(This article forms a part of the View From India newsletter curated by The Hindu’s foreign affairs experts. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Monday, subscribe here.)
Queen Elizabeth II
The passing of Queen Elizabeth II, the United Kingdom’s longest-serving monarch who reigned for over seven decades since the early post-War years, marked the end of an era for the British monarchy. Our London correspondent Sriram Lakshman tracked the development that came just days after Queen Elizabeth appointed former U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
“As epochal was her rule, so too could the impact of her passing be on the mission and prospects of the Commonwealth,” said The Hindu, in its editorial reflecting on her life, death, and questions about the state of the monarchy vis-à-vis the Commonwealth realms.
India announced a day of National Mourning on September 11 to mark her passing.
India-Bangladesh in focus
Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina’s visit to New Delhi last week assumed significance for many reasons, including the differences over sharing of rivers. Here, Kallol Bhattacherjee explains the importance of the Kushiyara river treaty, the first river-sharing agreement in nearly three decades, between India and Bangladesh.
How does Bangladesh view the visit and the outcome of her visit? Bangladesh Minister of State for Foreign Affairs speaks to Suhasini Haidar. The state visit of PM Hasina to India amply showcased the high stakes of both polities in their bilateral ties, imbued with regional significance, wrote former diplomat Rajiv Bhatia. India and Bangladesh must focus on future cooperation based on past partnership, The Hindu editorial said.
Modi, Xi to head to Uzbekistan
Strained ties: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2019. PTI -
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Samarkand this week to attend the first in-person summit of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) countries since the COVID-19 pandemic. At the summit, he will come face to face with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time since the stand-off at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) began in April 2020. President Xi, for whom this will be the first visit abroad in nearly three years, is expected to hold talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, Ananth Krishnan reports from Beijing.
In the neighbourhood and beyond
As Sri Lanka continues grappling with a harrowing economic crisis, President Ranil Wickremesinghe expanded his Cabinet with 37 new junior ministers, including a Rajapaksa.
Meanwhile, Colombo also prepares to face a resolution in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, after the Human Rights High Commissioner’s recent report noted that “impunity” for human rights abuses, economic crimes, and corruption was the “underlying” reason for the country’s collapse.
The Top Five
- Promises to keep, an emotional vacuum to fill – Narayan Lakshman profiles the newly-elected British Prime Minister and weighs in on the many crucial tasks that await her.
- What powers will Britain’s new monarch, King Charles III, hold? Diksha Munjal writes.
- What is the G7 planning on Russian oil? Suhasini Haidar explains.
- This was Chile’s ‘disaster in the making’ – scholar and former Chilean diplomat Jorge Heine writes on the overwhelming rejection of a new constitutional draft by the country’s electorate. Also, read The Hindu’s Editorial here.
- Arun Maira writes on Gorbachev, macro-economics, and Gandhi.
