London woos Indian investors
With the obstacle regarding Ireland’s border out of the way, Britain and the European Union can now concentrate on the economic issues of Brexit. These are complex and the talks to resolve them will be hard and wearying. However, on a parallel track, Britain must start looking to a post-Brexit future with Commonwealth partners, India, Canada, Australia and New Zealand at the core of new vistas in trade and investment of mutual benefit to all parties. London is betting big in its drive to attract Indian businesses and invest with this goal in mind. The Mayor’s office has opened an overseas facility in Bangalore to promote ease of doing business in Britain’s capital city, among the world’s foremost financial hubs. Information Technology giant, Bangalore-based Wipro, said it planned to expand its London operations with a new 13,000 square foot office, its third in the capital, where it already has an 1,800 workforce. The company hoped its new facility would help it bring new ways of working with digital clients.
Special emphasis would be placed on collaboration and joint creation between designers and software engineers ‘to incubate innovation and disruptive ideas alongside our clients,’ said Rajan Kohli, Senior Vice President and digital head, Wipro Digital. ‘London and Bangaluru are hotbeds for innovation and creativity,’ said David Slater, Director of International Trade and Investment at London & Partners.
Guardian of the seas
December 4 was named Navy Day, for it was on that date in 1971 that the India Navy towed its missile boats into the harbor of Pakistan port city of Karachi, set its quayside alight and crippled the country’s navy. India and Pakistan fought a ten-day war over the liberation of Bangladesh; the outcome was a Pakistani defeat, despite the diplomatic support of the United States and China which had appeared to cast the geopolitics of the region in stone. The Karachi event was the coming of age for the Indian Navy. Until then it had been the Cinderella of the armed forces. The Army and Air Force received the bulk of the government’s attention as it was India’s land frontiers with Pakistan and China that were under threat of attack, and, indeed, were attacked. Arms acquisitions from abroad were almost exclusively reserved for the two senior services. In the longer-term this was to prove a blessing in disguise, for the fledging Navy was forced to make the best use of its limited resources of men and materiel.
To meet this challenge the Indian Navy skilled its naval architects to design ships, from destroyers, frigates and high speed coastal vessels. The learning curve was huge and forbidding in scope but the outcome was rewarding. India designed its first nuclear submarine; INS Arihant is now operational with its full complement of weaponry, conventional and nuclear – the latter forming the third triad of India’s second strike deterrent. Three more nuclear submarines are under construction plus a 40,000 tonne aircraft carrier, which is nearing completion, with a second to follow.
What is the rationale behind this naval build-up? After the US, Russia and China, the Indian Navy is now the world’s fourth-largest and growing. India is a peninsula with seas on three sides. Its navy’s strength is one aspect of the larger goal, the other is development of the merchant fleet vital for trade. Commerce and flag are therefore intertwined in the larger national security architecture. Aircraft carriers, battle groups and escort vessels guarantee economic and strategic security including the protection of offshore oil and gas platforms and reserves.
One of the problems arising from an earlier tradition was its land oriented outlook, The Mughals came from Central Asia and possessed little knowledge or experience of the seas. Yet, Britain, an island, with its command of the seas became the dominant world power from the late eighteenth century to the first three decades of the twentieth, during which period she withstood the challenges of Napoleonic France and the Kaiser’s Germany – a reminder that the three quarters of the earth’s surface is water.
The historian K.M. Panikkar masterly monograph, India and the Indian Ocean: An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power in Indian History dwelt on India’s maritime tradition seeded in the country’s south and nurtured by the Chola kings who took Indian commercial and cultural influences across the seas to Southeast Asia. Panikkar’s message has taken root. India to date built 125 ships and another 38 ships and submarines are on order, all through public and private sector partnerships. The Indian Navy’s strategic perimeter stretches from the Persian Gulf and the aperture to the Red Sea in the west to the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca in the east.
India’s naval heft was first demonstrated under Indira Gandhi’s leadership, when she authorized swift intervention in Mauritius to abort a coup designed to overthrow its legitimate, democratically elected government. This protective diplomacy has since been formally institutionalized. Subsequent to this, India was requested by Mozambique to provide security during the East African summit, which it did by patrolling the Mozambique coast. In the east, India has close defence relations with Singapore and Vietnam. India operates a tri-services military base on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands giving it strategic leverage in the waters of Southeast Asia. By its very nature, the Navy requires special skills, hence the officer corps require at least a B.Tech qualification to join the force, enabling qualified women to look to the navy for rewarding careers. Among the numerous items in the print media on Navy Day, one in particular stands out: the cutting edge which the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile inducted in the Navy in 2005 and now the prime strike weapon in ten of the Navy’s frontline ships, with sea-to-sea, sea-to-land and subsea-to-land (underwater version). BrahMos is perceives as the ultimate game-changer for India in the future network centric warfare operations, with all three services equipped withis lethal weapon.
Russia’s ‘full support’ for India’s NSG membership
For India’s media pundits who have inundated their columns with tales of Russia’s estrangement from India, its embrace of Pakistan and its subordination to Chinese diktat, the revelation that none of these dire offerings had even a scintilla of truth should come as an embarrassment. But the moment is likely to pass as shame, alas, is in short supply and skins are unusually thick.
Let us ground interpretation in verifiable facts. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryablov was in Delhi last week for extensive talks with India’s Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar and Secretary (Economic Relations) Vijay Gokhale, who is the point-man for the BRICS grouping as well. Following these meetings, Mr Ryablov addressed the media. He was strongly supportive of India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and opposed to that of Pakistan - a stance that is variance with China’s. Mr Ryabkov hoped that India’s application to join the 41 nation Wassemaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-use Goods and Technologies would be successful. Thankfully, it was. He said: ‘This is an example and reflection of Russia’s unwavering support to India’s membership of international nuclear control regimes.’ Mr Ryablov wondered why the United States had not pushed China to be cooperative rather obstructive on Indian membership of the NSG. ‘I can assure you that Russia’s ties with no other country in the world will come at the expense of its relations with India,’ he said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, will engage in talks with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, preparatory to the trilateral BRICS conversation involving Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Yi.
These talks will be free and frank on all sides. For instance, India has refused to join China’s One Belt One Road project, while Russia has signed up to it. The outcome of these discussions will be eagerly awaited. Another subject to come up is the quadrilateral naval exercise between India, the US, Japan and Australia. Are the US and China in opposite poles. The short answer is they are not. Their bilateral understanding on a range of regional and global issues is firm, with each side needing the other in pursuance of their geopolitical goals.
America’s national debt stands at a forbidding $20 trillion and rising. Congress has just voted emergency funding to the US administration for its immediate needs, as otherwise government would cease to function. China is the largest holder of US debt, thus borrower and lender are tied to each other by an umbilical cord of mutual understanding. Cockeyed Indian reporters would do well to understand this seminal ground reality and be less taken by rhetorical blanks from both sides disguised as broadsides.