The main focus of the 22nd Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Samarkand was on strengthening regional cooperation and trade connectivity in Eurasia.
The Eastern Mediterranean offers India strong prospects for import of natural gas, given strong bilateral relations with regional countries, including Egypt, Israel, Greece and Cyprus.
The conspicuous US withdrawal from Afghanistan has resulted in a political vacuum, garnering immediate attention of regional and great powers alike. In The Comrades and the Mullahs, presenting Afghanistan’s long history of foreign invasions and resistance, journalists Ananth Krishnan and Stanly Johny show how the country was a theatre for the Great Game between the British and Russian Empires, and later got caught in Cold War rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union. The return of the Taliban in Afghanistan has certainly become a diplomatic predicament for India.
The commemoration of 2022 as the ‘ASEAN-India Year of Friendship’ marks thirty years of the partnership between India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Beginning in 1992 with India’s ‘Look East Policy’ (LEP), renamed ‘Act East Policy’ (AEP) in 2014, India has progressed from being a Sectoral Partner of ASEAN in 1992 to a Dialogue Partner in 1996 and a Summit-level Partner in 2002.
The Biden administration has further reinforced and strengthened US strategic priorities towards the Indo-Pacific, a decade after the ‘Pivot to Asia’ by the Obama administration.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit underlines the fact that India and Bangladesh are successfully leveraging their geographical location to advance mutually beneficial economic ties.
