This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the first visit by a senior Obama administration official to India in an effort to urge an “exciting new approach” to relations between the two countries. While there, Secretary Clinton engaged in discussions on clean energy technology and women’s rights, and signed a deal allowing the sale of sophisticated U.S. defense technology to India.
Read more »

By Nina Merchant

Nina Merchant is The Asia Foundation’s Assistant Director of Economic Programs. She can be reached at nmerchant@asiafound.org.

Recently, on an unbearably hot and steamy day walking down a traders lane in Mumbai, I found myself marveling at how much the country has truly transformed. As a first-generation Indian-American, I have been traveling to the country since I was child, and, while I have noticed the obvious economic changes taking place-the beautiful new Bangalore international airport, the glow of television sets in even the most informal dwellings in Mumbai, the sight of cell phones in a remote Rajasthan village where houses are still constructed from cattle dung-I had truly missed the real change until that moment: the growing confidence in Indian society. India had become a place of dreams.

My earliest memory of India was arriving at Mumbai international airport with my parents and getting stopped by customs officials. Like most Indians living abroad, my father would pack suitcases full of items that were difficult for my family to buy in India (or for which the quality in India was bad). On that particular trip, my grandmother had asked for a toaster. The officials inspected the toaster and pulled my father aside to tell him there would be a large customs duty for this “foreign luxury item.”
Read more »

By Rajendra Abhyankar

Rajendra Abhyankar, former Indian Ambassador, is currently The Asia Foundation’s Director of India Programs in New Delhi. He can be reached at rabhyankar@asiafound.org.

Observing from the welcome shade of a neem tree in the quadrangle of this school, I watched clusters of colorfully dressed women, undaunted by the 43 degree Celsius (109.4 degree Fahrenheit) temperatures, stride up to the polling centre. I was in Bhilwa, a small village on the edge of the Great Indian Desert in Rural Jaipur. India’s Election Commission had invited me – along with Election Commission officials from Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines – to witness the election process in this part of the country. As the women moved to vote, we were struck by the depth to which democracy has seeped into India’s polity. These women voters were part of the Dausa constituency, a region that has recently seen clashes between and protests by the region’s two main tribes, the Meenas and Gujjars.

The results of India’s mammoth, one-month-long General Elections were finally known on May 16th. 714 million Indians registered to vote; and 57 percent of them voted. This represents, in the democratic world, the acme of political mobilization and organizational complexity. The suspense and dire predictions of a hung Parliament are now over. All of the political parties were hoping to gain leverage in this election, yet the perceptive Indian voter has, once again, ignored the rhetoric of religion, caste, and personality and put stability and governance first.
Read more »

By Ambassador Rajendra Abhyhankar

Ambassador Rajendra Abhyhankar is The Asia Foundation’s Director for India Programs in India. He can be reached at  rabhyankar@asiafound.org.

The Asia Foundation, in partnership with the University of Mumbai, sponsored a series of Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) events in Mumbai around the visit of the Climate Solutions Road Tour (CSRT). The Tour set off from Chennai earlier this year and ended in New Delhi, just before the Sustainable Development Summit. It visited 15 cities along the way, including Pune and Mumbai. At each city they organized events focusing on local initiatives for climate change. The cynosure of all eyes were the caravan of colorful REVA electrically-powered cars manufactured in Bangalore that run for 150 km on one hour electric charge.

The tour left from Pune for Mumbai in the early hours of January 17, reaching the amazing city well before noon.
Read more »

By Chris Plante

Chris Plante is The Asia Foundation’s Director of the Environment Program. He can be reached at cplante@asiafound.org. Recently, he participated in a panel discussion titled “Water Worries: Balancing the Water We Need with the Water We Have” aired on City Visions Radio.

Thinking about World Water Day this Sunday, March 22nd, and the 2009 World Water Day theme of Transboundary Water, “sharing water, sharing opportunities,” I am reminded of “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost’s 1914 poem in which he asks why two neighbors must rebuild the stone wall dividing their farms each spring. Today, the unwritten rule – that good fences make good neighbors – makes plenty of sense to most of us. Our cities and suburbs, farms and factories, power plants and parks, and roads and rivers share common geography, boundaries, and neighbors.
Read more »

Mr. Amandeep Gill, director of Disarmament and International Security Affairs in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, spoke at The Asia Foundation’s office in San Francisco on March 12 to a distinguished audience of experts, scholars, and officials from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley, Santa Clara University, and the Indian Consulate General. Mr. Gill is currently a visiting fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), under the auspices of The Asia Foundation, where he researches disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation, Asian regional security, and human security issues. He is currently researching the interaction of nuclear policies of major states, particularly in Asia.

On Thursday, Mr. Gill spoke about India as a nuclear power, policy implications for the new U.S. administration and Asia, the nuclear policies of major states, and the de-legitimization of nuclear weapons. He said the rise of the non-state actor as a strategic player has dramatically changed the rules of the game: a nuclear weapon could come without a return address. Another new element is the salience of Asia as a nuclear power.

Read more »

On January 29, 2009, in New Delhi, The Asia Foundation and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) convened top India and U.S. experts to examine U.S.-India relations under the new Obama Administration. The following is a summary of the day’s discussions and analysis prepared by CII.

Indian and American business leaders, academics, and journalists came together in late January to discuss and debate the “Future Direction of U.S. Relations with India and the Region” in New Delhi. Organized by The Asia Foundation and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the discussion focused on the Foundation’s recent report, “America’s Role in Asia: Asian and American Views” and highlighted issues needing attention to strengthen U.S.-India relations under the new U.S. Administration. The discussions covered deepening trade and commerce links, collaborating on technology innovations to address climate change, and developing counter-terrorism strategies, and ensuring stability in Asia. Given the sheer size and economic weight of Asia – and with India emerging as a major player – America’s future is inextricably linked to the region.

Read more »

By Ambassador Karl F. Inderfurth

Karl F. Inderfurth is a professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and a member of The Asia Foundation’s Board of Trustees. He served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs from 1997-2001 and as U.S. representative to the United Nations for Special Political Affairs from 1993-1997. Ambassador Inderfurth testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ Middle East and South Asia Subcommittee on February 26, 2009. Here is what he said.

Chairman Ackerman, Ranking Member Burton, Members of the Committee: Mr. Chairman, you and I had the privilege of joining President Bill Clinton on his five-day visit to India in March 2000. Little did we know then that today that visit is seen as a “turning point” in U.S.-India relations. After decades of being “estranged democracies,” the United States and India have entered a new era that can best be described as “engaged democracies.”

It is truly amazing just how far the U.S.-India relationship has come in less than a decade. This remarkable transformation in relations, started under Clinton, was then accelerated under President George W. Bush and is now set to continue its positive, upward trajectory under President Barack Obama.
Read more »

By Rajendra Abhyankar

Ambassador Rajendra Abhyankar was the Indian Secretary of External Affairs from 2001-2004 and has served as the Indian Ambassador to the EU, Belgium and Luxemburg, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Syria, and Cyprus. He was also the Consul General of India in San Francisco, California. He currently serves as The Asia Foundation’s Director of India Programs. He can be reached at rabhyankar@asiafound.org.

In India, a country whose organising principle is that of a casteless and classless society, Barack Obama’s taking office as the 44th U.S. President has struck a resonating chord. Caste and class still dominate domestic politics here, and there is widespread recognition that America has again shown the way, and the increasing number of democratic countries pledged to multi-culturalism and plurality look to America to continue to set the example. Indians’ collective elation was expressed recently in a leading Indian newspaper: “…in the fact of Obama’s presidency alone, the souls of a people long oppressed find utterance, to use Jawaharlal Nehru’s words for India.” This American milestone is replete with promise, but equally fraught with dangers. We wait to see the way that this develops, now that Obama is in office. But the common journey of India and the United States to try to close the gaps within our societies, provides a new under-pinning for India-US relations for the future. The struggle to build a multi-cultural society of equals is an uphill one and there is much to learn from one other.
Read more »

By C. Raja Mohan

C. Raja Mohan is Professor of South Asian Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and a Contributing Editor of ‘The Indian Express’, New Delhi. He recently made South Asia policy recommendations for the incoming administration through The Asia Foundation’s 2008 America’s Role in Asia project.

Raja Mohan

After the awful terror attacks against Mumbai last month, the conventional wisdom in the Subcontinent and beyond is that the weak governments in New Delhi and Islamabad may be unable to manage the gathering crisis in Indo-Pak relations and will inevitably drift towards a military conflict.

Yet, with the help of some purposeful diplomacy from Washington, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari have managed to postpone if not avoid the more terrible consequences of the terrorist aggression against Mumbai.
Read more »