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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: arun gera who wrote (42324)	4/1/2002 7:43:00 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Respond to of 50167

I think the following few things can help you... 1.India-Russia – 50 years of Fruitful Cooperation The relations between India and Russia during the last half- century are widely based on political consent from both sides, high priority of these relations and their development to the level of strategic partnership in 2000. The consensus of Indo-Russian relations reflects on different levels and spheres and are is proved by Declaration on Strategic Partnership signed during President Putin’s visit to India in October, 2000. All these along with recognized unity of long-term interests make the growth of ties between the two countries possible and independent from political, governmental and other changes and provide the strong and stable basis for the development and enhancement of these relations. Documentary evidences represented at this photo exhibition hardly reflect a small part of the multifaceted bonds, affection, trust, faithfulness, mutual aid and understanding between the two great people and countries. Therefore, we can state with full confidence that any historical photo document devoted to the 50th anniversary of time-tested long term cooperation and friendship between India and Russia will conjure up in every website visitor’s imagination his own images, and fill everyone’s sole with emotions and feelings associated with so familiar but ever impressing with multifaceted grandeur words – “Russia and India”. SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 10 February, 2001. India carries out its biggest investment ever made abroad – “ONGC-VIDESH” – “Rosneft” and sign the agreement “Sakhalin-1 22 November, 2000. 100 Anniversary of the opening of Russian Consulate in Mumbai. October, 2000. Signing of the Declaration on Strategic Partnership and 16 agreements. Creation of the Intergovernmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation. July, 2000. The first indigenous Indian supercomputer is installed in Russia under the Program of Scientific and Technical Cooperation. October, 1999. “Days of Delhi” in Moscow. Jawaharlal Nehru’s Cultural Center celebrated its 10th anniversary. December, 1998. Signing of the long term Program on Military-Technical Cooperation till the year of 2010 during Russian PM Primakov’s visit to India. September, 1998. “Days of Moscow” in Delhi. September, 1998. The “hot line” between Delhi and Moscow is installed. September, 1996. “Days of India” in Russia. December, 1995. “Days of Russian Culture” in India. December, 1994. Long-term Program on Military and Technical Cooperation till 2000. June-July, 1994. Declaration on protection of pluralistic states’ interests. Declaration of Further Development and Intensification of Cooperation between the Republic of India and the Russian Federation. 1993. Agreement on Cooperation in the field of researches and exploitation of space with peaceful purposes. Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between India and Russia. Agreement on regulation of payments according to state credits given to India by former USSR. Russia becomes India’s partner under the Program of Economic & Technical Cooperation (ITEC). During the successive years 300 Russian specialists got training under ITEC. May, 1992. Reorganization of Intergovernmental Commission. 1989. Jawaharlal Nehru Cultural Center was opened in Moscow on the occasion of 100th birth anniversary of Pandit Narhu. 1988. Agreement on the construction of atomic energy station in Kudankulam. 1987. Signing of the inegrated long-term Program of Cooperation in the sphere of Science & technology (which was prolonged till 2010 during President Putin’s visit to India in October, 2000). 1987. Inauguration of the first Indian school in Moscow. 1987. Festival of India in Moscow and festival of USSR in New Delhi. November, 1986. Delhi Declaration on Principles of Non-nuclear and Non-Violence world. April, 1984. First Indian cosmonaut, Squadron leader, Rakesh Sharma, participated in a space flight as a member of Joint Russian-Indian crew. 6 March, 1978. Signing of the Protocol of Long-term economic program. 9 August, 1971. Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation. 1966-1967. The beginning of the chief supplies of Indian Army (with tanks T-54, AMS, etc.) and Navy (with first submarine). August 1962. The beginning of Military-technical Cooperation: India bought helicopters Mi-4, transport aircraft An and IL, as well as fighters Mig-21. The construction of plants on the production of spare parts in Nasik, karaput and Hyderabad. 2 February, 1955. Agreement on the construction of Bhilai metallurgical factory. The projects in the sphere of oil chemistry, energy, machinery and etc in Ankleshvar, Barauni, Ranchi, Bokaro, Tarapur and Hirakund followed. August 1947. PM of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, appoints his sister Mrs. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit as first Ambassador of India in USSR. 13 April, 1947. Establishment of diplomatic relations between India and USSR. indianembassy.ru 2..India-US Relations: A Conflict-Ridden Past, A Cooperative Economic Future by Ranjan Goswami India emerged from colonial rule in 1947. The leadership of India after the partition (the creation of Pakistan for Muslims in India under the British) saw that India needed to commit its resources into developing the young, poor, and large multi-ethnic population nation. With this as its primary goal, India chose not to enter the escalating Cold War by starting the Nonalignment movement, a strategy intended to safeguard India's independence by advocating that each nation choose its own system of governance, and intended to back new nations that were emerging from colonialism. Nonalignment -- promulgated by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister -- meant that India would not be able to rely on protection from either of the two superpowers, but would need to build up its own defense system to be ready for any intrusion. 2 However, although Nonaligned nations were not supposed to side with either the US or USSR, they began to do so anyway. 3 The USSR and the Eastern Bloc supported the Nonalignment rhetoric that no nation should impose its system of government onto another (nation). The Nonaligned nations (some 120 countries) made many joint stands against US and Western European interference in the world. Calls for a unified Vietnam, the Palestinian liberation movement, the condemnation of the US sponsored and backed dictatorial Pinochet government in Chile, and for the return of the US naval base at Diego Garcia to Mauritous were examples taken by Nonaligned states against the US and its European allies. 4 India, under Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, also took vocal positions against American economic support of South Africa (the US was South Africa's largest trading partner at the height of Apartheid), and against interference in Afghanistan. This, however, was articulated without direct condemnation of the USSR. 5 India's leadership role in the movement and its stance on independence for all nations caused a rift between itself and theUS. John Dulles, US Secretary of State, labeled Nonalignment as "immoral" as it did not take a stance between what the US considered right and wrong. 6 India's argument that Nonalignment asserted "peaceful coexistence" was not enough to persuade Washington to the ideology or to India. 7 The USSR and India forged close ties due in part to the Soviet Union's affirmation of Nonalignment objectives and in part to India's many socialist programs including the nationalization of several large industries. Furthermore, Nehru's "Five Principles" for good relations: sovereignty, non-interference, independence, equality, and non-aggression, were also supported by the USSR. 8 American suspicions of India were further heightened by Krushchev's 1955 visit to New Delhi and the 1971 signing of the Soviet-India Friendship Treaty, which pledged mutual support against antagonistic powers (US and China). 9 The US retaliated by renewing relations with China, which first they bestowed China a seat in the Security Council rejecting Taiwan, and secondly, in the 1972 Sino-American Summit, the Shanghai Communiqué, which stated their joint rejection of Soviet hegemony in Asia. 10 India identified this shift in American policy and realized that the US had now allied with India's two main threats: China and Pakistan. The obvious irony in Indian and US policy was that both democracies had befriended proponents of communism. 3.An interesting link ...http://pub19.ezboard.com/fussrmilitary.showMessage?topicID=156.topic 4.Playing favourites Eager to squeeze both India and Pakistan under the US umbrella, Powell was all things to all people on his recent visit to the subcontinent, writes Sudhanshu Ranjan from New Delhi Caught up in the fury of anti-communist zeal, US President Dwight Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles refused to digest the doctrine of neutrality, putting forward the "either you are with us or against us" principle that has again gained such currency in the wake of 11 September. Since then, the US has aggressively supported Pakistan against India. India managed to avoid a plebiscite on Kashmir through the former USSR's veto in the United Nations Security Council. In 1956 India antagonised the Soviet Union by criticising its intervention in Hungary. In retaliation, the Soviet Union did not use its veto power in support of India that year and abstained instead. Sufficiently humbled, India was forced to recognise the critical role the Soviet Union played on its behalf -- a realisation that ultimately culminated in the 1971 India-USSR friendship treaty. This, of course, further distanced the US from India. The dismantling of the USSR in 1991 transformed the geopolitical map into a unipolar world. Now, Russian President Vladimir Putin is a person US President George W Bush would like to have in a foxhole. With international alignments changing so quickly, it is hardly surprising that Indo-US relations would ride the wave.

To: arun gera who wrote (42324)	4/1/2002 8:09:55 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Respond to of 50167

<Anybody who has lived in India knows that Indians always felt closer to US than Russia. India just bought arms from USSR> India-USA Strategic Partnership - The advent of the inevitable by Dr. Subhash Kapila President Clinton’s five day visit to India in March 2000 could hopefully in the years to come be looked as the "Advent of the Inevitable (term borrowed with thanks from Tanvir Ahmad Khan, Head of Pakistan’s Institute of Strategic studies referring to US shifts in South Asian Policies) in terms of an India-USA strategic partnership. For more than fifty years the United States and India stood apart as ‘estranged democracies’ when there were more than enough political and strategic compulsions on both sides in the late 1940's and early 1950's to have entered into a strategic partnership. To be fair, it must be recorded that the United States was the first to make overtures on this account, only to be rebuffed by the India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with his obsessive attachment to the policies of non-aligned. The "mantra" of non-aligned followed by Nehru and his successors could not prevent three wars on India by Pakistan and one by China besides a host of insurgencies on the peripheries. In the darkest hours of India’s military history, the 1962 debacle of the Sino-Indian War, it was the United States which promptly responded with military and equipment aid and a fleet of C-130 transport aircraft to ferry Indian formations to Ladakh and the North-East. India’s policies of non-alignment during the Cold War were suspect in American eyes and on certain issues critical to USA, Indian pronouncements were perceived as anti-USA. Indian foreign policies under Nehru and Indira Gandhi were highly personalized to build a healthy relationship with the United States. The United States too has to shoulder a fair share of the blame and especially in the 1970's and 1980s for the estrangement. US policies then made possible the intrusive entry of China in South Asia’s political and strategic calculations. In the 1990's President Clinton and his advisers have to shoulder blame for their permissiveness in allowing China to complete the nuclear weaponisation of Pakistan and the build-up of its missile armoury, which besides strategically discomfiting India, could some day impact on US strategic interest in the Gulf and Central Asian Republics. President Clinton’s visit to India last month was therefore, preceded by misgivings on its outcome especially with mutual reservations on a host of contentious issues- Pakistan, Kashmir, Nuclear Proliferation, CTBT etc. Retrospectively, it now seems that in terms of future India-US relations, President Clinton’s visit was worthwhile. No spectacular results may have emerged, but in the eyes of the Indian public, a perception that was hither-to-fore missing was that India does have a friend in the United States. To those who can dispense with existing mindsets , a ‘vision’ was on the horizon that this friendship could be emerged into a partnership and that too a strategic partnership in the years to come. There are many factors and considerations on both sides, which should prompt the emergence of a strategic partnership between the United States and India. United States- Factors that should prompt seeking a strategic partnership with India. The "New World Order" and "Peace Dividends" envisaged by the United States policy makers at the end of the Cold War, and perceived as a US victory by them, did not come about. Admittedly the United States emerged as the unipolar global super power with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, but this was also accompanied by newer and greater strategic uncertainties due to the shattering of the predictable bi-polar strategic template. Moving into the 21st century, a whole new set of complex strategic developments stare the United States in its face and these could and should prompt it to seek a strategic partnership with India. These are: * China’s emergence as a major military threat in the Asia Pacific with enough manifestations and indications that it would wish to challenge US predominance in the region. * Russia’s potential re-surgence as an assertive player not only in the European affairs but more so in the Asia-Pacific and with possibilities in the Middle east alter the 2000' global strategic equations. * Emerging strategic partnership between Russia and China, complicates strategic equation on the Western rim of the Pacific. * Islamic fundamentalist challenges in the Gulf, Afghanistan, Pakistan and some of the Central Asian Republics, seem hell bent on challenging the United States and West. * US forward military presence being diluted in vital strategic regions by withdrawal of base facilities particularly in Asia-Pacific, affecting sea-lanes security. * Pakistan’s potential Talibanisation and fouling up the South West Asia scene along with Afghanistan. All of the above factors make a call on the United States to seek newer strategic partnerships wider a field than its erstwhile Cold War alliances and relationships. Military dictatorships, authoritarian regimes and sheikhdoms cannot provide USA with the sinews to face the emerging global challenges. Natural partners for such challenges for USA can only be vibrant democracies, where changes of power are peaceful and where economic growth is assured. India- Factors demanding a strategic partnership with the United States The much vaunted and flaunted non-aligned strategy enunciated and imposed on India by its first Prime Minister has been a failure. It could not prevent four wars being imposed on India and unending insurgencies on its peripheries. On the other hand it brought about the intrusive presence of USA and China into South Asia and attempts by both to strategically balance India for what they perceived as a tilt towards USSR. India failed to recognize the true import of Gorbachev’s Vladivostok Declarations of 1985 - sell out to Chinese national interests, and a return of the Russian tilt towards China. Entering the 21st century. India has to take serious note of the following political strategic developments in the international and regional security environment: * China continues to be the long range security threat to India and becoming more potent by the day with its preponderance of nuclear weapons and military might over India. * Pakistan has emerged as a nuclear weapon state in South Asia with exclusive Chinese assistance along with a threatening missile armoury. * The China-Pakistan strategic nexus in South Asia continues unabated and is likely to be reinforced further with Clinton’s policy pronouncements on South Asia and the growing estrangement between USA and China. * Islamic fundamentalists have generated the single most damaging threat to India, externally and internally, sponsored and launched by Pakistan and funded by Saudi Arabia. This threat cannot be handled singly by India. * Russia, strategically considered a friend by successive Indian Govts has a decade ago, rhetoric aside, given enough indications of forging a quasi strategic alliance with China to checkmate USA in the Asia - Pacific. Russia neither has countervailing power nor would it use it in favour of India to avoid annoying the Chinese. The above indicators strongly point out that India has to shed its non aligned mindsets. To protect its national security interests, India needs to break out of its earlier politico-strategic straitjacket and opt for newer options. The United States provides the single - most important, dynamic and strategically rich option to India. India-USA Strategic Partnership: Convergence of Interests A solid India-USA strategic partnership can be built around the many areas of convergence of interest, both political and strategic. Logically there could be: * The United States has vital strategic interests in the middle East/Gulf region and south east Asia. The former sits on the worlds largest reserves of the energy and the latter sits astride the strategic choke points linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans. For India too both these regions are critical to its national security interests. * Both USA and India value " the freedom of the high seas" and more specifically the sea-lanes that emanate from the Hormuz Straits and radiate towards the West and East. * Islamic fundamentalism is a live threat to India and domestic threat in the making of the United States. Both USA and India stand labeled as enemies by Islamic fundamentalist organisations. The roots of this threat lie in South West Asia - Pakistan and Afghanistan to be precise. Concerted action is required by USA and India. Russia and China too would be willing partners. * ‘Status-quo’ needs to be maintained in the existing strategic equilibrium in Asia-Pacific security architecture. Both USA and India have a convergent stake in this. * With geo-economics supplanting geo strategic and geo political considerations in international relations and partnerships, the joint potential for USA and India is vast and rich. However, geo-economics walks on the two legs o f geo politics and geo strategic and therefore, a USA - India strategic partnership becomes inevitable. Conclusion India has to transcend the blinkered mindsets with which it viewed US policies in South Asia i.e. through the Pakistani prism or the Chinese Prism. India with its pretensions to big powers status must first learn to think big and also dispel others misperceptions of being a soft state. The United States psyche in the conduct of international relations is conditioned by its ‘frontier spirit’ psyche, which recognizes power and respects power. To those Indians who whine that USA does not give big muscle and use it like China does. Strategic ambiguities are the tools of weak nations. The strong nations declare and demonstrate their intentions. The United States has given enough recognition to India’s power potential through President Clinton’s visit and his pronouncements and those of the accompanying officials. The United States has made it abundantly clear that it is drawing curtains on its special Cold War relationship with Pakistan. This should also imply discarding the policies of strategically balancing India through Pakistan. President Clinton has also seconded Indian positions on crucial issues like Kashmir and state sponsored terrorism, in marked contrast to the record in his first term as President. Indian policy and decision makers could not have expected more. The joint declaration made in New Delhi during President Clinton’s visit i.e. "India-US Relations: A Vision for the 21st century" incorporates two important statements- ‘Natural partnership of shared endeavours’ and more importantly that "In many ways the character of the 21st century will depend on the success of our cooperation for peace, prosperity and democracy and freedom". Peace , prosperity, democracy and freedom cannot be secured by rhetoric, as has been the Indian experience. These can only be secured by rhetoric, as has been the Indian experience. These can only be achieved through politico-strategic initiatives with the strategic predominating. The "Vision" of India-US relations, jointly seen, should therefore, logically incorporate the development of a strategic partnership, prompted by the imperatives discussed about. President Clinton’s visit to India, it is hoped heralds the advent of the inevitable. 22.4.2000 (Dr.. Kapila is a Researcher with South Asia Analysis Group)