Raja Mandala: The world beyond Pakistan

Mains Paper: 2 | Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements
involving India and/or affecting India's interests
Prelims level: Brexit
Mains level: At UN, India must look to engage with structural changes unfolding in the international system.

Context 

• Will Sushma Swaraj attend the customary meeting of the South Asian foreign ministers, and if she does, will she shake hands with Qureshi?
• Might they chat for a couple of moments?

Important highlights of the conflict

• One unfortunate casualty of this war of words has been the deepening inability of the two countries to engage with the larger global issues.
• There was a time when the voices of both Pakistan and India mattered on the world stage.
• Islamabad rightly saw itself as a pragmatic Islamic nation capable of exercising influence in the Middle East and acting as a bridge between America and China, which did not have diplomatic relations
• with each other.
• Today, despite its growing economic salience and expanding global footprint, India seems obsessed with a few issues rather than engage with the unfolding structural changes in the international system.

From India’s angle 

• Delhi persists with the futile quest for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, when all indications are that it is unlikely to happen.
• Delhi has also devoted far too much energy in the pursuit of the international convention against terrorism.
• The essence of Trump’s “America First” has been the promise to liberate US from the “globalist trap” that it had been boxed in for decades.

Decision are taken by President Trump

• Since he took charge, Trump has walked out of the Paris agreement on climate change, withdrew from the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organisation, the UN Human Rights Council, and
• threatened the International Criminal Court with punitive actions.
• A second important theme is global trade.
• Trump is threatening to pull out of the World Trading Organisation and choking its dispute-settlement mechanism, again in the name of sovereignty.
• He has junked the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by the Obama administration.
• Trying to construct a new Middle East Security Alliance of Arab nation.

Conclusion 

• What should matter for India is the fact that the geopolitics of the Gulf region — where India has massive economic and political stakes — is undergoing unprecedented change.
• So is the world trading system and the nature of multilateralism. 
• India’s diplomatic engagements at the UN this year should be about crafting a new strategy to address these challenges.

UPSC Prelims Questions: 

Q.1)  Consider the following international conventions related to Wild Life conservations:
1. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora (CITES)
2. International Whaling Commission (IWC)
3. Convention on Migratory Species (CMS)
India is party to which of the above conventions?
(a) 1 only
(b) 1 and 2 only
(c) 2 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer:  D

UPSC Mains Questions:
Q.1)  Will Sushma Swaraj attend the customary meeting of the South Asian foreign ministers, and if she does, will she shake hands with Qureshi?

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