WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR INDIA TO HAVE GOOD RELATIONS WITH SMALL NATIONS?

According to Kautilaya – If you don’t have good relations with the neighbors, your kingdom cannot sustain longer and in the long term your people will suffer heavily.

In the modern era, if you have good relations with neighbors, especially in international politics, you have a better and secure future. When I am talking about neighbors it means, I am talking about bigger and smaller nations. I live in India, and we have many neighbors, some are loyal to us, some are our rivals, some are our competitors and some are “two-faced”. We need to have good relations with each and every neighbor country. Today I will discuss how the present foreign strategy of India will strengthen our relations with our neighbors, who were ignored in the last decade. 

In the last two decades, the one thing India lacked was the “sweet relationships” with smaller nations around us. Relationship with nations like Bhutan, Seychelles, Mauritius, Nepal and Sri Lanka were not on the right track. We had affection for the USA, and we gave too much priority for USA but we had not much contact with these small nations. We gave importance for “super-powers” of the world and we unnoticed these nations. It compensated us heavily in defense and security sector, as their Government was not helping us and intruders as well as spies were entering our nation. Now, who are these spies? From which nation they belong? We had not much idea. A nation like China was making influence in these nations and was developing them as per their requirement. Always remember, China and India have a bitter history, and in Asia both nations are struggling to be a super power in this region. The race is for the spot no. 1, a supreme force in this province. India believes in competition, but China believes in monopoly. India believes that small nations (that I mentioned above) should rise above in every sector, but China wants its development more than any others. And that is why China was making good bonds with small nations in the Asian continent, so that it can manipulate them whenever it want and India was scarce this department. Every nation was becoming Pro-China & Anti-India, and believe me we were facing a typical situation as the USA was playing a twofold game with us. On one hand, they were helping our rivals, especially Pakistan and on the other hand they were showing themselves as our “friend”. We paid really heavily in terms of investment, security, foreign policy and else. The neighbor did not believe and invested in us and did not provide us the support which we were expecting from them. You can say we were in the tight path!

However, now we have a new leader named as Narendra Modi and a foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, who are working day and night on making “fruitful” relationship with our neighbors. Prime Minister Modi visited Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Mauritius & Seychelles, and each and every nation got something from us, it might be financial help or technology. Now believe me our neighbors either its big shot like Japan or Russia or small nations like Bangladesh, Bhutan etc. are with us and helping us in many platforms. This is what we want, we want to have good relations even with China, we do not need war, and we want peace and prosperity in Asia and all over the world. This is what was missing from our nation and present Government is successful in achieving that. I want more and more success in foreign policy and better relations with our neighbor and other foreign nations. As foreign policy is the factor of raising investment & trust in one nation. That is why relations are important with small nations as well, so that we can avoid a war and increase our trade. We should weigh both developed & developing nations equally. Every nation should be our friend & accomplice.

REFORMIST OR POPULIST?

Today, the railway minister of India Mr. Suresh Prabhu presented his maiden railway budget for the year 2015. In India, whenever you try to do something, people instigate their criticism before it; they start to talk about the negative instead of saying that we can achieve this aim. Such thing goes with this railway budget as well! One group of leaders and media is appreciating this and calling it as the ‘reformist’ budget while other group is calling it a ‘squander’ budget. So what is the reality- is it a game changer or this one has disappointed the nation. Let us discuss this one without being biased –

·         There was no hike in the fare of railway this time, as the fare was raised in the month of July and believe me our railway sector is gaining huge revenue since then, yes we are facing inflation due to that but we have to sacrifice something, if we want to improve railways for future.

·         The cleanliness is an important thing in our daily life, but you cannot see it in a railway coach. Especially in India, we can see grimy condition every where even in the railway station. This budget had the focus on cleanliness not in coaches but in stations as well.

·         Yes there was little hike in the loading fare but remember if people want services they have to pay. There cannot be any kind of compromise with the economy, if we do not increase fare how we will generate more revenue for other ideas. Yes, privatization is a solution but it is not a good initiative to privatize everything, it has its side-effects too.

·         Adding some basic provisions in the general bogey such as charging point, cameras for women security, television facility in some railway compartments and quality food for the passenger is a good move.

·         The biggest problem in Indian railway is that we do not get the trains at regular time. There is delay in the trains, which makes our journey full of tragedies and discomfort. I hope this budget and this spirit of Railway Minister will transform Indian rail.

·         We do not get tickets especially, when we are booking an immediate/tatakal ticket for our journey. Introducing tickets from mobile app and help lines will help youth and it will stop the black market too as booking period of one train is now extended up to 120 days from 60 days. Also announced the high speed trains of 200Km/hr in 9 routes.

·         Using railway station building for the other purposes such as shopping malls, restaurants is also a great shift. The private parties can use the building by paying the rent of that place.

·         Disposable bags, disposable beds and vacuum toilets are also a great progress.

According to me this is a reformist budget and its effects will be observed after a time. You need time to see the results, so I believe this will be a game changer. The condition of railways is not a good one but there is some scope for the improvement now. What I was expecting from the present Government they have delivered to us, but it requires some time to implement on the ground. This budget was a ‘reformist’ one than a ‘populist’ one. I hope I have explained every aspect related to this budget.

Satyamev Jayate

Well, Today I saw an episode of “Satyamev Jayate” and it was focussed on the role of sports in the life of an individual. You may say what’s new in this we know about it, but the way Aamir Khan presented this show was amazing. I was a sportsman too during my school and college life, I have a good experience and knowledge of sports, but the way “Satyamev Jayate” happened today I was delighted. Seriously this television show is my all time favourite and I never miss any episode. They raise all the issues which have major concern with the Indian society. They show true picture of any issue, related personal experiences and they also tell the solution to overcome that issue. I mean they bring positivity by a great eye-opener episode; every episode of “Satyamev Jayate” is a big secret until it gets on-air.

Today in the first episode of season-3, they talked about role of sports in an individual’s life. They talked about a guy who was a gangster once, but one football changed his life. He was transformed from a goon to a sober guy. They gave a good example of Phogat sisters from Haryana who got success by fighting against all odds, survived from the social humiliation and brought glory for their family and nation. Their father gave a very good reply to society when they were practising wrestling in their village that if a woman can be a Prime minister why she can’t be a wrestler. Wow! What a thinking he has. Next they gave an example of Subham Jaglan a nine year old golfer who has won 110 tournaments till now. Our country has a great talent and potential these three examples were enough to explain that. We have a huge amount of talent, it’s clear.

Now what is the problem? I mean why we are not successful in clinching gold medals in Olympics, why we struggle in getting one gold in the mega event. Why we don’t learn from China, they have excellent infrastructure, management and people who really contribute for the nation without any self gain. We should learn from our neighbour nations who are smaller in size as compared to India but they perform better in sports than India.

We should set free our sports administration from political interference. It is sucking our talent and calibre; they usually prefer their favourite persons in the teams, and the people who have no resources faces degradation from them. Seriously a talented person should get enough chances to show his talents in every field. We should expect good performers in sports not some people who are there due to the favour of few politicians. I expect our new Govt. to make a law against those politicians who spoil the sports and play dirty politics there. I hope our parents will wake up and let their children to play any sport which ever they like. They shouldn’t force their child to do what they want; they should set him/her free to choose their career. I hope our Indian society will learn something from our sports heroes. I hope my country will perform better in Rio 2016!