Comment & Briefs

China may or may not succeed in transforming Africa into a substitute market. If it does, the bilateral trade relationship is likely to become more unbalanced and tilted in its own favour leading to greater exploitation of Africa.

The forthcoming presidential election is a contest between Yameen’s pledge to bring about a transformational change with mega-projects and Solih’s pledge to end presidential tyranny, injustice and corruption

India needs to use economic leverages more efficiently to build closer ties with Central Asia.

India, on its way to become a global power, will likely have to follow a zigzag course, balancing between American demands, long-term friendship with Russia and its own strategic necessities in the neighbourhood and beyond.

An evaluation of the non-negotiable elements of the CISMOA Boilerplate agreement does not show any element that will have any unavoidable security risks for India.

The value of the Caspian energy reserve lies in its potential to add to global reserves of oil and gas, which, in turn, could bring down costs.

It is administratively easy and politically appealing to debar an errant entity, but the unintended consequences of debarment can be challenging to handle in high-technology areas such as defence

While broad agreement at the top leadership level has been easy to achieve, negotiations relating to defence equipment and technology cooperation have proved to be difficult, shaped as these are by a complex interplay of variables like cost-competitiveness, technology transfer and domestic politics.

India must jettison the attempt to maintain a balance between China and the US and instead take advantage of China’s internal and external vulnerabilities to gain an upper hand in the asymmetric power equation that has developed.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent tour of Rwanda, Uganda and South Africa increased to 26 the number of African countries visited by very senior leaders, thus contributing to a significant reduction in India’s visibility deficit in the continent.