With Prime Minister Narendra Modi
embarking on his foreign visit to Ireland and the US from 23rd to 29th
September India’s aspirations of reaching new global order gets refurbished.
Modi will be first Prime Minister of India after Jawaharlal Nehru to visit
Ireland en route the US. Jawaharlal Nehru visited Ireland in 1949 and 1956 (1).
The day long trip to Dublin is expected to rejuvenate the trade and bilateral
relations between the two nations that enjoy good relations. Modi might visit
Ahakista village, the site where Air India plane Kanishka crashed on June 23rd
1985 following the explosion of the bomb implanted onboard. A memorial plaque
will be installed at the site in the memory of the deceased.
Modi will have delegation level talks
with Irish Toaiseach (Prime Minister) Endy Kennedy on issues of common interest
and bilateral agreements in fields of education, agriculture, science and
technology will also feature in these talks. The volume of trade between India
and Ireland which was worth Euro 430 million in 2010 now stands at 650 million.
Ireland is home for sizeable skilled Indian Diaspora and a choicest destination
of Indian students for higher education. Modi’s visit to Ireland will be an
opportunity to connect up to the dynamic Indian society and inspire the
entrepreneurs to invest in India.
Modi’s US visit the second after
becoming prime minister is going to be his third summit interaction with
President Obama in less than year speaks volumes of evolving Indo-US relations.
The complex geopolitical matrix is tipped to undergo incredible changes during
this week with the US playing the host for all these consequential events.
President Xi Jinping has touched down in Seattle on September 22nd
and is expected to sign an agreement to resolve the cyber challenges much on
lines of the US and Soviet Union’s military cooperation during the cold war. This
event is believed to be shadowed by the visit of Pope Francis to the US during
the same time. Even before this hustle and bustle could settle down Narendra
Modi is going to reach the Eastern Coast of the US where he would address the
UN Sustainable Development Summit for the formal adoption of post-2015
developmental goals on 25th of September. Building further upon the
eight Millennium Developmental Goals (MDG), the sustainable developmental goals
(SDG) will channelize global action on poverty eradication, promotion of
prosperity, well-being for all, protecting environment and addressing climate
change. On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the UN, India is going
to raise the tax avoidance and tax evasion issue. India is likely to seek
global cooperation for ensuring transparency in financial issues and curtailing
the illicit financial flows by 2030 (2).
Modi will attend the summit on the UN
Peace Keeping hosted by President Obama and co-hosted by Nawaz Sharif. India
has been one of the largest contributors of UN Peace Keeping Forces and till
now around 180,000 Indian troops have participated in several UN global missions.
Currently 7,690 troops have been deployed in several conflict regions like
South Sudan, East Timor, Congo, Lebanon and Golan Heights. Modi is likely to
rise the issue of allowing the countries contributing towards peace keeping
forces to be involved at all stages and in all aspects of the mission planning
so that all the efforts in restoring peace in a region can be fully coordinated.
Further he would appeal for stringent action against those attacking the peace
keeping forces (3). In a bid to push India’s candidacy for a permanent seat in
the UN Security Council along the sidelines of the UN General Assembly Summit
Modi will host the G-4 Summit in New York. Apart from India G-4 comprises of Germany,
Japan and Brazil. G-4 includes the member countries who support each other’s
bids for a permanent seat in the UNSC. Though the members over a period of time
have reached a position on par with the P5, their elevation into the elite club
has been objected by their rival countries who have united together as UfC. The
counter movement against the collective bids of the G-4 include a group of 13
core countries. Nick named as coffee club,
it was founded by the Italian Ambassador Francesco Paolo Fulci along with
Pakistan, Mexico and Egypt in 1995 (4).
The G-4 summit is held to culminate
India’s lead to push forward a text in the UN General Assembly seeking future
negotiations on UN reforms and the expansion of the Security Council. Earlier
G-4 summits were attended by the ministers of foreign affairs of the respective
countries. But this year, Modi in consultation with Prime Minister Abe has
elevated it to a meet of heads of the state. Aside meeting several heads of
state in New York, to build on the ground work laid during his previous visit
Modi will be hosting a working dinner for the CEOs of the Fortune-500 companies
deliberating about investment opportunities in India.
Meanwhile, back in India there is
hullabaloo regarding Modi’s foreign visits and reports now corroborated the
government’s stance that there has been a perceptible increase in FDI from the
countries visited by Prime Minister. Data from Industrial Policy and Planning
has registered 48% increase in inflows after the launch of Make in India
project between Oct 2014 and April 2015 over the last year. India has received
$19.78 billion in FDI from countries Modi visited last year accounting for
two-thirds of total FDI received in the fiscal year 2014-15 (5). Further Pew
research Centre too observed a jump in the approval ratings of Modi leadership
for his efforts towards economic reforms (6).
After the power-packed summits in the
East Coast, Modi will travel to West Coast a first by an Indian Prime Minister
after a span of more than 30 years. Morarji Desai was the last Indian Prime
Minister to visit the Bay Area in 1978 to receive award at University of
California, Berkeley and Indira Gandhi visited Los Angeles in 1982. Having
launched the 100 smart cities program, Modi is now in West Coast to explore
various innovative ideas to spear head efforts to quadruple renewable energy
capacity to 175 Gw besides the 100 Gw of solar energy. To give power to the
dreams of clean energy to a nation heavily dependent on coal for power
generation Modi would first visit Tesla’s Fremont Plant. Modi would explore the
possibilities of bringing home the hall mark technology of “ Power Hall” a home
battery charged by solar power to augur clean India initiative (7). Modi will
meet the Indian-born CEO’s Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai and Shantanu Narayen
besides the CEO of Apple- Cook. Prime Minister will also participate in the
roundtable on renewable energy conducted by Precourt institute for Energy of
Stanford University in collaboration with US Commerce Department.
Modi will witness the 15hour long
Hackathon or the software coding session at Googleplex where 200 software
engineers from Tech Mahindra office in
Noida and 200 engineers at Google’s Mountain view base will design relevant
software for Digital India and Skill India initiatives. Hackathon is a part of
the Code for India mission wherein tech experts can volunteer for various
empowerment missions. Aside discussions at Google office would include the
possibility of deploying balloon technology to provide internet service to
rural India (8). This will be followed by the much awaited Q&A Town Hall
with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at Menlo Park and the India-US Startup
Konnect, where 30 Indian start-ups will illustrate their ideas to Venture
Capitalists (VCs).
Prime Minister will then sign off
from the two day long jam-packed trip to the Silicon Valley by addressing the
19,000 Indian expats at SAP Centre organized by Indian American Group.
A day before Modi’s weeklong visit to
the US, Indian Cabinet has cleared $2.5 billion worth deal towards the purchase of Apache Helicopters.
Modi is scheduled to meet President Obama on Sep 28th opening up
vistas for enhanced Indo-US ties. Unlike Modi’s first visit to US that
witnessed exhilarated responses of Indian expats in their adopted country, this
visit has sparked a cult of protests that brought to fore disparities of the
Indian diaspora. As Prime Minister heads to the US divesting India of its imbued
defensive approach and to usher into an era of pragmatic multilateralism stakes
are really high.
- http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/pm-narendra-modi-likely-to-visit-ireland-later-this-month/
- http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/india-likely-to-raise-tax-evasion-issue-at-un-meet/
- http://www.deccanherald.com/content/502355/modi-air-peacekeeping-worries-obama.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniting_for_Consensus
- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-received-19-78-billion-in-FDI-in-2014-15-from-countries-that-PM-Narendra-Modi-visited/articleshow/49041449.cms
- http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/indian-pm-narendra-modis-approval-ratings-jump-ahead-visit-ireland-us-1520528
- http://www.dailypioneer.com/india-abroad/innovation-digital-economy-clean-energy-to-animate-modis-us-trip.html
- http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/twenty-meetings-in-two-days-as-pm-modi-visits-silicon-valley/
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