China's apparent policy of surrounding and containing India with its military and commercial presence in India's neighbourhood – Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal and now Bhutan – is often described as String of Pearls policy.
Among many of his firsts in the foreign policy initiatives, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host 14 heads of governments of pacific island nations in August in Delhi. But ahead of this summit, he will undertake visit to five Central Asian nations of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyztan and Kazakhstan in the first two weeks of July, timed around the BRICS (association of five major emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) summits in the Russian city of Ufa. Both these visits, experts believe, are strategic answers to China's Maritime Silk Road policy, and its attempts to become the pivot to Asia.
China's apparent policy of surrounding and containing India with its military and commercial presence in India's neighbourhood – Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal and now Bhutan – is often described as String of Pearls policy.
"Engaging in a deeper development partnership with India would enable both the regions to have greater flexibility as they deal with Beijing as well as Washington," said official sources.
In the wake of Pakistan re-exploring its lost ground in Afghanistan, to the dismay of India, Prime Minister Modi's visit to Central Asian states bordering Afghanistan comes with a considerable significance. Diplomatic sources here said with the five states controlling the most energy-diverse and oil-rich parts of the world, the region has attained as much significance as West Asia for India. Addressing her first-ever press conference on Sunday, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj also mentioned significance of this region and said India was now hopeful of building a road and sea network via Iran's Chahbahar port. The agreement to build the port was signed recently by the Union transport minister Nitin Gadkare in Teheran, after signing an MoU way back in 2003. Kazakhstan is a major oil producer, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have the biggest natural gas reserves, and Tajikistan and Kyrgyztan have considerable untapped reserves. Tajikistan's Klobe province is also home to Mir Syed Ali Hamadani, who has same place in Kashmir for bringing Islam in the region, as Khawaja Moinduin Chisti of Ajmer has for the rest of South Asian Muslims.
Swaraj also underlined the significance of engagements with 14 Pacific island nations. They may be far away from New Delhi, parted by two oceans, but with both Beijing and Washington showing greater interest in these strategically important island nations, experts feel the engagement could prove immensely rewarding, keeping in view the potential in deep-sea mining and liquefied natural gas extraction, particularly off the coast of Papua New Guinea (PNG).
During his last visit to Fiji, Modi announced the facility of visa on arrival for the nationals of all Pacific island countries -- Cook Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Nauru, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Niue, Palau, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. He also proposed an e-network to connect the island nations, given the distances between the islands and poor connectivity. He also proposed to develop Pan Pacific Islands Project for tele-medicine and tele-education. Modi also announced a hike in the grant-in-aid to Pacific island-countries from $125,000 to $200,000 each annually for community projects selected by them.
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