Articles By Ambassador P Stobdan
India’s Economic Opportunities in Central Asia
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 25 Sep , 2018
Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the new President of Uzbekistan, will pay a visit to New Delhi towards the end of this month, seemingly to give yet another shot for cementing strong economic ties with India....
Averting India’s Fall into a Geopolitical Trap
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 12 Jul , 2018
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a foreign policy course-correction after realising that the strategic tilt towards the United States has not only grossly upset India’s geopolitical image...
Whither the Indo-US Defence Partnership
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Issue: Courtesy: CLAWS | Date: 30 Jun , 2018
The Indo-US defence relationship has been growing since the signing of the New Framework for Defence Cooperation in 2005 and more particularly after the US Congress passed the Hyde Act in December...
Trump and the Iran Nuclear Deal: Geopolitics and Financial Unipolarity
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Date: 29 May , 2018
On 8 May 2018, US President Donald Trump, true to his style and ‘America First’ philosophy, walked out of the Iran nuclear deal, technically known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action...
Raksha Mantri to Pursue India’s Defence Cooperation Agenda in SCO
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Date: 20 Apr , 2018
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s Annual Defence Ministerial Meeting to be held in Beijing on April 24. This is the first time...
Resituating Menser and Darchen-Labrang in the Boundary Negotiations with China
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Date: 18 Feb , 2018
The recent launch of the China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor (CPEC) by China and Pakistan has provided India with a fresh impetus to assert its sovereign claim over Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK),...
Significance of India joining the Ashgabat Agreement
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Date: 12 Feb , 2018
India recently joined the Ashgabat Agreement, which was instituted in April 2011 to establish an international multimodal transport and transit corridor between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf....
To make Chabahar a ‘Game Changer’ Central Asian states need to be roped in
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Issue: Courtesy: IDSA | Date: 14 Dec , 2017
Once again there has been a lot of hype about Chabahar becoming a strategic ‘game changer’ for India. Media reports had earlier highlighted the shipment of 1.1 million tonnes of wheat to...
What Can India Expect from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation?
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Date: 06 Jun , 2017
India and Pakistan will join as full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at the Astana summit on June 8-9, 2017. Last year, both countries signed the 30-odd obligatory papers...
To deal with China, India needs to return to Strategic Fundamentals
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Date: 25 Mar , 2017
India’s ties with China are seemingly becoming more complicated by the day. Despite the dialogue held recently at the strategic level, the continuing stalemate over both the proposal at the UN...
Benefitting from China’s Belt and Road Initiative
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Date: 28 Nov , 2016
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s gargantuan cross-continental infrastructure project, launched by President Xi Jinping in September 2013, is not only a foreign policy initiative, but...
India’s Stakes in SCO
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Date: 23 Jun , 2016
What does SCO membership actually hold for India? Pursuing the goal of multi-polarity apart, are there direct potential gains for India? For India, the SCO has been about increasing its political,...
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: India enters Eurasia
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Date: 18 Jun , 2016
The Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have recently finalised the draft agenda for the next Summit of the grouping to be held in Tashkent on June 23-24. Among other...
Emerging Flashpoints in the Himalayas
By: Ambassador P Stobdan | Date: 27 May , 2016
Flashpoints in the Himalayan region are rising. The US Defence Department has expressed caution about China’s increased troops build-up along the Indian border as well as the likelihood of China...