India to offer ALHs to Indonesia, this time with training, maintenance package

New Delhi, March 24: India is offering its indigenously-built Advanced Light Helicopters (ALHs) Dhruv to Indonesia but taking out a leaf from its experience in Latin America it will be clubbing maintenance and training in the package as well.

If Indian defence diplomacy gets through the deal the ALHs will be operating in China’s backyard and it would be nothing sort of a coup with the Indian-built helicopters operating from Chinese background.

A Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official told me, “We will be making our offer for ALHs to Indonesia and this time with training and maintenance package as our experience in Ecuador has taught us.” ALHs, made by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and supplied to Ecuador, had crashed bringing a bad name to the home-built choppers.

India does not have a defence export policy but it does have a secret list of countries that it will not be selling the defence equipment to. Recently, India has been pushing its defence diplomacy to help the countries in the South-East Asian region – namely Indonesia and Vietnam – to develop potent armed forces. So far the defence element of cooperation between these countries have been largely focussed on training armed forces personnel and joint wargames.

Road to Vietnam to be reality soon

Dreaming of a road trip to Vietnam via Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos? It might become a reality in the near future.

Against the backdrop of Beijing flexing its muscles after the South China Sea verdict, India is seeking to increase its last-mile connectivity to southeast Asia by extending the trilateral highway, planned by the six-member Mekong–Ganga Cooperation (MGC) group, to Vietnam via Cambodia and Laos. Earlier, the highway was to stop at Thailand.

“The Ministers welcomed the consultation between ASEAN Connectivity Coordination Committee and India and agreed to discuss the extension of the Trilateral Highway through Cambodia, Lao PDR and the new highway to Vietnam,” the MGC member countries — India, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam —- said in a joint statement.

The highway would be pivotal to the Mekong-India Economic Corridor passing through the fertile river basins of the Brahmaputra and the Mekong.

The decision to construct the 1,360-km India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway was taken in 2004 at an estimated cost of $700 million. However, the project faced economic and political hurdles. The project gained some traction last year as the India-Myanmar-Thailand Motor Vehicle Agreement was signed. Presently, trade with Myanmar and Thailand is via sea and industry estimates see it growing to $100 billion in the next five years.

Amid the increasing Chinese influence in the region, the trans-Asian railway project under the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) to create an integrated freight railway across Europe and Asia has been already agreed upon by 17 countries.The Trilateral Highway would bring the land-locked Northeast of India closer to the mainland by increasing the connectivity with South East Asia and the ease of doing business. India has already built 160 km of this highway and invited a tender for upgrading bridges and roads.

New Alignments, not non-alignment for Indian foreign policy

New Delhi, September 6: The new alignment in India’s engagement with the World will get an evident twist this month as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while giving the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) Summit a miss; will be cementing New Delhi’s ties with the South East Asian countries as he head to second country in the region in a week. 

After making a pit stop at Vietnam enroute to G-20 summit in the Eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, will be embarking on a visit to Lao PDR on September 7th where he will be attending the 14th ASEAN-India Summit and the 11th East Asia Summit.

“This will be the third ASEAN (The Association of the Southeast Asian Nations) Summit to be attended by Prime Minister Modi. ASEAN is central to India’s Act East policy,” Secretary East Preeti Saran said while elaborating on the importance of the event.

The renewed diplomatic focus on the Mekong sub-region (comprising of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam) stems from the fact that it links the Bay of Bengal with the South China Sea through land. The South China Sea is pivotal to Indian interests as 50 percent of its trade passes through its sea lanes. The Mekong sub-region, thus, has become an area of geopolitical rivalry between India and China. 

The Prime Minister will also attend the East Asia Summit of which it has been one of the co-founders. Connectivity and trade will be high on agenda.

The Laos visit will means that the Prime Minister has traveled to all the countries in the Mekong sub-region, barring Cambodia. The region has taken a centre-stage in India’s foreign policy as evident by the Prime Minister’s whirlwind tours to the countries – he reached Hanoi on night of September 2^nd and left for Hangzhou on September 3rd evening. He returned to India on September 5^th evening and shall be reaching Laos on September 7^th.

The visits have been highlighted as the Prime Minister will not be attending the NAM Summit in a departure from the tradition of Indian Prime Ministers attending the event. Top diplomats have been talking about how G-20 is a better representative of the present day world over without explicitly denouncing the relevance of NAM, founded during the Cold War era.

The South Block mandarins have been trying to downplay the turn of events citing Prime Minister Modi’s chock-o-block itinerary for foreign visits. But the subtle signal does indicate a major shift the way India will be conducting its diplomacy.