Department Of South And Central Asian Studies
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Item Eurasia in India‘s Energy Diplomacy: Exploring the Emerging Equations in the 21st Century(Central University of Punjab, 2019) Singh, Sandeep; Singh, BawaEnergy is considered as a geopolitical commodity of political leverage/vulnerability. Also, it has been considered as a major part of diplomacy of every individual country, promoting economic prosperity or political stability. In context of Eurasia, which is known for its great amount of energy resources in the world, has become fundamentally one of the most important and geopolitical determinant of external power‘s engagements. The study argues that recent geo-economic-political developments in post-2013, and ups-downs (Russian-Ukraine Gas Wars in 2006 and 2009, diversifications of Eurasian energy supplies especially gas, and threatening relations between Europe and Russia etc.) in the Eurasian region have been posing geo-economic and geopolitical challenges to many states within the region. The Energy producers in the Eurasian region particularly Russia and CARs have started moving from the west to the East for energy supply. In addition, Asian demand for energy resources have been diversified particularly India and China are becoming big energy consumers. These changes have brought some of the serious and complex issues before India‘s domestic and foreign policies. It is also seen as a window of opportunities and possibilities of complementarities on the other hand. India as a major energy importer and it's manufacturing-oriented programmes are likely to fasten its energy demands, and Eurasia can provide an incredible opportunity to meet its energy requirements in this connection. Therefore, an attempt has been made to provide a transcontinental study of Eurasian energy as a thrust area for the present research positioning Eurasian region in Indian energy diplomacy, and determining the contours of energy diplomacy. Although, there are many researches about India‘s policy towards the Eurasian region, and few of them focussed on energy trade, and trade in other goods including political relations. But, how energy is a significant factor in India‘s diplomacy towards the Eurasian region in the present geopolitical realities has not been thoroughly investigated. In this backdrop, the present research has been approached by setting three onjectives. Fisrtly, it investigates India‘s position in the changing global energy scenario. To achieve the objective, the study exmines India‘s domestic energy policy and finds that India‘s future of domestic energy production remains clouded given the underinvestment, outdated infrastructure and under-explored basins of the country. It iv leads India to import energy. Secondly, the study has uncovered India‘s diplomatic engagements with the Eurasian region by the way of mapping its quest for energy. It concludes that India‘s energy diplomacy has a wider scope in the Eurasian region to enhance regional integration provided that the same should properly be undertaken by the stakeholder. The third objective investigates India geopolitical space in the Eurasian region. It concludes that the growing role of energy complex zone and transit countries have challenged great powers hierarchy in the region and shaped the new energy geopolitical order. The study explores that how India would create its geopolitical space in the new energeopolitical order. Thus, the research is seen as a contribution to uncover India‘s growing diplomatic space in Eurasian geopolitics from different perspectives by offering different analytical and theoretical insights from the previous studies.Item China in the Indian Ocean: Navigating India’s Challenges and Reciprocation(Central University of Punjab, 2018) Lone, Mansoor Ahmad; Singh, BawaThe Indian Ocean has remained a strategic maritime space since ages, serving as an important link among various regions of the globe regarding trade, social contacts, and cultural exchanges. The region was mostly peaceful during the pre-Vasco da Gama era, but the advent of Europeans set the stage for tough competition characterized by loot, plunder, and even wars. This foul environment kept on thriving and had prevailed till the end of the Second World War. Thereafter, the region appeared in a new refashioned scene where the USA emerged as a sole superpower of the world immediately after the collapse of its rival and competitor-USSR in 1991. The next dramatic turn arrived by the end of 20th century when the two Asian giants China and India, appeared on the global scene with swift growing economies, advancement in scientific knowledge and skilled workforce. With the onset of the 21st century, the IOR witnessed the growing attention of these big powers especially China and the USA along with the regional power India, with increasing competition because of the growing geopolitical and geo-economic significance of the region. Since the economy of these countries became heavily dependent on the energy imports mainly arriving from the Middle East and Africa and carried away through the Sea Lanes of Communications spanning the Indian Ocean from west to east, the security and safe arrival of these imports through the Indian Ocean has been treated as a chief necessity if the economy is to survive, sustain and grow. Further, the regions vast reserves of natural resource wealth both living and non-living further attracted the attention of these countries towards the region. This resulted in the ever-increasing involvement of these powers in the region. China iv having geographical constraints to easily access the Indian Ocean, started to wean India’s neighbours to make its foothold strong in the region while the USA directly joined hands with India to contain China’s expansion in the region. China expedited the process of securing greater cooperation with the littoral nations of the region, secured a goodwill place by employing different tools of maritime strategy like big investments for developing the infrastructure of these countries, increase in trade, political and diplomatic engagements, and military exchanges. China has been developing and operating many ports in the Indian Ocean countries like in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Maldives, Seychelles, Djibouti, Tanzania, Kenya. It is this increasing involvement of China where India finds herself at odds in some security perspectives. The study is an attempt to analyze the dynamics of Chinese involvement in the IOR, the possible concerns for India and India’s preparedness in response to such moves of China.Item INDIA AND CENTRAL ASIAN REPUBLICS ECONOMIC COOPERATION: AN ANALYSIS OF PROBLEMS AND POTENTIALS(Central University of Punjab, 2018) Kaur, Amandeep; Singh, BawaIndia and Central Asia have been enjoying long historical and civilizational relations since the recorded history. Due to the prominent historical links, both regions have been sharing great economic engagements as well. After coming under the imperial powers, these historical relations had been weakened and even if one says, the same had come to an end, would not be an exaggeration. With the disintegration of the former USSR, both the regions have started rediscovering each other. However, the relations between both the regions have been remained untapped and unrealized to the potentials given the internal and external dynamics. With the introduction of liberalization, globalization and privatization, Indian economy has been emerged as a potential economy. of India, it is a very peculiar situation. On the one hand, the Indian economy has growing at the faster pace but at the same time, its domestic energy is not coinciding. Moreover, India has been remained depended on Middle East Asian countries. Given, turbulence in the region, now India has been started looking towards the other regions as well. In this background, given geopolitical environment and substantial gap between production and consumption, India has been started reorienting towards the Central Asian Republics. Therefore, the present study India and Central Asia. For the first objective, Indo-CARs Economic Cooperation, the researcher has analysed the trade trends and patterns between India and CARs. The data has been taken from UNCOMTRADE database since 2000 to 2015 and have used SITC 02- digit code for all 99 commodities. It has also calculated the Hirschman Concentration also employed the gravity model to find the potential economic cooperation between both Indo-CARs. The second objective of this thesis is energy economics between India and CARs. Under this study, the researcher has examined the energy economics of India-CARs by using the empirical data from various energy database sources regarding crude oil and natural gas production/consumption as well imports and prices. The trade potential index has been measured to assess either the Central Asia will be a next future energy partner of India or not. In order to examine the third objective-geopolitical perspective, the scholar has made comparative study of China, Russia, and the U.S. with the region in terms of trade and energy cooperation and their implications for India. As far as the trends and patterns of economic cooperation is concerned, it has been found out that the trade between both the region is at the lowest ebb. The total trade between India and CARs is less than US$ 1 billion. Kazakhstan is the major trading partner of India among the CARs. The energy economics has pointed out that the total imports of oil and petroleum product by India is stood at the quantum of US$ 274 million. The comparative prices of the CARs are higher (Kazakhstan US$ 50p/b & Turkmenistan US$ 57p/b) than the other energy destinations. Thus, it is clearly indicated that CARs has not yet been a favorable energy supplier of India. However, it can be a significant energy provider of India by reducing the monopoly power of OPEC countries and other Middle East countries with competitive oil prices. The present study has also pointed out that China, Russia, and the - economic engagements with the region which have affected India energy interests in the region by introducing and implementing the various economic and energy projects. Along with the geopolitical challenges, it has also been found out that lack of connectivity and less liberalized economic policies on part of CARs are the major hurdle to realize the full potential of the economic and energy cooperation. Given these challenges, India and CARs have not been able to realize the full potential of economic and energy cooperation. However, India has been investing its investment in the direction of connectivity like INSTC and Chabahar projects. India and Central Asia have demographic dividends, large untapped markets, and institutionalized structural reforms are being putting in place. Therefore, it is anticipated that there is a huge potential for economic and energy cooperation between India and CARs.Item Indo-US Convergence of Agenda in the new Indo-Pacific Regional Security Architecture(Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd, 2020) Kumar, S; Verma, S.S; Shah, S.H.Strengthened Indo-US proximity has become a notable factor in the regional security architecture of the Indo-Pacific region, and also it raises ongoing concerns about its robustness. This article analyses the geostrategic, geoeconomic, security-related and defence-connected Indo-US relations in the region over the last two decades, highlighting the growing multidimensional convergence of US and Indian interests in the Indo-Pacific regional security architecture. In the final part, this article also sketches the future implications of Indo-US proximity and seeks to identify potential risks. -2020 SAGE Publications.Item 1951 Refugee Convention and its Protocol: Imperatives to Indian Perspective.(IMPACT, 2018) Noushadali, K; Kaushiki, NishthaBeing not a signatory to the notable International legal provisions passed for the betterment of refugees such as the United Nations Convention (1951) and protocol (1967), the Indian approach towards the refugees is worthy to do researches. It is for this reason that India responds sympathetically towards its refugee population following the principles of humanitarian considerations. Further, it is interesting to see that the Indian constitution is assuring some definite fundamental freedom to all without discriminating citizens and non-citizens. In order to preserve the fundamental freedoms of the foreigners and of course refugees (non-citizens), the Indian government had given them judicial backup too. This paper is an attempt to look at the importance of the International refugee conventions for the holistic betterment of the global refugee population. Further, the paper outlines the Indian perspectives on the global refugee laws and conventions. It also emphasizes that the Indian constitution and judiciary plays an important role in accommodating refugees, in relation to its political others, as well as ethnic affinities.Item The Post-Cold War Global Politics: A Study of India's Role in Nonaligned Movement(Central University of Punjab, 2018) Kumar, Manish; Verma, Sudheer SinghThe post-Second World War confrontational bipolarity enforced infant decolonised nations to adopt the policy of nonalignment to preserve their hard won sovereignty. India as pioneer nation introduced the notion of nonalignment and contributed to the development of Nonaligned Movement through prolonged collective deliberations with Asian and African countries for global peace and equitable global order. Using Nonaligned Movement's platform, India significantly gained her security, national development, and world order interests but loses some strategic interests during the war with China in 1962. However, being non-aligned, India has constructed enough capacity to cope further security challenges through building strategic alliances with suitable powers. India being a frequent participant country in periodical summits of Nonaligned Movement has committed to its principles and objectives. The end of the Cold War had posed several questions over its enduring existence in the global politics. The post-Cold War unipolarity has made Nonaligned Movement increasingly "responder" rather 'demander'. India's increased economic, military and political weight in global politics in the 21st century, realised New Delhi to calculate the potentials of Nonaligned Movement in accordance with its aspiration of great power status. In this context, by all reckoning, India is likely to be crediting the third world solidarity, nonetheless passionate for multialignment with major powers to gain its commensurate office in global governance.Item Neoliberal Politics: A Study of Restructuring of the Indian State(Central University of Punjab, 2018) Singh, Hushiar; Verma, Sudheer SinghNeoliberal Politics refers to 'economic rationalism', which is based on the efficiency of market forces and characterised it by minimal government intervention. It emerged in contrast to the welfare state model, in which the state takes responsibility for protection and socio-economic well-being of its citizens. On the other side, the neoliberal politics claims that the well-being of human can be forwarded by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills through private property rights, free market and free trade within the institutional framework. In post-independence era, Indian founding fathers constitute the developmental state structure for the welfare of the citizens. With the passage of time welfare state's institutional inefficiencies, government's unfinished distributive programmes, and slow economic progress induced the government towards neoliberal politics. Hence, in the wake of neoliberal politics in the 1980s, the Indian government has begun to transform the developmental path. Hereafter, the government has started to the institutional restructuring of the state and constituted new institutions for private entrepreneur lead development. As a result, the developmental state system has been restructured in order to free market system. With this background, the study has made an attempt to relook democratic socialist character of the Indian state and its journey from close to open market (1950 to 2014). After analysing the associated impacts on the democratic process and social welfare imperatives, the study concludes that the neoliberal politics has restructured the state institutions from the commanding control of the market system to the regulation based market system.Item The new great game in central asia : India's interests and challenges(Central University of Punjab, 2014) Thokar, Parvaiz Ahmad; Singh, BawaThe Great Game which divided Persia into a Russian-controlled northern zone, a nominally independent central zone, and a British-controlled southern zone, officially ended with the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. After the end of Cold War, Central Asia became the central point of attention by the world powers, US, Russia and China, EU etc and many other regional players. Possessing divergent interests, the competition among external powers in the region is popularly termed as the New Great Game. Central Asian governments are working to use renewed external involvement to their sovereign advantage, extract economic benefits and political support where possible. India considers the region as geo-strategically and economically vital to fulfill its various interests like energy, trade and investment, security etc and both the regions own multifaceted historical ties. Apart from economic and other commercial interests, India also considers the region vital for the security and stability of Afghanistan. At present Middle East region accomplishes the required energy imports of India but in recent times, the region turned more unstable. Hence Indian policymakers started thinking about an alternative source and identified Central Asia as the best option. Therefore, economic diplomacy remains India's basic policy thrust towards the region and needs no clash but a compatibility of interests with the new states. v India has to face many challenges to get connected with Central Asia like the New Great Game, lack of proper road link, religious extremism and terrorism, drug trafficking, small arms proliferation and the most challenging one that is NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014. India has to take lead to overcome the significant influence made by several regional powers and to make its own position extremely strong in the region. Hence this study will make an assessment about diverse interests that India possesses and various challenges due to role of external major powers in the region and also India's strategy to protect its interests in energy rich Central Asia.Item India's trade with six EU countries: Trends and patterns(Central University of Punjab, 2013) Kaur, Amandeep; Kaur, SandeepIndia and European Union trade relations go back to 1960s. Both sides started their bilateral trade relations after their first summit which, was held in 2000 and after that India-EU has gone through various rounds of summits and negotiations for improving the bilateral trade ties. As a result, Free Trade Agreement was agreed upon between them in 2007 but it is still not fully implemented. EU is India's largest trading partner which has accounted 14.8 percent in its total trade in 2011. The study has taken up six nations of EU namely Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and UK as these countries have a large average share of trade with India during 1996-2011. The study strives to find out the trade competitiveness and patterns of India with these six EU countries by using various indices like Trade Intensity Index (TII), Revealed Comparative Advantage Index (RCA), Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage Index (RSCA) and Intra Industry Trade Index (IIT). The study finds out that India's growth of exports are more as compared to imports towards these countries. Among EU's six countries, UK, Germany, Netherlands and France are the main trade partners of India. Regarding commodity composition, India's 'iron and steel', 'organic chemicals' and 'electrical equipments' are the main top ten export commodities and 'pearls and precious stones metals & coins etc', 'organic chemicals', 'electrical equipment', 'iron and steel', 'nuclear reactors', 'optical photos' and 'commodities elsewhere classified' are in the top ten import commodities of India from these six countries. Regarding RCA index of India with these countries commodities namely 'silk', 'cotton', 'articles of accessories' and 'articles of leather' and 'animals guts' have still remained in top position during the whole study period and with the severe effect of Euro crisis, some of the commodities lost their earlier place in 2011 like Indian 'cotton', 'tea coffee' and 'carpets'. RSCA index shows almost same results for these commodities. Then in the IIT index for 'chemicals and allied industries', 'wood and wood products', 'metals' and 'machinery electrical' accounted higher value of IIT index in 2000 but it has been decreasing in 2011. The study suggested that, there is diversification in goods and latest technology should be used to benefit from bilateral trade. There is still further scope to improve the FDI flows between India-EU. India should adopt policies which are open, attractive and investor friendly to enhance the FDI flows. There is a need to implement the FTA agreement at fast pace, for this there is great requirement of political will.Item Transboundary implications of damming river brahmaputra and response of indian government(Central University of Punjab, 2014) Naik, Mohd. Hussain; Singh, Kiran K.Rivers play an important role in the lives of the people. Rivers provide water for irrigation, potable drinking water, cheap transportation, electricity, as well as livelihoods for a large number of people. On one hand river is source of livelihood but on another it is also a source of conflict. When it is shared by two states or two nations it may raise tension on the water sharing issues. The depleting water resource, pollution and unequal regional distribution are some of the factors that pose challenge to handling such issues. When it is International River it may cause severe conflict and hence nations try to resolve the issue through treaties and agreement. Brahmaputra is one of the mighty rivers with its headwaters in Tibet. Brahmaputra has a high potential of hydropower and is one of the untapped rivers originating on the Tibetan plateau. But now the two growing economies and riparian countries i.e. India and China have proposed a large number of dams to be constructed on the river. There is a huge plan of construction work but there is an absence of any treaty between these two countries. China's dam policy has raised severe concern for the downstream countries. This study is an attempt to highlight the trans-boundary implications of the dams, how damming of the river will impact a huge proportion of world population living downstream, how it will change the river-scape and also the local environment and what is the response of lower riparian countries i.e., India. The study revolves around three objectives; To analyse the current water situation of India and China; To analyse the Impact of damming and diverting the Brahmaputra river for India; To analyse the Indian v government response on the dam construction by China on river Brahmaputra. The study is being done through consulting primary as well as secondary sources of data like, reports of Ministry of Water Resource of India, Central Electricity Authority, various related books, articles, research papers and newspapers.