successfully. These include India's commitment to strategic autonomy; the incentives for limiting commitments and 'buck-passing' within a putative alliance; Chinese opposition and Beijing's ability to economically punish both parties; and differing views on US hegemony, world order and future Great Power status. Ultimately, Japan and India are better off being aligned—as they currently are—and not allied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the idea of the Indo-Pacific being supported by the government of India. It identifies three issues that prevent actual operationalization of the concept, including the country's strategic, naval capability, and normative deficits, its manifest power differential with China, and divergent Indian and U.S. positions in the western Indian Ocean. The consequences of these divergences for the future of regional cooperation between the U.S. and India are discussed. Iran is identified as a point of contention in the adoption of the concept.

The article offers information on the proposed Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC), which refers to a collaborative vision shared by India and Japan to create a growth corridor and industrial network connecting Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa across the Indo-Pacific region. Topics discussed include the policy motivation for AACG, the possibility of the AAGC's final materialization, and the impact of AACG on China's Belt and Road Initiative.

The article discusses changes in India's policy on the Indian Ocean under President Narendra Modi. Topics covered include Modi's creation of the National Maritime Authority to strengthen the country's management of Indian Ocean affairs, his initiative of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), and upgrades made to the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, Project Mausam, and the Act East policy.

The borderless social media spheres have challenged the conventional concepts of national media systems and international communication theories. Unlike the traditional media outlets, social media could blur the intra/international boundaries across the world including India and Russia. Among a host of social media platforms, the 140-character based 'Twitter' has become the popular microblogging space among social and political spheres in these countries. While the common man to statesmen are now part of the so-called 'twitterati', this paper tries to explore how 'Twitter' is now widely used for political communications within and without national boundaries. Given the conceptual void in theorizing the national/international/global structure and style of social media, this paper compares the case of political/diplomatic use of 'Twitter' by two major countries from the so-called 'Global South' like India and Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fifteen years after the official visit to Vietnam of the former Indian Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an official visit to Vietnam on 2–3 September 2016. The visit to Vietnam of Prime Minister Modi has upgraded bilateral relations between Vietnam and India from ‘strategic partnership’ to ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’, marking a new development in the relationship between the two countries. According to the Spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs of India, Vikas Swarup, Prime Minister Modi’s visit has set a ‘new benchmark for India-Vietnam ties which will take the relationship to a whole new level’ (Sarma 2016). Development in political relations has resulted in similar developments in economic, defence and other fields of cooperation between the two sides. This article looks at the new developments in India–Vietnam relations after the visit of the Prime Minister Modi to Vietnam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses whether neoliberalism is a viable model for India's foreign, economic and strategic policies in the face of rapid changes in the external environment. Topics covered include barriers to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's efforts to complete the economic reforms mission, doubts regarding the efficacy of Modi's policy on Pakistan, and the economy-first approach to foreign policy he adopted when he was elected to office in 2014. Also mentioned are typologies that classify Indian strategic paradigms, neoliberals' belief that India's transformation into an economic great power would result in India's ascendance as a military and diplomatic power and India's relationship with China, Pakistan and the U.S.

Recent commentary on India–Australia relations has defined the relationship as ‘natural’ and based on ‘shared values’ and ‘shared history’. The relationship has simultaneously been considered ‘neglected’. The paradoxical juxtaposition of a natural/neglected partnership is yet to be adequately explained. We consider the historical construction of liberalism in both states as a facet of state identity to argue that, far from creating a natural relationship, differing liberal identities have served to keep these two states apart. This is illustrated through case studies of divergent opinions over the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and the rise of China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the progress in New Zealand and India's relationship prior to and following former New Zealand Prime Minister John Key's visit to the latter in October 2016. Other topics mentioned include the driving force behind India's growing economy, main issues agreed by the two parties during the meeting, and efforts to control Islamic terrorism.

Tajikistan have developed considerably owing to both nations' cooperation on security and strategic issues. There is today mutual respect, trust and confidence. Many important milestones have been crossed and at each stage a total understanding and convergence of views are evident on all issues of mutual concern. The common views of political leaders of both countries about important issues of International Relations are firm points for enhancing bilateral relations in various fields such as, economy, commerce, politics, science and culture. Tajikistan was lost in the larger picture of the Central Asia region, which seemed to be perceived as being Uzbek centric. However, India's perception of Tajikistan underwent a qualitative change after the Taliban took over Kabul in September 1996 and is now central to India's strategic interests in the region. As the region has good potential in hydroelectricity generation, power transport, and full chain of cotton processing. There are more future possibilities of developing bilateral relations between the two countries. India and Tajikistan will work closely on developing trade and transport links through Chabar Port in Iran. The paper is a humble attempt to discuss different dimensions of Indo-Tajik Relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the winter of 1998-99, the inexplicable presence of Pakistani troops under the pretext of being local freedom fighters in the Indian-administered side of Kashmir brought the region to the brink of a nuclear war. This paper probes the military rationale behind Pakistan's initiative, organizational interests, internal politicking among different state organs, and the role of a few powerful individuals in the operation. It takes into account the important dimensions of strategy employed during the preparations for the Kargil War and the errors on the part of Pakistani planners which if addressed could have reversed the outcome of the operation. The controversies surrounding the Kargil conflict are discussed through the works of academicians and memoirs of the military commanders from India and Pakistan. The first part of the paper focuses on the rivalry and causes of the outbreak of war between India and Pakistan by explaining the beliefs and psychology of the military planners based on the premise of Cashman and Robinson. The second part reviews the political and nuclear milieu in which the conflict took place, while the third part accounts for the international efforts to prevent the conflict from escalating. The fourth part draws conclusions from the entire episode, indicating the discrepancies on both sides and the evidence that Kargil was unique because it challenged the military logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper discusses the political developments in Maldives with a perspective of foreign policy implications for India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There had been much rumours running thick in and out of the country, pitching against Modi and BJP especially on the foreign policy front. Some of concerns raised the credibility of the PM competence of handling the domain of foreign policy, who is a bogey ofHindu Rashtra, will mess up with West Asian region. There was another misconception that Modi could tackle Indian Neighbours. This kind of rumours remained proved to wrong. Modi as PM categorically underlined the secular and democratic structure as the guiding lights of the foreign policy. This article is based on recent initiatives of the prime minister to connecting to the world which were largely ignored by the Indian foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]