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hile more details of the agreements between the two sides will emerge over the next few days and weeks, a quick look at the joint statement issued on Monday, and a comparison with the joint statement issued a year ago by President Barack Obama and Mr. Modi in June 2016, reveals a few important points.

Strategic convergence, shift to trade focus

The Indo-U.S. Strategic Partnership is on course, but with a new emphasis on trade and economic ties.

This is reflected by the title of the two statements: “Enduring Global Partners in the 21st Century” in 2016, and the more modest “Prosperity Through Partnership” this year.

While the 2016 statement focused on ‘Bolstering Economic and Trade ties’, this year’s statement is more direct on how that will be done, with references to “balancing the trade deficit” (which, as it is in India’s favour, is a sore point for the Trump administration).

However, the joint statement of 2017 continues previous references to “a growing strategic convergence” bolstered by military, maritime and intelligence cooperation. In addition, while India has yet to commit to buying Predator drones, a sale of 22 Guardian drones was cleared by the U.S. Cabinet last week. Mr. Trump said he was “pleased” that India buys U.S. defence products. click here fetch the info.

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Working around China

In 2008, India was able to get a waiver from the NSG as an exceptional case allowing it to engage in international commerce in civilian nuclear technology and equipment even though, as a nuclear weapon state, it did not have all its nuclear facilities under international safeguards as required by the group. China was opposed to the waiver but did not take a public stand on it. It encouraged countries like Ireland, New Zealand, Austria and Switzerland to oppose a consensus on the waiver for India, arguing that it would seriously undermine the NPT, that it would upset the nuclear balance in South Asia and trigger a nuclear arms race, and that a criteria-based rather than a country-specific approach should be adopted in order to avoid the charge of discriminatory practice. This was conveyed to me by the then New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark when I called on her to solicit her country’s support at the NSG.

However, whenever the issue was raised with the Chinese in meetings between our top leaders or senior officials, the response was a standard mantra: China welcomes the opportunity to promote civil nuclear cooperation with India, but would not want to undermine in any way the international non-proliferation regime. This was ambiguous enough to give China tactical flexibility at the NSG. In light of this ambiguous public posture, our assessment was that if a broad consensus could be built on granting India a waiver, China would not be the one country to raise its hand and oppose the decision. And this is precisely what happened. On the morning of September 6, 2008, even before the last holdout countries like Ireland, New Zealand and Austria had formally dropped their opposition, China conveyed a message to the Indian delegation that it had decided to support the draft waiver decision.click here to fetch the details.

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Indian and Russian cultures started intermingling more closely from mid 19th century onwards. While Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry was translated into Russian, Mahatma Gandhi and Leo Tolstoy corresponded with each other on their great world views. In the 20th century, the immortal works of Nicholas Roerich and his love for India became a part of India’s rich cultural legacy. Russian writers like Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Chekov still continue to have a deep impact on Indian thought and drama.

The history of ideas is dotted with landmarks of correspondence between great minds. The interaction between Mahatma Gandhi and Leo Tolstoy is one such fascinating example.  Gandhi and Tolstoy admired each other’s philosophy of life and their minds met on common intellectual ground. Their message is as relevant today as it was in their lifetime. The world is still plagued with hunger, social injustice and political and economic oppression.click here to get more info.

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