The Syrian Ambassador to India visited the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi to express his government’s gratitude to the Government of India for its silence on the use of chemical agents in the ongoing war in Syria. An Indian Diplomatic Correspondent for an English-language broadsheet, taking fright with his antennae tuned into Washington, absurdly interpreted the envoy’s demarche as an embarrassment for India.
Consider with a cool mind and an engaged heart an alternative interpretation of India’s silence. A noisy denunciation of the American missile attack on Syria would have achieved nothing of substance. It would have induced a fit of the vapours in the Trump Administration and muddied the waters of Indo-US relations, with China growling menacingly on India’s doorstep.
The US decision to attack Syria has much to do with the crisis of the American Empire. America has fought 70 wars, 10 of them serious ones, in its 239 year history. War has been the intoxicant to arouse the American public. Trump’s erstwhile critics have lauded him for being presidential. Among the loudest voices has been that of Bombay-born Indian American Faried Zakaria of CNN Television, now happy-clappy part of the American establishment.
However, the attractions of war are no longer gilded with the laurels of predetermined victory. The draining Indochina war and its myriad criminalities were the seedbed of scepticism and disillusionment, giving rise to widespread demonstrations across America and Europe. Anti-war coalitions are making their presence felt in greater numbers today. The deceits of the Bush Administration’s Iraq war – remember Saddam Hussain’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, and the bogus Tonking incident of 1964 which was the Johnson Administration’s trigger for its massive assault on Vietnam - and the Obama Administration’s wanton intervention in Libya and Syria.
In the hallowed counsels of the G 7, the Italian Foreign Minister vetoed British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s call for further economic sanctions against Russia. France will shortly have its presidential elections in which one front runner from the right and another from the left have vowed to jettison the slobbering, slavish pro-US policies of Francois Hollande.
T he militarily strength of Russia is what counts in the present Syrian imbroglio. Its political reach extends to Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah, with their committed foot soldiers to aid the Syrian regime. Against this, the US has the corrupt Saudi dynasty and Gulf sheikhdoms, already deeply wired in the brutal Yemen civil war with Anglo-American and EU weaponry. The United States is making heavy weather of liberating the northern Iraqi city of Mosul from the meshes of ISIS. The loss of civilian lives through US has been horrendous. American planes in error have bombed Syrian opposition positions causing heavy casualties and deep embarrassment. This has been followed with the largest non-nuclear bomb strike in Afghanistan. Such egregious follies will take their toll of America’s standing in the world. The US armada sailing towards North Korea is a perilous gamble. The world is on the brink of an abyss. .
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s sullen ultimatums to Moscow are unlikely to bear the desired fruit of Russian submission. His visit to the Russian capital has been described as a disaster. Obama had little to show for his foreign policy, barring a ludicrous Nobel Peace Prize on the strength of a single long winded speech. Trump’s tantrums do not hold much promise of success either. America’s continuing crimes against humanity will lead to deepening revulsion across continents.
We end where we started – which is India’s silence on Syria. The proof of the pudding is invariably in the eating. You will be able to judge for yourself when Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets President Vladimir Putin at the St Petersburg Economic Summit in the first week of June. This being the 70 th year of the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Russia expect something approximating a big bang.
UK’s post-Brexit outreach to India
India’s trade with the UK has risen from $5.3 billion in 2000 to $14.2 billion in 2015. An India-UK Free Trade Agreement following Britain’s formal exit from the European Union, could rise by an exponential 33 per cent, driven by a surge in British exports to India, according to the Commonwealth Secretariat in London. ‘India has always had much less trade and investment with the UK than with the European Union... Nevertheless, trade and investment with the UK has been steadily rising since 2005, says the Commonwealth report.
The failure of India and the EU to conclude an FTA has meant that tariffs on Indian and UK exports in each other’s markets were pretty steep. ‘Tariffs on UK exports into India are estimated to be around 14.8 per cent on average., while Indian exports into the UK face tariffs of around 8.4 per cent on average, ‘ says the report.
The report highlights the opportunities for services in sectors such as computers, transport, construction and financial services etc Senior figures in both governments have been keen to expand market access on either side. The report emphasized the need for flexibility and mutual accommodation on easier visas for students and temporary personnel on the Indian side; on the B ritish easier access for Britain’s auto sector.
The four-day visit to India by British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon was of considerable significance in this post-Brexit context. He offered technology transfer and co-production of military platforms and weapon systems for under Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Made in India’ initiative.
‘As India invites the world to come and make in this great country and as a global Britain spreads its wings, I believe we have an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate the partnership between us, ’ said the Defence Secretary, addressing The UK-India Strategic Dialogue: Opportunity and Security in a Changing World, organized by the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.
Mr Fallon said his mission was not ‘just to see what we can make in India, or make with India, but to see what more we can design, develop, and value with India and export together to third countries and new markets; how we can better match British experience with Indian brain power.’ Such collaboration ‘will help us build the disruptive capabilities that can counter fifth generation threats.’
India and Britain needed to join hands ‘to defuse fanatical propaganda and to protect impressionable young minds,’ he said. ‘So in the next 12 months, I want to see these capability partnerships really take off. There are a myriad other areas where we can work profitably together.’
Asked whether Britain would be agreeable to the transfer of sophisticated technology to India, which previously had been a sensitive issue in Washington and London on account of misgivings on India’s military and nuclear programmes, Mr Fallon replied: ‘We are looking now at how we can further facilitate the transfer of technology under a government-to-government framework that can embrace the way we share technology…We should be thinking of India not just as a market but as a launch pad, where we can develop high-tech capabilities and sell them to third countries and new markets.’
Indian American youthful scientists excel
Indian American teenager Indrani Das has won the top $250,000 prize in the Regeneration Science Talent Search competition in the United States. Ms Das, a 17 year-old who lives in New Jersey, was awarded the prize for her research on the treatment of brain injury and disease. Her work explored the possibility of boosting the survival rate of neurons. A contributor to neuron death is astrogliosis, a condition that occurs when cells called astrocytes react to injury by growing, dividing and reducing their uptake of glutamate, which in excess is toxic to neurons.
In a laboratory model, Indrani Das demonstrated that exosomes isolated from astrocytes reacted with another chemical and improved neuron survival.
The third prize of $150,000 was won by another Indian American teen, Arjun Ramani, for his project on networks using mathematical field or graph theory and computer programming.
The talent search, dubbed the ‘Junior Nobel Prize,’ the oldest US competition for students is organized by the Society for Science and the Public in conjunction with medical firm Regeneron. Of the 40 finalists in the competition, 13 were Indian Americans.
Archana Verma won the seventh prize and Prathik Naidu the thirteenth, surely a telling display of Indian American science talent.
