The minor goof-ups and translation issues apart, prime minister Narendra Modi's first major visit abroad was a diplomatic success in building a new world order, acknowledged by the opposition Congress as well.
First brick of this new wold order was "successful conclusion" of two signature BRICS initiatives laid down in Brazil – a New Development Bank for the global south and Contingency Reserve Fund to insulate emerging economies from currency volatility. Congress party here on Thursday welcomed Modi for laying the edifice of the bank. The party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Sighvi, however, said the idea was floated by former prime minister Manmohan Singh. "We congratulate the prime minister for concluding the initiative laid down by the UPA government," he said.
India had proposed setting up of such bank at the New Delhi summit in 2012. The broad architecture of the bank is almost complete. With an Indian head for next five years, it will be based in Shanghai and will start lending around 2016. Experts here believe, the bank will be a game-changer in not only rewriting rules of multilateral financing, which was so far a prerogative of the IMF and World Bank only, but also in spurring the restructuring of the global financial governance architecture that remains heavily tilted in favour of the West.
During a technical halt at Germany while returning home after a three-day visit, prime minister Modi spoke to German chancellor Angela Merkel and conveyed that Germany was a "valued friend" of India and he was looking forward to working with her to make bilateral ties stronger. Modi could not meet the German chancellor when he made an overnight stopover in Berlin while en route to Brazil because she had to go to Rio de Janeiro for the FIFA World Cup final.
In another diplomatic move, Modi said India will continue to oppose western sanctions against Russia in the wake of Ukrainian crisis. He asked Russian president Vladimir Putin to travel to the Kudankulam nuclear plant — where Moscow has already supplied two reactors and has promised four more. Modi and Putin spoke late night on Tuesday in Brazil's Fortaleza.
After goofing up on announcement about prime minister's meeting earlier with German chancellor, not realising that she would be travelling to Brazil to cheer her team, the meeting with Russian president was another slip-up up by Modi's diplomatic entourage. The meeting was earlier scheduled for Monday evening, little realising that at that time Putin would still be in air. Also Modi talked in Hindi while conversing with Putin unlike with the Chinese president Xi Jinping, when he spoke in English. "He (Modi) started in English, but switched to Hindi for his late-night conversation with Putin," an official said.
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