📰 No postal ballots for NRIs this time: ECI
It wrote to the Law Ministry last year
•Non Resident Indians (NRIs) will have to wait longer to be able to vote by postal ballots, as Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said on Friday that the facility would not be extended to NRIs for the upcoming elections to the Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala and West Bengal assemblies.
•The Election Commission of India (ECI) had written to the Law Ministry on November 27 last year with the proposal of extending postal ballots to overseas electors. “The Commission is technically and administratively ready to extend this facility in general elections to legislative assemblies of Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry,” the EC’s letter said.
•After announcing the poll schedule on Friday, Mr. Arora said NRIs would not get the postal ballot facility this time. He said after the EC sent its note, it was further referred to the Ministry of External Affairs. The MEA was of the opinion that a wider meeting of stakeholders should be held, he said, adding that a meeting would be organised during the period of the five elections. Another EC official said extending the facility would take some time as an amendment was required.
After online conferences circular withdrawal, the effort should be to promote interactions
•The Centre has saved itself from continuing embarrassment at the international level by withdrawing the Education Ministry’s ill-thought-out guidelines for holding online conferences, seminars and training sessions. The sweeping circular, issued in consultation with the External Affairs Ministry, created a bottleneck for scientists in public universities, colleges and organisations and erected new bureaucratic barriers in a pandemic-hit phase when virtual conferences are the only viable channel for researchers to collaborate with global peers. Academicians and others organising the events were, as per the January circular, required to get prior official approval and ensure that the conference topics do not relate to security of the state, border, the northeast, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, and broadly, any “internal matters”. Event organisers were also mandated to give preference to technological tools and channels not owned or controlled by hostile countries or agencies. The effect of such a vague and abstruse set of instructions could only be to abandon efforts to organise conferences. To their credit, Indian scientists spoke out, and the Indian Academy of Sciences sounded a warning on the order’s detrimental effect on development of science, prompting a rethink.
•The pandemic from last year has underscored the value of virtual collaboration for many, although it cannot be argued that it completely substitutes for face-to-face interactions, trust-building and team formation. Without hurdles posed by visas, expensive travel, physical disability and so on, thousands of scientists have been able to participate in online conferences. Attendance at such events grew by 80% in 2020 over 2019 for the Plant Biology Worldwide Summit and over 300% for the American Physical Society meeting, as also for international meetings on cancer, lasers and electro-optics. Many scientists also think a combination of post-COVID-19 physical conferences and new possibilities enabled by virtual collaborations promise to forge even stronger alliances. An entirely new avenue has also opened up for national conferences with global experts taking part that researchers and students in the smallest towns can attend. This cannot, however, happen if institutions are bound by a bureaucratic straitjacket. India has made good strides in some fields with a growing number of peer-reviewed publications, especially in chemistry and physical sciences, as the Nature Index notes. Moreover, rigorous work can help allay concerns, such as on biopiracy, by documenting natural assets. The humanities, too, need to be freed from paranoid restrictions on research topics, curbs on scholars, and the growing pressure to sanctify cultural notions of science and history. Good sense has prevailed on the issue of online conferences, and it should lead to a more liberal approach to all research.
📰 India cannot abandon us: Sri Lanka
Foreign Secretary says Colombo wants to maintain friendly relations with all countries
•Seeking India’s “proactive” support at the UN Human Rights Council, where a resolution on Sri Lanka will be soon put to vote, the Secretary to Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, “India cannot abandon us”.
•“If the world is one family, as your Foreign Minister has said, then we are immediate family, isn’t it,” Admiral Jayanath Colombage (retired) said, citing External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s reference to ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ in his recent address to the Council.
•The Foreign Secretary, a former Navy Commander, spoke to The Hindu on Sri Lanka’s prospects at the ongoing session in Geneva, Indo-Lanka relations, Colombo’s broader foreign policy choices, and strategy for reconciliation from “within”, and regional cooperation.
•Sri Lanka, Mr. Colombage said, would be “very uncomfortable” if countries in the region did not extend support in Geneva. He expressed hope that India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh — who are among members of the current Council — will back Sri Lanka, since the countries had similarities, “are battling COVID-19 and facing allegations of human rights violations”.
•“Our President’s [Gotabaya Rajapaksa] first letter requesting support was to the Indian Prime Minister, and his first meeting here was with the Indian High Commissioner. Because we are very conscious of South Asian solidarity,” he said, adding: “Sri Lanka is in dire need of support from our friendly neighbours. And we are not asking anything extraordinary, we are asking something based on your neighbourhood first policy, based on Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR).” His appeal comes at a time when Indo-Lanka bilateral ties have come under strain, following a series of decisions taken by Colombo on development projects involving India and China.
•On whether Sri Lanka would consider India’s possible abstention at the Council as support, the Foreign Secretary said he hoped for “proactive” and “constructive” commitment, rather than abstention, which is “neither here, nor there.”
•All the same, seeming prepared for adoption of the likely hostile resolution, he said: “It’s difficult for a country from the Global South to win the vote... because of the Council’s double standards and hypocrisy,” he said, pointing to rights abuse and police brutality in the developed world.
•Punitive measures such as economic sanctions following the resolution would hurt the people more than the government, Mr. Colombage said, arguing that reconciliation mechanisms must be evolved within the country. “We can’t do anything just because someone points a gun at our head and says, okay reconcile. It will never happen.” Asked how the government might address the evident trust deficit within the country — the minorities have repeatedly expressed scepticism on domestic programmes that are yet to deliver — he said communities torn apart in a 30-year war would take time to reconcile.
India’s vote
•It remains to be seen how India might vote on the Sri Lanka resolution that draws from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s damning report on Sri Lanka’s “alarming path towards recurrence of grave human rights violations”, which Colombo has categorically rejected. With the Maithripala Sirisena-Ranil Wickremesinghe government co-sponsoring the 2015 resolution, a vote was not required.
•At the Interactive Dialogue on Sri Lanka at the Council last week, India reiterated Mr. Jaishankar’s message in Colombo in January, and called upon Sri Lanka to take necessary steps for addressing Tamils’ “legitimate aspirations”, including through the process of reconciliation and full implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution.
•But the Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary indicated a preference for a clean break from existing laws. It is “high time” Sri Lanka had a new, “people-centric” Constitution, he said, underscoring the need to “move on”. “It is going to be challenging to abolish provincial councils, rather we should empower them to deliver,” he said, amid persisting calls from some in the Rajapaksa government and its support base for their abolition.
•All the same, the Foreign Secretary does not see the existing 13th Amendment as a solution. The 13th Amendment came about with the aim of ending the violence and developing war-affected areas, he said, of Sri Lanka’s only legislative guarantee so far on power devolution to the provinces, including those with a Tamil majority.
•“Let us look back and see whether any of those two main objectives were achieved because of the 13th amendment. The answer is no. The war dragged on until 2009, and much more killing took place after 1987. And then, development could not take place through the Provincial Council system,” Mr. Colombage said, even as Tamil parties continue demanding full implementation of the 13th Amendment since the civil war ended in 2009.
•Despite Tamil parties seeking greater power devolution within an “undivided, indivisible Sri Lanka”, as senior Tamil leader R. Sampanthan unfailingly states, Mr. Colombage views their demands as leaning towards separatism, “although they do not use the Tamil Eelam word.”
•“When you say that you want a federal state, you want more devolution of powers, you want police powers, you want land powers, right? So that means you are asking for almost a separate state,” he said, referring to powers that the 13th Amendment envisaged, but the Centre is yet to part with.
•“I personally feel that India also should not really harp on the same thing that prevailed in 1987, because the dynamics have changed. India is concerned about the Tamils living in Sri Lanka, rightfully so, because there is a sizeable Tamil population in India, nothing wrong in it.”
Bilateral strain
•Irrespective of India’s vote in Geneva, going forward, the two countries will have to navigate a broader terrain mired in controversies, especially after Colombo cleared a Chinese energy project in the northern islands; pulled out of a 2019 deal with India and Japan to joint develop a Colombo Port Terminal, and sought the Trincomalee oil tank farms leased out to an Indian Oil Corporation subsidiary.
•“I don’t think relations are strained,” said the Foreign Secretary, emphasising that in strategic security matters, Sri Lanka still accorded India “top priority”.
•“India is a big power and a mature country to let an incident or two change a relationship built over centuries... they are not that petty,” he said, adding that although President Rajapaksa was keen to see the East Container Terminal (ECT) project through with Indian investment, but “people’s power won,” he said, citing resistance from trade unions and the clergy.
•President Rajapaksa, despite his pledge to safeguard national assets, was willing to make a “compromise”, Mr. Colombage noted, in offering the neighbouring West Container Terminal (WCT) for development, on the same terms — 85% stakes to the Indian investor — as the Colombo International Container Terminals Ltd, where China’s state-run China Merchants Port Holdings Company has 85% stake. The ECT has a partially completed deep berth and a shallow berth at the adjacent terminal, making it commercially more viable then the WCT that needs to be built from scratch, with greater investment. “The offer has been made at different levels, but New Delhi, would quite naturally expect more than an oral commitment”.
•On “another controversial aspect”, the Trincomalee Oil Tank farms, that a Cabinet Minister recently said would be “reacquired” from an Indian Oil Corporation subsidiary which holds a 35-year lease since 2003, the Foreign Secretary asked India to take a “pragmatic view”. Since over 80 of those World War-era oil storage facilities had not been refurbished in 18 years, it was “a waste” that they remained unused, he remarked. “During the drop in oil prices in the world, there was this idea that we can refurbish these tanks, use them to store oil, so that we can make money… these are national, strategic assets, right? We must go beyond the lines of the [2003] agreement and see how best we can make use of these tanks even now.”
•India has also voiced concern recently, over a Chinese firm being chosen to install renewable energy systems in three islands off Jaffna Peninsula, barely 50 kms off Tamil Nadu’s coast. As an alternative to the Asian Development Bank-funded project, India also offered a $12 million grant. Terming it a “very generous offer”, Mr. Colombage said it was not good for Sri Lanka’s international image to pull out of a project backed by the ADB and finalised through a tendering process. “So, we are in a bit of an issue, and I have a feeling that people will continue to suffer [without adequate power supply] because of this tug of war.”
•Flagging Sri Lanka’s foreign policy “dilemma”, he observed that a developing country should be able to make decisions based on economics, based on needs, but unfortunately, a country like Sri Lanka “is not free” to make that decision. “Before we make even an economic decision, we have to think of the strategic consideration of the powers in the Indian Ocean Region,” he said, of being “sandwiched”.
Major power game
•“Now, where should we draw the line? Should we say, okay, north of this line is to country A, and south of this country could be country ABCD? Is that what we want?” he asked, alluding to India and China. While India has been involved in large-scale development projects in the north and east building, for instance, 50,000 houses for war-affected people, China has dominated mega development in the south, in projects including expressways, the Hambantota Port and Colombo Port City. Over time, though, India launched several projects in the south too, while China’s projects began travelling northward.
•Sri Lanka, a “small country” spanning some 65,000 sq. km, was seeing how best it can maintain neutrality, he said, while staying away from “the major power game”, maintaining friendly relations for economic purposes with all the countries, and keeping India’s strategic security concerns in mind. “That will determine our foreign policy, and we are determined to balance these factors.”
•On Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s recent visit to Colombo, he said it should not be seen as Sri Lanka attempting “to join a bloc” or country, against others. “It is a bilateral visit. We would be very happy to welcome the Indian Prime Minister or any other Prime Minister who would like to come.”
📰 A colonial relic: On need to scrap sedition law
Repeated misuse of sedition law underlines the need to scrap it altogether
•A sessions court in Delhi has affirmed the belief that a dispassionate scrutiny of outlandish claims by the police is necessary for protecting the liberty of those jailed on flimsy, often political, reasons. Rejecting the purported evidence presented by the Delhi Police against climate change activist Disha Ravi, as “scanty and sketchy”, Judge Dharmender Rana has granted bail to the 22-year-old arrested for nothing more than editing a document shared among a network of activists raising global support for the farmers’ protests against three central laws. Even though it was quite obvious that the claim of a global conspiracy behind the unsavoury and violent incidents that took place on January 26 in New Delhi lacked credence, the order of bail is still notable for subjecting the specific charges to strict judicial scrutiny at a fairly early stage. In particular, the judge has applied the established test for a charge of sedition under Section 124A of the IPC to pass muster: that the act involved must constitute a threat to public order and incitement to violence. He found that there was not even an iota of evidence indicating that the ‘toolkit’, a shared Google cloud document with ideas on how to go about amplifying the protests, in anyway incited violence. He was clear that there was no causal link between the violence and Ms. Ravi, a conclusion that confirmed widespread criticism that the arrest was unnecessary, and that the entire case was nothing more than a reflection of government paranoia.
•The episode highlights a trend that has caused concern in recent times: the tendency of the rulers to treat instances of dissent, especially involving strident criticism of policies and laws in which particular regimes are deeply invested, as attempts to provoke disaffection and disloyalty. Hence, it is significant that the judge not only saw Ms. Ravi’s activism as related to her freedom of speech and expression, but went on to say that an attempt to reach a global audience is part of that freedom. In the backdrop of the claim that those who prepared the toolkit made common cause with Khalistani separatists, Judge Rana showed refreshing clarity in maintaining that mere interaction with a group with dubious credentials could not be used to consider someone culpable. It should also be underscored that such bail orders should not be rare or special, but be routine judicial responses to cases in which there is a mismatch between the accusation and the evidence. It is by now fairly clear to everyone except, perhaps, the government and its vociferous supporters, that there is no place in a modern democracy for a colonial-era legal provision such as sedition. Too broadly defined, prone to misuse, and functioning as a handy tool to repress activism, the section deserves to be scrapped.
📰 Imparting direction to science in India
While it is a mixed bag as far as the metrics on scientific research are concerned, the draft policy seeks a new path
•National Science Day, on February 28, is a moment to celebrate the progress that India has made in science and technology research, thanks to its science policies. It is also an opportunity to ponder about the problems that we face in research. As for the metrics on scientific research in India, there is the good news, the not-so-good news, and some hope.
Publications and patents
•The good news: from the report published by the National Science Foundation of the U.S. in December 2019, India was the third largest publisher of peer-reviewed science and engineering journal articles and conference papers, with 135,788 articles in 2018. This milestone was achieved through an average yearly growth rate of 10.73% from 2008, which was greater than China’s 7.81%. However, China and the United States had about thrice and twice the number, respectively, of India’s publications.
•The not-so-good news is that publications from India are not impactful. From the report, in the top 1% of the most cited publications from 2016 (called HCA, or Highly Cited Articles), India’s index score of 0.7 is lower than that of the U.S., China and the European Union. An index score of 1 or more is considered good. The inference for India is that the impact, and hence the citation of publications from India, should improve.
•The other relevant report is on patents filed by India. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) through their Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is the primary channel of filing international patent applications. In its report for 2019, WIPO says India filed a modest number of 2,053 patent applications. Compared to the 58,990 applications filed by China and 57,840 by the U.S., India has a long way to go. This was the first time that China filed more patent applications than the U.S.
•The Indian Government put in place the National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy in 2016 to “stimulate a dynamic, vibrant and balanced intellectual property rights system”. One of the objectives is human capital development. The mission to foster innovation, replicate it at scale and commercialise it is a work in progress consequent to the policy. However, we need hawk-eye’s focus à la China which filed just 276 patent applications in 1999 but rose to become an innovation titan in 2019.
Science policies over time
•India realised early as a republic the need to use science to become a welfare state. As Robert Browning said in “Apollo and the Fates”, ‘Tis Man’s to explore..., ... Up and down, inch by inch, with the taper his reason’, it behoved us to chart new frontiers in science that would suit our priorities.
•There have been four science policies till now, after 1947, with the draft of the fifth policy having been released recently. India’s first science policy adopted in 1958, Scientific Policy Resolution, aimed to develop scientific enterprise and lay the foundation for scientific temper. It led to the establishment of many research institutes and national laboratories, and by 1980, India had developed advanced scientific infrastructure with sufficient scientific personnel. The focus in the second science policy, Technology Policy Statement, in 1983, was technological self-reliance and to use technology to benefit all sections of the society, while strengthening research in fields such as electronics and biotechnology.
•The Science and Technology Policy 2003, the first science policy after the economic liberalisation of 1991, aimed to increase investment in research and development and brought it to 0.7%. The Scientific and Engineering Research Board (SERB) was established to promote research.
•In 2013, India’s science policy included Innovation in its scope and was called Science, Technology and Innovation Policy. The focus was to be one of the top five global scientific leaders, which India achieved through building partnerships with States, establishing more research and development centres and collaborating in international projects such as the Large Hadron Collider in the European Union.
•The draft of the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2020 (STIP2020), the fifth science policy that was released in January 2021 offers hope to research in India: it has an ambitious vision to “double the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) researchers, Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD) and private sector contribution to the GERD every 5 years” and to “position India among the top three scientific superpowers in the next decade”. STIP2020 defines an Open Science Framework which will create a “one nation, one subscription” solution that will give all individuals and institutions in India access to all top journals through a central subscription. This scheme will provide fillip to improving access to knowledge. It also defines strategies to improve funding for and participation in research. India’s Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD) is currently around 0.6% of GDP. This is quite low when compared to the investments by the U.S. and China which are greater than 2%. Israel’s GERD is more than 4%.
•A key reason for India’s low funding in R&D is the low private sector contribution. STIP2020 defines solutions to improve funding thus: all States to fund research, multinational corporations to participate in research, fiscal incentives and support for innovation in medium and small scale enterprises. These are good ideas. The new measures should not become a pretext to absolve the Union and State governments of their primacy in funding research; the government should invest more into research.
Key areas and focus
•Other critical focal areas are inclusion of under-represented groups of people in research, support for indigenous knowledge systems, using artificial intelligence, reaching out to the Indian scientific diaspora for collaboration, science diplomacy with partner countries, and setting up a strategic technology development fund to give impetus to research.
•Science diplomacy is at the fore now with India offering COVID-19 vaccines to many countries; formulating a policy around it will yield dividends. Support for indigenous knowledge systems should enable them to improve upon their limitations in subscribing to transparency and verifiability.
•The policy seeks to define strategies that are “decentralized, evidence-informed, bottom-up, experts-driven, and inclusive”. It is in draft stage and will have to be finalised and placed before the cabinet for approval. It makes the right moves and strikes the right notes to make India future-ready. More specific directives and implementation with a scientific temper without engaging in hyperbole will be key to the policy’s success; and its success is important to us because, as Carl Sagan said, “we can do science, and with it we can improve our lives”.
📰 The Biden touch to sober, yet substantive ties
The India-U.S. relationship may not change from the course that Trump chose, but China and rights could be issues
•One year since former United States President Donald Trump spoke about the India-U.S. relationship, and his own relationship with his “true friend” Prime Minister Narendra Modi in glowing terms at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad, much has changed for both countries. The U.S. has changed its leadership, growth prospects for both India and the U.S. — the two countries which have the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world — have dimmed considerably, and even the name of the stadium has changed. The new U.S. President, Joseph Biden, has spent much of his first month in office changing Mr. Trump’s policies, including reversing the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and cancelling the “Muslim” ban and other immigration policies, among a slew of other domestic measures through executive orders.
The connect this time
•It would seem, however, that Mr. Biden is not at present planning to change the course Mr. Trump chose in building closer ties with India, including the push for the Quadrilateral and Indo-Pacific policy. Mr. Biden called Mr. Modi right after he had called all treaty alliance partners, but before he spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or King Salman of Saudi Arabia. There have been calls between the U.S. Defence Secretary and National Security Adviser with their Indian counterparts. There were also two calls between the U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony J. Blinken, and the External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar, in addition to a virtual Quad Ministerial meeting that included the Foreign Ministers of Japan and Australia.
•Mr. Biden’s Climate Change Envoy John Kerry also appeared on a discussion with Mr. Jaishankar, where he praised India’s efforts on renewable energy and emissions, and charted an ambitious course ahead of the U.S.’s “Earth Day Summit” on April 22. The State Department spokesperson also revealed plans for an “an overarching memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance health cooperation” which will deal with COVID-19 testing, vaccination and critical drug supplies.
•Meanwhile, Mr. Biden’s decision to lift restrictions and caps on a number of visas and green cards has no doubt relieved the Modi government of one of the constant sources of worry that India has had with the U.S. Given the list of “Priorities” for the administration listed by the White House on its website, it is safe to say that on a majority of issues, including COVID-19, climate, health care, immigration and restoring America’s global standing, New Delhi and Washington are already engaging each other, and are on the same page.
China on the horizon
•Where then, if at all, might trouble lie? While these are still early days to hazard anything, certain preliminary indicators could provide a clue. To begin with, there is China. There is no doubt that China’s aggression at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in early 2020 brought India and the U.S. closer, galvanised greater military cooperation, intelligence sharing, and what former Trump National Security Council Director Lisa Curtis called America’s “moral and material support”.
•Events at the LAC also made New Delhi give up years of hesitation over holding Malabar Exercises for the Quad, and hold two Quad ministerial meetings in the past year. The difference this year is that the Biden administration takes charge as India and China have disengaged from their heights in the Pangong Tso area, and are discussing what could be a long-drawn disengagement and de-induction of troops. As a result, the Modi government may have to be more reticent with the Biden administration as it seeks to take on China strategically. For the Biden administration too, which is walking a fine line with statements on the challenge from China as a competitor in areas such as defence, trade and technology, but also the need for cooperation in certain areas such as climate change and where it is in the U.S.’s “interests to do so” , the messaging is likely to be more mixed than before.
•Meanwhile, there will be areas where India may become collateral damage: in his latest executive order on securing America’s supply chains, for example, Mr. Biden has sought action in areas such as pharmaceuticals where India is a major producer and could be hit if the U.S. insists on localising production. The order is especially significant given that India-Japan-Australia are already working on a trilateral Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI) to counter their dependence on Chinese goods, that the U.S. is not a part of.
Getting it right on rights
•Human rights is the next area where India and the U.S. could be at odds both on the bilateral front and in the region, given Mr. Biden’s commitment to put human rights “at the centre of Foreign Policy”. The U.S. readout of his call with Mr. Modi held that a “shared commitment to democratic values is the bedrock for the U.S.-India relationship”, and Mr. Biden and U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris are expected to be more vocal on these issues which the Modi government has been prickly about. After four years of what former diplomat Ashley Tellis called Mr. Trump’s “values holiday”, the U.S. is back to commenting on issues that India considers its internal affairs and what it calls “crackdowns on freedom of speech”. In the past month, the U.S. administration has weighed in on India’s lifting of the Internet ban in Jammu and Kashmir, farmers’ protests and the government’s face-off with Twitter. It is unlikely that the Biden administration will brush away the Modi government’s actions to shut down international agencies — Amnesty, Greenpeace, Compassion International — in the same way as the previous administration did.
•Further afield, the U.S. will want India to partner in ensuring human rights in South Asia, particularly given its current term in the UN Security Council. Practically every call between the respective capitals has mentioned concerns over the coup by the Army in Myanmar (Burma). However, while Washington has stepped up sanctions and called for the Suu Kyi-NLD government to be reinstated, New Delhi has spoken only for the “rule of law” and democratic processes to be upheld, and the Ministry of External Affairs has laid emphasis on India’s interests in the region. A similar situation could arise over Sri Lanka which faces a country-specific resolution at the Human Rights Council for alleged wartime excesses in 2009 operations against the LTTE, and India’s support for its neighbour would place it closer to Beijing’s position than to Washington’s.
Russia bonds, trade concerns
•Other areas of possible discord outlooked (flagged) by experts will be over India’s ties with Russia, in particular the arrival of the S-400 missile systems which will attract sanctions under the U.S.’s Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, a law that the Democrats in Congress pushed through during the Trump administration. Mr. Biden’s administration will seek to implement the law more stringently, calling it a “powerful tool” in its dealings with Turkey on the S-400 purchase and the Nord Stream2 pipeline project from Russia.
•Trade is an ongoing concern from the Trump era, and India is still hopeful of reversing the U.S. decision to cancel its GSP status for exports. Meanwhile, the mega Indian investment plan announced during the “Howdy Modi” visit — Petronet India’s $2.5 billion stake in U.S. company Tellurian’s Driftwood LNG project — has ended abruptly after the MoU signed in September 2019 lapsed.
Afghanistan and Pakistan
•On Afghanistan, New Delhi has charted an independent course from the U.S., standing firmly with the Ashraf Ghani government and resolutely refusing to engage the Taliban. This is pragmatic, but it also means the U.S. will continue to see India as “not part of the problem, not part of the solution”, and seek more support from Pakistan to facilitate its exit. In particular, the U.S.’s pre-Trump formulations that conflate peace in Kashmir in order to help its desired outcomes in Afghanistan, as its recent statement on the India-Pakistan LoC ceasefire shows, will become a sore point for New Delhi.
•Above all, the shift from a year ago is likely to be evidenced by the stark contrast in Mr. Biden’s personal style from that of his predecessor. While South Block mandarins no longer wake up in the morning dreading the damage control required for the latest tweet from the U.S. President, it is clear that Mr. Biden is not as big on pushing the personal connection with Mr. Modi as Mr. Trump or even President Barack Obama was. The difference will make for a more sober, but perhaps more substantive bilateral relationship in the four years ahead.
