India’s foreign policy needs to be constantly evolving in a dynamic world as it guides the country’s relations with other nations in every sphere of interaction, said former ambassador to Syria, V.P. Haran.
He was addressing the students of National Institute of Technology (NIT) here as part of an outreach activity of Ministry of External Affairs and the institute’s golden jubilee celebrations on Monday. Speaking about ‘India’s foreign policy – challenges ahead’, Mr Haran observed that Russia’s growing proximity with China and Pakistan, and Pakistan encouraging cross border terrorism were challenges that India needs to tackle in the coming years.
“We have not been entirely successful in mobilising the international condemnation of Pakistan in its support to terrorism. However, there is growing recognition at the international level on Pakistan’s involvement in terrorist activities in India. Hopefully, this will lead to some meaningful action against Pakistan,” he said.
Global terrorism
The senior officer pointed out that terrorism has become a globalised industry and does not have any religion. “Terrorists change their affiliations quite easily. A terrorist in Al Qaeda today may switch loyalty to Islamic State tomorrow and fight his former comrades. The money and brutality is more attractive to them than ideology,” he pointed out.
Stating that foreign trade contributes significantly to economic growth and employment, Mr Haran favoured continued dialogue with other countries, particularly the Doha round of trade negotiations.
“We are facing unfair competition from China which continues to be a non-market economy despite their commitments in World Trade Organisation. The US has been resorting to bilateral measures on trade related issues ignoring multilateral rules agreed upon in the WTO framework,” he pointed out.
NIT director N.V. Ramana Rao, registrar S. Govardhan Rao, dean (International Relations) K.V. Jayakumar were present at the lecture.
