Publications : Opinion & Commentary
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A Time for Strategic Autonomy, Building Up National Strength
Shivshankar Menon writes about the need to strengthen India's autonomy while working with major powers and our neighbours.Warring over disarmament in the UN
For most people the UN is the venue of an annual kabuki theatre where world leaders come to make sonorous speeches and snipe at each other to score points with populations back home. While these theatrics, played out every September from the UN General Assembly (UNGA), make for high entertainment, they do ...For a greater global role, here’s why India should take SDGs...
On 19 July, India presented its first voluntary national report on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the UN. Although India was just one of 43 countries to do so this year, it was, doubtless, the most anticipated report; there is broad consensus that the success or failure of the ...India has played a significant role in shaping 3 key deals in 2015
2015 will be remembered for bold initiatives at the bilateral, plurilateral and multilateral level As 2015 draws to an end, it will be remembered for bold initiatives and done deals at the bilateral, plurilateral and multilateral level, which will flourish or flounder depending on how successfully they are implemented. Almost all of ...Avoiding a cop out in Paris
Three of the most exciting initiatives have emerged on the sidelines of the official deliberations, and Indians have played a prominent role in all of them Ever since Charles Lindbergh landed at Le Bourget Field at the end of his epochal maiden solo, non-stop transatlantic flight between New York and Paris in ...UN missions bedrock of India’s military engagement and assistance to...
India must have a serious dialogue with African countries on its role in future peacekeeping operations on the continent. India’s participation in the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKO) is probably without parallel; it has been one of the largest contributors of peacekeepers and has suffered the most casualties in the process. Eighty per ...Great power dance at the United Nations
Coupled with the re-engagement of existing and emerging powers with the proceedings, the UNGA is becoming an important venue for a great power dance Time was when the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) jamboree in New York was an entertaining but worthless talkfest used by leaders such as Hugo Chavez, Muammar ...SGDs: India’s potential path to global power
Fact: India is home to more than 30% of the world’s extremely poor people Fact: Uttar Pradesh accounts for 8% of world’s population living in extreme poverty Fact: 8 Indian states have more poor than 25 of the poorest countries in Africa Fact: There are 66 million poor people in UP alone, more ...From Pittsburgh to Antalya
The G-20 may have to revert to its crisis management role, but in more complex conditions The G-20 finance ministers and Central Bank governors meeting took place last Friday and Saturday in Ankara, Turkey. The group’s summit meeting will be held in Antalya in mid-November, seven years after the 2008 summit in ...UNSC: Misreading an opportunity
Recent news reports would have us believe that India’s chances for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) have been scuppered even before they began by the very countries that promised to support its case when the reality is the other way around. This is tantamount to reading a ...Keeping peace among peacekeepers
The word peacekeeping does not appear anywhere in the Charter of the UN. Yet, ever since the first peacekeeping operation was launched in May 1948 in the Middle East, that one word evokes the very raison d’etre of the world body. Since then the UN has deployed 70 peacekeeping operations with some ...Modi’s prayer at the multilateral altar
This column first appeared in Mint, on September 29, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the authors. The inevitable hype over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, particularly the impressive line up ...Why multilateralism matters for India
Conventional wisdom suggests that great powers and aspiring great powers prefer bilateralism to multilateralism or plurilateralism; they consider the former a characteristic of the strong and regard the latter only as the privilege of the weak. India is no exception. Yet, multilateralism offers a useful path for countries to emerge as great ...