India extends $500 million credit line to Vietnam to help it strengthen its defence

NEW DELHI: Even as Vietnam continues to be at odds with neighbour China over the South China Sea issue+ , Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that New Delhi will give Hanoi a line of credit of $500 million to help shore up its defences.

"We recognized the need to cooperate in responding to emerging regional challenges. As two important countries in this region, we also feel it necessary to further our ties on regional and international issues of common concern," PM Modi said.

The line of credit is just one of a dozen agreements India and Vietnam signed in Hanoi during Modi's state visit. Most of the agreements are to do with deepening the two countries' defence and security engagement, both economically and geopolitically.

Vietnam is in the midst of a major military buildup that analysts say is a deterrent, as neighboring China grows more assertive in staking its rival claims in the South China Sea.

Although Modi didn't mention the South China Sea issue, his statement's focus on regional challenges signalled a recognition of the regional fallout of the dispute+ at a time when both India and China are competing for maritime supremacy.


A recalcitrant Beijing has thus far refused to accept the July judgment by an international arbitration tribunal in Hague, which ruled that China has no claim to economic rights across large swathes of the South China Sea.

After the Hague judgment+ , China called the countries involved in the dispute - Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia- "eunuch" and "paper tiger" and termed The Hague's tribunal "illegal and ridiculous".

On Friday, a day before PM Modi and Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc signed the dozen agreements, India's ambassador to Beijing also referenced the South China Sea dispute.

"We believe that UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) represents the foundational aspect of international law on seas and oceans, and we call on all parties to respect UNCLOS," said P Harish, India's ambassador to Vietnam.

On Saturday, PM Modi was accorded a ceremonial welcome in front of the majestic Presidential palace. He is the first Indian PM to visit the communist nation in 15 years.



Source:-indiatimes
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Defence, Security High On Agenda As PM Modi Visits Vietnam: 10 Points

Hanoi:  Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc for what was described as a tete-a-tete this morning before they hold formal talks in Hanoi.
Here are the 10 latest developments:

    PM Modi landed in Vietnam late last evening in the first visit by an Indian premier in 15 years. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had visited the country in 2001.
    During PM Modi's two-day visit, India and Vietnam will sign more than 10 agreements in sectors like defence, health and space. The Prime MInister will also meet Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang.
    The Prime Minister will pay homage to national heroes and martyrs at monuments this morning before holding bilateral talks. Prime Minister Phuc will host PM Modi at a banquet lunch after the talks.
    Indian businessmen in Vietnam said they hope PM Modi's visit will strengthen trade ties between the two countries, with a focused and structured approach to reach a target of 15 billion dollars by 2020.
    PM Modi leaves on Saturday evening for the Chinese city of Hangzhou, where the G20 summit is being held.
    On Sunday, PM Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit.
    It will be their first meeting after the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit held in Uzbekistan capital Tashkent in June, where PM Modi had urged China to make a "fair and objective" assessment of India's application for membership to the xx-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group.
    PM Modi will meet US President Barack Obama on Monday, September 5.
    In Hangzhou, PM Modi will also hold bilateral meetings with the premiers of Australia, Saudi Arabia and Argentina. He will meet UK Prime Minister Theresa May for the first time since she took charge in July.
    Before the G 20 summit begins on Sunday, PM Modi will attend a meeting of the BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. PM Modi returns to India on September 5 and two days later will leave for Vientiane, Laos, for two summits.

Source:-NDTV
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Home Ministry failed in Kashmir, Defence Ministry now must be vigilant

Some of the young people who met Home Minister Rajnath Singh in Srinagar last weekend were encouraged by his attentiveness and apparent openness. That might sound good but, sadly, it makes little difference. Those meetings were too little, too late.

The bottom line is that the home ministry has failed in Kashmir. It has failed on several fronts over several years, but its worst failure was missing the crucial importance of catching Burhan Wani alive. They made the cardinal error of viewing him as simply another militant commander, rather than as an idealised youth icon the like of which Kashmir had not seen in a quarter-century.

Engaging with young Kashmiris at large is the right thing to do, but doing it at this point is like trying to reap a crop after birds and cows have picked the field clean. The minister’s meetings last weekend might deserve full marks for attitude, but also a zero for effectiveness – and the maximum negative for timing.

If the country is lucky, there might be a re-test for this ministry in Kashmir at some point but that point seems distant. Nor, given its inefficiency over the past several decades, is there much hope that it will pass.
Representational image. PTI

Representational image. PTI

For the longest time, three ministries have dealt with Kashmir – unfortunately, spending more energy sniping at each other over turf than on problem-solving. Apart from home, these ministries are external affairs and defence.

Diplomacy over Kashmir has already faltered badly. Just a few months after the prime minister’s high-profile visit to Pakistan last Christmas, Pakistan declared that it had suspended talks with India. If the home minister’s visit was too little too late, the prime minster’s visit seven months earlier had been too much too late.

A statement from the external affairs minister the day after the home minister visited Kashmir blamed Pakistan. The focus ought indeed to be on Pakistan — but it should be the defence ministry’s focus, not the home ministry’s, the external affairs ministry’s, or the information and broadcasting ministry’s. To blame Pakistan for the unrest in the Valley is a convenient but inadequate explanation.

What might happen next is more to the point.

Policymakers need to urgently figure out what signals the Pakistan Army would have taken from the sharp and massive uprising that followed Burhan Wani’s killing. In light of those likely signals, the defence ministry ought to brainstorm, and draw up detailed response plans.

A good reference point is what happened in 1965.

The war and Operation Gibraltar that Pakistan launched that year to try and take over Kashmir, was a response to the signals Pakistan’s General Headquarters received over the previous couple of years.

The first signal was the extraordinarily volatile protests in Kashmir when the relic of the Prophet went missing from the Hazratbal shrine on 27 December, 1963. The second signal was Nehru’s death exactly five months later, and the succession to power of Lal Bahadur Shastri; Pakistan perceived Shastri as a pushover.

Another important signal was the government’s behaviour towards Sheikh Abdullah during 1964. He was released from jail in April, went to Pakistan in May with a peace proposal involving joint management (similar to the so-called 'Musharraf Plan'), and was jailed again after he met Chou en Lai in Egypt.

Intense shelling on the Ceasefire Line (now called the Line of Control) continued from the summer of 1964 until Operation Gibraltar unfolded between July and September the next year. For Pakistan’s army, the most important spur in that phase must surely have been the high-pitched public response while the relic was missing.

Let us compare this with the current scenario. Until 2008, Pakistan had all but given up on Kashmir. That summer’s uprising — kicked off by Governor SK Sinha’s insistence on land transfer to the Sri Amarnath Shrine Board, and reinvigorated by the RSS’s electorally motivated campaign in the Jammu region — signalled to Pakistani strategists that opportunity still knocked in Kashmir.

By the time the closure of the highway near Udhampur and Samba led to a 'Muzaffarabad chalo' march in Kashmir, Pakistan was back in the role of puppeteer — to some extent, at least. Its role increased during the uprising of 2010.

The period since 2008 has brought several ominous indications:

One, a fresh, highly motivated militancy is underway in Kashmir.
Two, there have been sharp attacks at security installations along the arterial highway to the state.
Three, large numbers of militant camps are once more bustling across the Line of Control.
Four, Chinese troops are stationed in parts of the state controlled by Pakistan.
Five, Pakistan has been furiously preparing battlefield nuclear weapons.

If the home ministry buried its head ostrich-like in the sands of illusion before Burhan’s killing, the defence ministry would do well not to follow that example in light of these indications, and the uprising that followed Burhan’s killing.
Source:-firstpost
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