The Prayas ePathshala

Exams आसान है !

08 September 2022

Facebook
LinkedIn
WhatsApp

MAINS QUESTIONS DAILY QUESTIONS & MODEL ANSWERS

Q1. “China’s hegemony in Sri Lanka poses a security threat to India.” In this light, consider the necessity to restructure India’s relationship with Sri Lanka. (250 words)

Paper & Topic: GS II à India & its Neighbourhood – Relations

 Model Answer:

Introduction:

  • Traditionally, the relationship between India and Sri Lanka is one of equals as independent nations.
  • It is rich in myth and folklore, and religious, cultural, and social connections have affected it.
  • This is an ideal time for Sri Lanka and India to strengthen the foundations of their relationship by combining contemporary tools with age-old wisdom and experience.
  • However, China’s proximity to Sri Lanka is cause for alarm.

Body:

 Relationships between India and Sri Lanka:

  • The India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement (FTA) went into effect in March 2000.
  • According to Sri Lankan Customs, bilateral trade totaled $4.38 billion in 2016.
  • Development loans and lines of credit: Sri Lanka receives about a sixth of India’s development loans.
  • India’s private sector invests heavily in Sri Lanka, as well as Sri Lanka’s private sector invests heavily in India. Petroleum, IT, Financial Services, Real Estate, Telecom, Hospitals, Tourism, Banking, Food Processing, and other fields of collaboration between the two countries.
  • For Sri Lankan tourists visiting India, Indian railways are giving a unique package.
  • For Sri Lanka, India has implemented an e-visa system.
  • India is Sri Lanka’s fourth-largest investor.
  • We have invested roughly $1 billion in Sri Lanka since 2003.

China’s Predominance in Sri Lanka à A Security Concern for India:

  • The Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill was passed by the Sri Lankan Parliament on May 19, 2021.
  • With little oversight from the Sri Lankan government, China will obtain an additional 269 hectares of reclaimed seafront off the Colombo port in the country’s south-west after the Bill becomes an Act.
  • Colombo assumes importance for India because it trans-ships nearly 70% of all container cargo for and from India, mostly at Chinese-operated terminals.
  • Chinese initiatives in Sri Lanka have risen tremendously, owing to the country’s importance in the Major Sea Lines of Communication.
  • This not only has security issues, but also results in transit delays and financial loss for India.
  • China’s debt trap diplomacy was exposed with the 99-year takeover of Hambantota port.
  • This is bad news for India’s maritime security and the Indian Ocean region’s Chinese encirclement.
  • The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will almost certainly have a presence in these waters as a result of the leasing of Hambantota and the Port City project, which could include bases for warships/submarines as well as a staging post for longer naval deployments in the Indian Ocean.
  • The Chinese navy will be able to easily monitor Indian naval activity in the Indian Ocean.
  • It will undoubtedly limit the Indian Navy’s deployment options and negate the country’s geographic advantage in these regions.
  • The relationship between India and Sri Lanka is considerably different from that between China and Sri Lanka.
  • Due to the presence of Tamils on both sides of the Palk Straits, India has an ethnically ambiguous maritime border with Sri Lanka and is thus involved in the island nation’s domestic affairs.

India’s engagement has to be reimagined:

  • To prevent China from making further advances into Sri Lanka, India will need to continue working on the Kankesanturai port in Jaffna and the oil tank farm project in Trincomalee.
  • Sri Lanka’s socioeconomic progress has remained linked to India.
  • However, there are numerous solutions for dealing with imbalances and asymmetries.
  • For example, Sri Lanka might encourage Indian businesses to make Colombo another business hub for them, as the country’s logistical capabilities and rest and recreation facilities continue to improve.
  • Fast-tracking the integration of the two economies, but with specific and unequal treatment for Sri Lanka due to economic inequalities.
  • Strong collaborations across the economic and social spectrum can encourage people-to-people bonhomie.
  • There is enormous opportunity to amplify or create complementarity, employing locational and human resource potential, for capturing benefits in modern value chains.
  • Legislative engagement is also critical for developing multiparty support.
  • With many countries retreating into cocoons as a result of the pandemic, this is a good time for both countries to focus on alliance renewal and revitalization.

Conclusion:

  • Now, India must adjust to the fact that its main foe is essentially in its backyard and adjust its preparedness and response accordingly.
  • Furthermore, an unified Sino-Pakistan axis, with China being based in Gwadar, will pose a significant challenge for India.
  • The governing Rajapaksa dynasty now has a fantastic personal relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
  • The presence of China on the island nation is a source of concern for India, since Beijing is known to use subversion, espionage, and sabotage to advance its national goals and objectives.
  • As a result, as part of its ‘Island Diplomacy,’ India’s foreign policy toward Sri Lanka will have to develop in response to new realities and dangers.

Q2. What impact did the Covid-19 waves have on India’s diplomacy? What challenges does India face in dealing with the pandemic’s aftermath in the near future? Explain. (250 words)

 Paper & Topic: GS II à Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests, Indian Diaspora

 Model Answer:

Introduction:

  • The world will recall occurrences as either pre-Covid or post-Covid in the future.
  • Even India’s diplomatic structure reflects this.
  • While the focus in 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic, was on coordinating COVID-19 medicine exports, flights to repatriate Indians abroad (the ‘Vande Bharat Mission’) after the lockdown, and then exporting vaccines worldwide (‘Vaccine Maitri’),
  • Covid Diplomacy 2.0 has a different order of tasks, both in the short and long term, following the second wave.

Body:

  • Covid-19 waves have had a variety of effects on India’s diplomacy.
  • When it was supposed to be a prophylactic, India provided hydro chloroquine pills to the United States and many other countries.
  • When the Vaccine Maitri programme provided 6 crore vaccines to smaller countries, it received a lot of positive press.
  • India also sent Remdesivir, which it is running out of in the second wave.
  • India contributed ambulances to Nepal and dispatched a medical team to Bangladesh and Bhutan, among other neighbours.

Second Wave:

  • The immediate priority was to address the oxygen and pharmaceutical shortages that claimed thousands of lives across the country in a matter of weeks.
  • In the last week of April 2021, about 3,000 people died in Delhi alone.
  • After the initial rush to send Remdesivir and favipiravir in from the US and Russia, Indian missions are now asking black fungus treatment.
  • For its 140 million citizens, India is also considering buying foreign immunizations.

Challenges arising from the pandemic’s aftermath :

 The country’s vaccine shortage is the result of three factors:

  • The government’s failure to plan and place procurement orders on time; two India-based companies’ failure to produce vaccine doses they had committed to; and the MEA’s focus on exporting rather than importing vaccines between January and April this year.
  • These include asking the US to transfer a large chunk of its AstraZeneca stockpile and to release more vaccine ingredients that are now banned for export.
  • To purchase additional stock directly from Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson in the United States, and to boost vaccine production in India.
  • The MEA has had to tread a difficult path on each of these topics.
  • Despite support from world leaders such as the United States, Russia, and China, the promise of patent waivers from India’s joint proposal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) will not reap early benefits.
  • The third major difficulty confronting Indian diplomacy is dealing with the aftermath from the vaccine failure.
  • It had to defend its decision to export vaccinations on a national level.

Conclusion:

  • Smaller countries throughout the world are waiting for second dosages and are in a bind.
  • Bhutan’s vaccine drive, which relied entirely on India’s promise of vaccines for the entire population, is perhaps the most egregious example.
  • Making amends and regaining trust for India’s vaccine and pharmacy exports in the future will be a challenge left to the MEA and its missions in several capitals.
  • With a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council and a seat on the WHO Executive Board, India might try to reclaim the ground it has lost in recent months due to COVID-19 mismanagement by taking the lead in ensuring the world is safeguarded from the next pandemic.

 

Select Course