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Friday, 4 November 2011

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Good news for South Asia

It is not without reason that a considerable degree of South Asia's progress, in particularly the socio-economic and security spheres, has been habitually seen as hinging on the normalization of Indo-Pakistani ties. These are the pivotal states of this region and the most powerful from several points of view and to cap it all, they are now nuclear armed. Unfortunately, their relations have been more strained rather than cordial in the decades past, and South Asia has not been in a position to savour the full range of dividends that could flow to it as a result of a full normalization of Indo-Pakistani ties.

We now learn, however, that Pakistan has granted India Most Favoured Nation trade status and this news is bound to be warmly welcomed by progressive opinion in this region as marking a drastic improvement in Indo-Pakistani ties. We too add our voices to this welcoming chorus and wish these our illustrious neighbours all the very best in their future relations.

It is bound to be the wish of all right-thinking persons and groups in South Asia that from now on India and Pakistan would forge ahead towards forming the most cordial of ties. Part of the foundation has been laid for this through the Most Favoured Nation trade status provision and it is now most noticeable in any part of the world that economics are driving politics. Accordingly, improved trade relations between India and Pakistan could be expected to go some distance in bettering the countries' bilateral ties in numerous areas and our hope is that relations between the countries would be on a steady mend from now on.

Besides the countries concerned reaping huge benefits from improved ties, the South Asian region as a whole could enjoy improved material and economic prospects, on account of the fact that less strains in Indo-Pakistani relations would enable the region to get on with the task of ushering constructive collaborative ties in a number of spheres. That is, the SAARC enterprise would see better times.

We do not intend to imply by all this that all these years have been absolutely lean ones from the viewpoint of constructive Indo-Pakistani ties. This is certainly not the case. India and Pakistan, perhaps unknown to some sections of world opinion, conduct mutually beneficial ties in a number of areas, including people-to-people ties, and it is not our intention to project the relations between these major South Asia states as having been continually dismal down the decades. But some important issue areas have been having the effect of straining the bilateral relations between the countries and one would be naive in the extreme to downplay these aspects of the relationship.

However, the time could not be riper to mend fences and to place the relationship on an entirely new footing. For instance, the growth centres of the globe have now shifted from Europe to East Asia and India is featuring as one of the foremost among economically up and coming countries, along with Brazil, Russia and China. The opportunities are plentiful in East Asia in particular, for mutually-beneficial economic ties among countries of the Eastern hemisphere, and our hope is that not only India and Pakistan but other countries too in the Asian region would grab these emerging opportunities to forge ahead towards economic prosperity.

In the years ahead, economics could, indeed, be expected to be in the driving seat of International Relations. India has already come to grips with this issue. On numerous occasions it has expressed the view that it wants its neighbours to be stakeholders in its economic buoyancy. Thus, an entirely new regional economic environment is in the process of emerging and all countries of this region should see it as being in their interests to facilitate the arrival of this environment of economic cooperation and collaboration.

Therefore, the prospects of SAARC thriving are brighter than ever before. If the regional heavyweights, India and Pakistan, increasingly opt for pragmatism in the conduct of their ties, SAARC would finally be free of the constraints of the past and zoom into a future of collective prosperity and togetherness.

Sri Lanka’s diplomatic triumph at CHOGM

Cabinet paper submitted by External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris :

The clear division of the Commonwealth as demonstrated by the support Sri Lanka received, I believe, led to the Canadian Prime Minister assuring the President, that the issue will not be taken up by them for discussion at the Heads of Government/State Level meetings. The Canadian Foreign Minister alluded to the same with me subsequently,

Full Story

112th birth anniversary fell on November 3:

Prof Gunapala Malalasekera - ‘his habit of giving never depleted us’

Fond recollections of my father:

Fathers are very different to mothers. There is some thing inherently special about them, the myth of a father as patriarch, apparently invulnerable and in control, is one of our most powerful beliefs. Forty years after his death, I remember my father as totally special. The academician and philosopher admired by many in the world around him,

Full Story

Further adventures of LTTE propagandists

I seem to have struck a raw nerve in making public my account of what Siobhain McDonagh's researcher was up to, in publishing false stories and possibly making up false videos too. He finally got in touch with me again, not to send me the clips he had promised of attacks on hospitals,

Full Story

 

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