INDO-RUSSIA BILATERAL RELATION

During the Cold War, India and the Soviet Union enjoyed a strong strategic, military, economic and diplomatic relationship. After the collapse of the USSR, India improved its relations with the West but it continued its close relations with Russia. India is the second largest market for Russian arms industry.

Both countries signed the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation in August 1971, in which the dominant aspect was the emphasis on security clauses. As a consequence, India benefited from the FSU’s support to its covert and later overt role in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. On its part, India remained supportive of FSU’s policies throughout the Cold War era, especially the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

A major breakthrough was achieved when the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, paid an official visit to India in October 2000. Both countries signed a ‘Declaration on Strategic Partnership’, and ten agreements covering various aspects of bilateral relations. The Declaration spelt out in detail the long-term nature of Indo-Russian relations in all aspects of mutual cooperation, like political, defence, economic and trade, science and technological and cultural spheres.  Also, the Joint Statement issued at the conclusion of the bilateral talks affirmed Indian and Russian positions on various bilateral, regional and international issues. The Putin visit was reciprocated by that of the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, to Russia in November 2001. In the second visit of President Putin to India in December 2002, both countries signed a ‘Declaration on Further Consolidation of Strategic Partnership’ between them. These visits have resulted in the signing of numerous agreements encompassing political, defense, economic, legal, and cultural aspects of their relations.

Defence relations between India and the Russian Federation have a historical perspective. Russia has been an important supplier of defense goods for several decades. Today, the cooperation is not limited to a buyer-seller relationship but includes joint research and development, training, service to service contacts, including joint exercises. India is the second largest market for Russian arms industry.

India and Russia have several major joint military programs such as those mentioned below:

§                     BrahMos cruise missile program

§                     INS Vikramaditya aircraft carrier program

§                     5th generation fighter jet program

§                     Sukhoi Su-30MKI program (230+ to be built by Hindustan Aeronautics)

§                     Ilyushin/HAL Tactical Transport Aircraft

Bilateral trade turnover is modest and stood at US $ 3 bn in 2006-07, out of which Indian Exports to Russia were valued at US $ 908 mn. Main Indian exports to Russia are pharmaceuticals; tea, coffee & spices; apparel & clothing; edible preparations; and engineering goods. Main Indian imports from Russia are iron and steel; fertilizers; non-ferrous metals; paper products; coal, coke & briquettes; cereals; and rubber. Indo-Russian trade is expected to reach US$10 billion by 2010.

Energy sector is an important area in Indo-Russian bilateral relations. In 2001, ONGC-Videsh Limited acquired 20% stake in the Sakhalin-I oil and gas project in the Russian Federation, and has invested about US $ 1.7 billion in the project. The Russian company Gazprom and Gas Authority of India Ltd. have collaborated in joint development of a block in the Bay of Bengal. Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project with two units of 1000 MW each is a good example of Indo-Russian nuclear energy cooperation. Both sides have expressed interest in expanding cooperation in the energy sector.

In December 2008, Russia and India signed an agreement to build civilian nuclear reactors in India during a visit by the Russian president to New Delhi

At present, Russia and India have a scientific and technological cooperation arrangement under the Integrated Long Term Programme of Cooperation in Science and Technology (till 2010)

In a nutshell, India and Russia are in the process of institutionalizing their relations. The formation of various working groups to monitor developments on political, economic, science and technology and cultural fronts will go a long way in strengthening their bilateral relations. Warmth in Indo-Russia relations depends to a greater degree on how India balances itself between its increasing desire to ally with the US, Israel and the West, and maintain traditional relations with the Russian Federation.

INDIA-EU RELATION

By BHARATH VAISHNOV


EU has always been an economic power house. The members of EU are important for India both individually as well as collectively. India’s relations with EU have grown exponentially covering all areas of interaction. The EU is India’s largest trade partner and bilateral trade crossed Rs 2, 70,000 crore in 2006. India and EU are also important investment partners with significant two-way flows. 24% of FDI inflow comes from EU. Indian investment has also been growing steadily in UK, Germany and Italy.

The first India-EU Summit in Lisbon in June 2000 marked a watershed in the evolution of this relationship. Since then the summits are being held annually. The relationship has matured into a strategic partnership and a joint action plan has been drawn up. The 9^th EU summit was held in Marseille on September 29,2008.

There is sometimes a tendency on the part of the EU to inject non-economic issues into the economic dialogue, which perhaps is driven by certain sections of the Brussels bureaucracy. At other times, this may be a reflection of concern over issues within India, such as the religious freedom issue on which the European Parliament explicitly expressed its concern in a text on the Indo-EU summit, adopted on September 24. India on its side has concerns over xenophobia and discrimination meted out to Indian origin citizens of the EU. Several EU countries have been tardy in implementing by January 2006 the EC Directive of 2003 which requires member states to grant permanent residency to third country nationals who have resided legally in a EU country for over five years.

Another irritant is the lack of an appropriate visa regime for Indian professionals employed by Indian companies delivering technical and professional services to clients in the EU. Both sides need to deal with such issues in a mature fashion, through constructive dialogue

Both sides need to put in place a specific joint mechanism for implementing the decisions of the India-EU summits within an agreed time-frame. There is a clear disparity in the levels of engagement of various EU members with non-member countries such as India. For example, the UK has had the deepest level of engagement with India, with the other big players such as France, Germany and Italy catching up.

The other EU members have relatively lower levels of engagement with India. Therefore India-EU relations will be important for some of the EU members, while others will be content to assume a more passive role.

The increasing lethargy of the EU’s decision-making process as it expands and gets more muscle-bound has important implications. Progress on major new initiatives, internal to the EU as well as external, such as the India-EU free trade agreement, can get blocked by positions taken by a few small countries, which might be more concerned with protecting their narrow and short-term interests.

Most EU governments are overloaded with the growing complexities of an expanding and deepening EU, the numerous working groups and meetings in Brussels, the proliferation of complex EU directives and compliance processes. This puts a big strain on the smaller countries that have little capacity left to give enough attention to non-EU countries, except in crisis situations. At the same time public euro-scepticism is growing, and the Brussels-based EU bureaucracy is seen as remote and aloof from national problems.

Strengthening engagement with the smaller EU countries will, therefore, require India to take greater initiative, and this will necessitate greater investment in terms of diplomatic and political effort directed towards these countries.

• Highlights of EU-India summit 08

1. a revised Joint Action Plan extending the strategic partnership of 2005 to new areas
2. a joint work programme on energy,clean development and climate change
3. Launch of a European Bussiness and Technology Centre in India

EU-India summit 2009 to be held in Delhi

Indo-China relations: Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin

By Vinod Erat

Facts—Aksai Chin is administered by China as Kargilik County in the Kashgar Prefecture of Xinjiang Autonomous Region, but India claims it to be a part of J&K. The line that separates Indian-administered areas of Kashmir from the Aksai Chin is known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Arunachal pradesh-The McMahon Line is a line agreed to by British India and Tibet as part of Simla Accord, a treaty signed in 1914. Although its legal status is disputed, it is the effective boundary between China and India. China rejects the Simla Accord, contending that the Tibetan government was not sovereign and therefore did not have the power to conclude treaties.^[4][5] Chinese maps show some 56,000 square miles (150,000 km²) of territory south of the line as part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, popular known as South Tibet in China. Chinese forces briefly occupied this area during the Sino-Indian War of 1962-63.

Issues

1. Chinese claims that the 90,000 sq km tract of land on the eastern wing of the Himalayas, which broadly corresponds to Arunachal Pradesh and which has been under Indian administration since the 1940s
2. China does not recognize the McMahon Line (the British-delineated borderline between India and China)
3. China ready to acknowledge Indian sovereignty in the 'eastern tract' if India would abandon its claim to Aksai Chin, the 38,000 km tract of cold desert in Ladakh in the western Himalayas that China had brought under its control when its army "liberated" Tibet in 1951
4. In the 1950s and 1960s, when Tibet wasn't as well-connected by road-and-rail networks as it is today, control of Aksai Chin was of strategic importance to China in order to establish its authority in the combustible erstwhile kingdom. Likewise, for India, control of the 'eastern tract' was critical for it to maintain its hold on the fissiparous northeastern region
5. But India rejected this 'east-west' swap proposal on the principled ground that Chinese 'concessions' in the eastern tract were not concessions at all since China had never administered this area and had no right over it. And from its perspective, Aksai Chin was Indian territory that had been "illegally occupied" by China
6. Since October 1985, however, China has claimed right over the entire eastern tract, in present-day Arunachal Pradesh. In fact, Chinese negotiators have even turned their original swap proposal on its head, and have subsequently claimed that China would be willing to make concessions in the western tract (that is, Aksai Chin) if India reciprocated by giving up its claims in the eastern tract (that is, Arunachal Pradesh)!
7. In fact, China's about-turn on the east-west swap proposal may be linked to its changed geopolitical needs. With the completion of numerous road and rail links to Lhasa from other parts of China, and the heightened accessibility to Tibetan areas, Aksai Chin doesn't hold the same strategic significance that it did in the 1950s and 1960s.
8. Aksai Chin is the place "where not a blade of grass grows," as Jawaharlal Nehru once dismissively said. In contrast, Arunachal Pradesh has mineral and timber resources, and is also a potential source of hydroelectric power.
9. Recently China denied visas Indian officials from the border state into China.
10. Given its international stature and the economic power, it thinks that it is not compelled by any “compromises” to solveany issues and is ready to play the hard game.

INDO-JAPAN RELATION

India and Japan share a relation that has withstood testing times for a long period, latest being the Pokhran nuclear test after which there was a temporary cold phase in their bilateral relation.However the new millennium saw improvement of relation between these two countries with summit level talks and regular visit of dignitaries among the two nations.The situation shows signs of improvement with subsequent visits of the Premiers of both the nations.
India is the largest recipient of Japan's Official Development Assistance.Presently Japan occupies the third position in terms of FDI in India.Japan is the fifth largest trading partner of India and Indo-Japan trade volume has crossed $8 billion mark and the future looks promising in this regard.Japan has been one of the reasons behind phenomenal success of automobile and ancillary industries in India.Such level of cooperation is evident in political field as well with Japan collaborating with India for UN reforms in the recent past.
The recent visit of Indian PM Dr Manmohan Singh to Japan in October 2008 was a forward step towards better strategic ties among the nations.A landmark security pact was signed to bolster security cooperation.Though Japan remained non committal on Nuclear Supplier Group Waiver of India and no civilian nuclear agreement is on the cards,considering the size of India's market and her success as a democracy, Japan soon may reconsider its stance on nuclear cooperation with India.
However a landmark development between the two nations was the currency swap deal signed in June 2008, which will allow the two nations to swap yen and rupee against dollar up to a limit of $ 3 billion.
It must be said that there is still enough room for improvement of bilateral relation between the two and both the nations have to try harder to explore the possibilities of better cooperation and strategic ties.