India-China-Africa triangle

CALESTOUS JUMA, professor at Harvard University advocates a reconstruction of Africa’s relations with the rest of the world through its long-term economic objectives of adding value to natural resources, expanding manufacturing and reinvestment of revenues in infrastructure and technical training.

In his op-ed in Kenya’s The Nation, “Africa’s solution to Asian interests”, he states that a foreign policy that focused relationships with China and India on economic issues such as infrastructure, skills transfer and market access would ensure Africa developed enough to become a global economic actor. in the wake of significant expansion of the Sino-African and Indo-African bilateral economic relationship.

He concludes with a call for tripartite consultations to create a transparent platform for economic diplomacy and diminish perceptions of Sino-Indian competition in Africa, in the wake of a significant and parallel expansion of Sino-African and Indo-African economic relationship.

India's evolving international role

GARETH PRICE of the Asia Task Force of UK Trade and Investment examines India's growing influence on international affairs, trade and investment, security and democracy, and the environment and states that India's ability to play a greater global role would evolve more naturally once its domestic development challenges were met.

In a Chatham House report, "For the Global Good: India's Developing International Role", he reviews India's history as a provider of aid to developing countries in areas such as information technology, education and low-cost alternatives in the health and agricultural sector, led mostly through the private sector and NGOs.

He concludes that India found it easier to forge deeper partnerships with other emerging powers than with established developed countries, in line with its perceived national interest, with non-interference as a cardinal principle of India's policy-making, affecting its approach to development as well as to broader foreign policy issues.

The land-inflation linkage

ARVIND SUBRAMANIAN, fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics reviews the high inflation figures for India and conjectures that the combination of serious microeconomic distortions afflicting the land market coupled with macroeconomic factors such as surging capital inflows into real estate and housing could be raising cost of production in the Indian economy as a whole, pushing up cost-push inflation and making the goal of double-digit growth elusive. In an op-ed in The Business Standard, "India's Inflation Puzzle", he states that inflation in India could be far more dependent on services and land as an input and India would need to address microeconomic distortions through structural reforms of the land market and address macroeconomic aggravators of inflation through dampening of foreign capital flows into real estate and housing and higher provisioning for real-estate lending.

Soft vs Hard power in Afghanistan

Harsh Pant of King's College, London claims that India’s attempt to leverage its ‘soft power’ in Afghanistan by focusing on civilian matters is becoming increasingly risky in the wake of the attacks on the Indian embassy in Kabul and that could force a change in strategy. In a commentary for ISN Security Watch, "India in Afghanistan", he states that the debate on how to approach Afghanistan is not close to a resolution in Indian political corridors, any change in strategy will have serious implications for the future of India’s rise as global power and regional security in South Asia.