PROGRAMMES
India's Foreign Policy-
Exploration in a World of Contestation
The project attempts to analyze the different aspects of Indian
foreign policy from decision making to implementation; from basic
principles to contemporary challenges. It is an attempt to understand
how far India's global emergence can be cooperative or competitive
or more rationally a combination of the two. The essential linkage
between India and the global playing field is its foreign policy
with specific economic, political and strategic objectives. The
project seeks to make a qualitative contribution to this linkage
so that national interest can be realized while contributing to
international stability.
India's Look-East
Policy: The Next Steps
The project on India's Look East Policy aims to determine the content,
rationale, progression and determinants of the renewed emphasis
on the east by the country. The project would build up on the series
of pro active policies and measures undertaken in recent years to
this end and proposes to examine these and the interlinkages involved.
Necessarily, different components - economic, political and security
- would be delved into and analysed with reference to the bilateral
and regional context of the undertaking. A special emphasis would
be on the many different and still evolving frameworks of bilateral
and multilateral cooperative endeavours. The place and role of the
North Eastern region of the country in the making and success of
the Look East Policy would also be examined. Still another component
of the project would be to establish and institutionalize Track
II interaction with credible and reputed institutions and organizations
in all the countries to the east of India. Look East Policy as a
vital adjunct to India's emerging strategic policy would be analyzed.
SAARC in the 21st
Century: Shared Opportunity, Shared Responsibility
The logic of neighborhood existence and largely common historical
links among the countries of South Asian Region provide beneficial
conditions for cooperation in the region. Piecemeal cooperation
in specific sectors at the regional level however has fallen short
of much-preferred receptivity of these positive impulses. Cooperation
in the region on the contrary faces numerous challenges. States
of South Asia are placed in a historically unique situation, where
the processes of state formation, industrialization, democratization
and interdependence have synchronized and instead of greater collaboration
have made problems of adjustment and adaptation difficult. The dilemmas
and contradictions inherent in South Asian cooperation have resulted
from the simultaneous impact of the transformative forces independently
pursued by the states.
Given India’s regional profile the country
is expected to shoulder important responsibilities for fostering
cooperation in South Asia. The 14th SAARC Summit is historic in
more than one way. For the first time the group has expanded its
membership, to include Afghanistan as a permanent member and five
other countries as Observers. The Summit Declaration made at Dhaka
emphasized that the Organization had now entered the ‘implementation
phase’. India’s chairmanship of SAARC assumes a critical
connotation given the expansion of the Organization’s agenda
and membership.
In an attempt to give expression to these multiple
concerns the Global India Foundation in seeks to provide a platform
for open discussion and interaction among the major stakeholders
in the process of regional cooperation in South Asia. The project
also seeks to work out the benefits of various regional projects
and prioritize programs so that policy makers can take more informed
decisions. Such professional interaction and research can help create
the required public opinion, and convince the skeptics, so that
Governments are better empowered in pursuing new initiatives.
Track II Diplomacy
- Concepts and Issues
Track II surmises all informal interaction among influential actors
that go in to support and supplement regular Track I initiatives
at confidence building and assist official leaders to compensate
the constraints imposed by Track I negotiations. This project delves
into the conceptual dualities within the premise of Track II and
the broad parameters within which it can operate, while sustaining
respectful dialogues between Tracks I and II. The project seeks
to suggest institutionalized mechanisms through which insights of
Track II can be fed into Track I with greater effectiveness and
integrity. Studies would be undertaken for exploring the potential
of Track II in India's bilateral relations with regard to specific
countries in the neighborhood and the East Asian region.
Oil Diplomacy
India, with its rapidly expanding economy, is expected
to emerge as the fourth largest energy consumer by 2010. The need
for hydrocarbon resources is therefore only going to grow. In a
world where these resources are becoming increasingly scarce, India
faces serious challenges, particularly from other booming economies.
In its quest for adequate energy security, India has forged strategic
alliances with supplier countries like Iran, Sudan, Venezuela and
Myanmar, some of which do not meet international human rights or
non-proliferation standards. The present project plans to delve
into the politics of oil, oil diplomacy and its long and short term
implications for India.
‘Peaceful Rise
of China’- An Analysis of Ramification
The project on 'Peaceful Rise of China' aims to
build on several components of China's emergence as a global power,
propelled by consistently higher growth rate and underlined by widespread
international engagements by the country. While modernization and
economic development of the People's Republic of China involves
a complex process of state-driven pro-market policies, the changing
international relations of PRC in the regional and world arena demands
a thorough enquiry of the basis, manifestations and import of China's
changing bilateral and multilateral foreign relations.
Indian Diaspora - Refurbishing Linkages
Engaging the diasporic community has, specifically
in the last 5 years or so, become a substantive concern of the Indian
government. This particular project attempts a study of the reasons
for the heightened momentum of today. Establishing the essential
heterogeneity of the Indian diasporic community, it traces the issues
facing them and explores the proposals for enhancing the linkages
to the benefit of both the community as well as India itself.
Global Commons
Global Commons are not within the domestic jurisdiction
of states, but inherited by the human race as a whole and consequently
equally shared by all states. The common physical spaces of the
world such as the deep sea bed, the outer space, the Antarctic are
incorporated within the fold of global commons. This project attempts
to draw up a general understanding of the global commons and politics
of states in ensuring relative gains. The project aims at widening
the peripheries of global commons and accommodating other vital
issues relating to the humane aspects of fife. The broader objective
is to analyze how India could provide a leading role in redefining
and protecting Global Commons in order to ensure inter-generational
equity and common benefit for all states.
Conflict Resolution
and Peace Studies
Conflicts, violence, use of force are consistent
themes of international relations. The desire for peace runs parallel
to the occurrence of conflicts. The project attempts to evaluate
the theoretical premises of various peace approaches and contextualize
these with regard to contemporary conflict realities. Various issues
relating to durable peace building-negotiation, dialogue, re-entry
of separatist elements into the mainstream - would be studied and
current realities will be analyzed to suggest practical and applicable
peace modalities.
Cross-Culture Issues
and Conflict Resolution
Ole Holsti asserted that “international conflict frequently
is not between states, but rather between distorted images of states.”
The image distortion in contemporary times is aggravated through
socio-cultural variables. Interestingly, cultural differentiation
is creating problems not only between states but also within states.
Political, economic and strategic variables that emerge as immediate
sources of conflict are found to be rooted in the alleged divergence
of cultural perceptions. Hence a viable approach to conflict resolution
should seek to explore the linkage between cross-cultural issues
and durable peace.
The prime objective of Global India Foundation is to strengthen
national resilience and promote international interdependence. The
elusive peace around the globe is the most pressing challenge of
contemporary times. As efforts at managing conflict through military
means have failed, an inclusive, balanced and diplomatic handling
of such sensitive concerns is essential. Since the Indian state
policy exhibits these features, GIF aims to facilitate India’s
leadership in addressing global cross-cultural concerns. The Foundation
aspires to undertake this project to analyze the specific contributions
that India can make through its visionary leadership.
The objectives of the project is to explore the linkage between
cultural differences and conflict through theoretical references
and empirical case studies; examine the emerging themes of multiple
identities, pluralism and specific cultural demands; elucidate on
the theme of culture beyond the state; overlapping cross-cultural
links, cultural agenda of non-state actors, to discuss the credentials
of India as a ‘soft power’ and finally role of India
in contributing to the cultural dialogue across the globe and involvement
in specific cases of conflict resolution.
Digital Divide: Issues
and Implications
Colonial rule and underdevelopment characterized India in the twentieth
century. The gradual opening up of the economy and the more distributive
aspects of the globalization processes in the last about 15 years
have helped consolidate the positives and promises of the country's
service sector. An important role in the process has been played
by Information and Communication Technology sector. The growth of
this sector has helped propel forward movement of the country in
number of ways and directions. However, modest economic growth has
coexisted with zones of poverty and backwardness, sustaining and
reinforcing inequities and socio-economic divides. Access to digital
information and instruments has been expanding but still hopelessly
limited. These have implications not only for the sustenance of
the growth rate but also for the larger issue of equity, social
and economic development and political stability.
India’s Public
Health Policy: Problems and Challenges
Although there has been a remarkable improvement
in life expectancy at birth, birth and death rate and infant mortality
rate since independence, public health care in India leaves much
to be desired. The ignored areas are women's health, child health,
medical education to meet the needs of primary care, to name a few.
There is a great discrepancy also between the rural and urban sectors.
A major criticism if India’s National Health Policy is that
it lacks specific measures to achieve broad stated goals. Particular
problems include the failure to integrate health services with wider
economic and social development, the lack of nutritional support
and sanitation, and poor participatory involvement at the local
level. The objective of the present project is to make a macro-level
study of India’s public health policy, with a view to suggest
desirable alterations to improve the public health situation in
the country.
Energy Sustainability and Security:
Focusing on Wind Energy
The basic impetus for conducting research and analysis
on the issue of integrated energy is the insufficient availability
of conventional sources of energy and the untapped potential of
alternative energy resources. The present research project by GIF
is an attempt to explore the avenues whereby the alternative sources
of energy can be actually integrated from their current peripheral
contribution to national energy sources.
The primary sources of energy available in India are coal, oil,
natural gas, hydro and nuclear power. However, India is relatively
poorly endowed in terms of commercial energy resources, with 6 per
cent of the world's coal reserves, 0.59 per cent of oil, and 0.59
per cent of natural gas. India is relatively rich in terms of coal
and hydropower, but their exploitation is constrained by factors
such as the poor quality of coal, environmental concerns, interstate
water disputes (in the case of hydropower), and the lack of financial
resources. Persistent shortages of coal and power during the recent
past have led to substantial increases in the consumption of petroleum
products. This can be attributed to the relative ease of importing
oil and other petroleum products. Natural gas is a relatively new
entrant in India's energy sector and could make a significant contribution
as a source of fuel and feedstock in a number of consuming sectors.
The worsening power situation and the various environmental problems
of large-scale power generation have led to increased appreciation
of the potential of electricity generation from non-conventional
sources. The importance of renewables in contributing to the supply
of power in a sustainable manner was recognized as far back as 1974,
when the Fuel Policy Committee Report suggested that 'non-conventional
energy sources, namely solar, geo-thermal and tidal energy should
be developed, with priority assigned to solar energy and biogas'.
Of the various forms of renewable sources of energy, solar and wind
energy are found to be ideally suited for India. Among the various
available renewable sources of energy, the potential of wind power
is highly promising. The project aims to focus official and public
attention on the potential of wind energy to address energy sustainability
and security.
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