Tag Archives: Observer Research Foundation

In the News, Politics / Globalisation

Samir in The Times of India: A billion people, 710 diplomats, 2010

by TOI Crest
August 7, 2010
in: Times of India 

One of the reasons for India’s stop and go response to the multi-dimensional diplomatic challenges it faces is a severe shortage of human resources for simultaneous deployment. Given its size and the quantum leap in its engagement with the world, India’s diplomatic strength falls woefully short of its requirements and compares unfavourably even with countries like Japan and Brazil.

A headcount in 2008 revealed that India had 710 diplomats. Compare this with Japan’s 5,400 and Brazil’s 1,200 and we get a sense of how hard-pressed the foreign office is. Big global players like the US and China invest even more in manpower. The US has a regular diplomatic strength of 6,500 officers plus it draws in some 5,000 experts on short-term contracts. China’s foreign office has 6,000 diplomats.The government’s response has been typically slow and smallminded. It started discussing the problem some time in 2005. In 2006, the then foreign secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon, was tasked with preparing an expansion plan. But it was not till 2008 that the union cabinet approved the plan.

But look at what it approved. It sanctioned an increase of 310 Grade-I officers over a period of ten years. This means that by 2018, India will still have just 1,020 diplomats. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) officials agree that this number will fall far short of requirements if India’s international profile continues to grow at the current pace.

Ironically, even this slow rate of expansion is going nowhere. New recruits will take at least 15 years to grow into responsible, decisionmaking positions. In the meantime, MEA is searching for middle-rung officials from other ministries who can come on short-term deputation to fill the gaps. In the past two years, the ministry has managed to rope in only half a dozen such officers because all other departments are equally short-staffed at this level.

“These small numbers cannot take care of the large deficit we have if we want to play a bigger role globally ,” said a senior MEA official. Unfortunately, expert consultants are also proving elusive. Observer Research Foundation analyst Samir Saran says that although India boasts of around 150 think tanks, most of them are “retirement homes” and have few original ideas to offer the government. “Even our universities don’t have departments for modern Indian studies. How can we develop a sense of what India’s place is in the emerging world?” he asks.

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Columns/Op-Eds, Non-Traditional Security, Politics / Globalisation

Column in The Economic Times: When the US dismembered Pakistan, 2009

by Samir Saran
February 27,2009
in: The Economic Times

The formal capitulation of the Pakistani government to the Taliban and the ‘liberation’ of the Swat valley evoked divided responses from within the region and outside. While voices emanating from India are concerned with this dangerous development, the US foreign policy team has predictably hedged its position and has begun testing the ‘Good Taliban-Bad Taliban’ dictum. The division of Pakistan has unfortunately legitimised the rule and role of two institutions in the politics of Pakistan; its religious extremists and its army and can be seen as a consequence of the US engagement with Pakistan post 9/11. To understand this situation and the initial US response, we must deconstruct the ‘war on terror’ policy of the US and analyse one of its key components: the engagement of the US with its ally Gen Pervez Musharraf. This engagement was political as it had the effect of demoralising the democratic presence in Pakistan.

It was also sociological as it redefined the western understanding of Pakistan and altered the space and voice available to the moderates and liberals. This engagement was articulated by the ‘Us vs Them’ foreign policy of the US, a description of the age-old identity discourse between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’. The description of the Muslim as the ‘other’ by the west (‘self’) is an area of historical interest. Much of the discussion establishes the act of describing the Muslims, as a means by which the west (and its media) seeks to define, assimilate and control them and is a result of the urge to create the identity of the ‘other’ through its own interpretative prisms.

This process not only fails to comprehend the ‘other’ in their entirety but diminishes their significance in any engagement. This practice is a political tool that has been consistently deployed in the past. The ‘secular wars’ or colonising endeavours of the western world were represented as a ‘solemn duty’, and as a British parliamentarian of yore put it, as a burden of the white man to civilise the east. The boundaries of this orientalist discussion, post 9/11 have been redefined and comprise of two dominant narratives, that of ‘Islamophobia’ on the one hand and the ‘war on terror’ on the other. Islamophobia arises from a lack of understanding and tolerance of the ‘other’. The ‘war on terror’ rhetoric of the US extends the understanding of the ‘other’ to that of ‘evil’ and justifies violence and war as the preferred means of engagement.

In its effort to punish the ‘evildoers’ (al Qaida), the US needed to depend on a Muslim ‘other’. The Pakistan army and Musharraf became its key ally. Their complicity in supporting global terror networks and the fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan were well known. However, strategic compulsions made it necessary to have them on board. The co-option of a Muslim and a dictator – an ‘other’ twice over – was an interesting challenge for the Bush administration. While it required the administration to discount the evil that Musharraf represented, something it has consistently done in its engagement with Muslim despots and royalty, it had to more importantly sell this unholy alliance to its own people, who were reeling under the ferocity of the 9/11 attacks.

Ironically, it was the military credentials of Musharraf that helped the US to achieve this. It was perhaps the only institution in the Islamic state that could be understood by the west from within the “irrational religiosity” the country was imagined to be. The development of the ‘western’ identity for Musharraf involved constructing him as a ‘moderate Muslim’ who shared the aspirations and virtues of the west (‘self’) and thereafter, justifying support for his dictatorial credentials. Co-option was achieved by projecting desirable qualities readily understood as virtues by the US citizens as attributes of Musharraf. Articles in newspapers across the political spectrum constructed the identity of Musharraf as a moderate, secular and progressive leader with zero tolerance for terrorism. Images of Musharraf lovingly playing with his pet dog struck a chord with western audiences.

Alongside this aggrandisement of the dictator, Pakistan, its civil society, their social and religious practices were subject to reductive portrayal by the western media. The description of the political and religious elements of Pakistan society was constructed around terms like corrupt, weak, fanatics, violent and backward. Their protests were irrational and did not deserve considered response. Many times anti-US demonstrations in Pakistan were presented as expressions of religious extremism and barbarism that pervaded the Pakistani society and what the good General was fighting against. The army rule was thus projected as an important component of Pakistan’s stability and Musharraf as the saviour leading his people towards modernity and peace.

By doing so, a dictator with strong extreme Islamist credentials – the stereotypical ‘other’ – was now imagined as the western ‘self’ while his countrymen, including the moderate and liberal citizens, were reduced to an irrationality whose voices and rights could be ignored. This denial of space and voice to the democratic forces allowed the spectacular rise of the Taliban, who now claim to speak for the ‘other’ who do not wear the uniform.

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Columns/Op-Eds, Water / Climate

Column in The Financial Express: Climate’s Holy Trinity, 2010

by Samir Saran
May 13, 2010
in: The Financial Express

Over the last decade, climate narratives have been shaping social, political and economic beliefs—resulting in climate ideologies spread not dissimilar to religion. Like most religions, these frameworks have their share of rigidities, with each having discovered the ‘chosen path’ that offers a righteous response and lacks reflexivity. Interestingly a ruling by a UK court in November 2009 drew parallels between an individual’s views on climate change to his religious and philosophical beliefs.

The challenge of arriving at a common understanding of climate change and a common response to it is, therefore, akin to discovering a common religion for humanity. If climate is a religion, its holy script is dominated by the description of the holy trinity of finance, technology and equity. Equity remains in the realm of the spiritual; and concrete proposals towards a world that shares prosperity are confined to classrooms and social scientists even as the economists and technologists work to carve the new world.

Nonetheless, responses from each nation or a grouping seek to address these three central features in their arguments. The EU, for instance, believes that the European Trading Scheme and a carbon price would curtail emissions and serve the purpose of equity by redistributing capital through flow of funds from the developed world to the emerging and developing economies. The flaw with this is that the redistribution of wealth is only among entities located in different geographies with complex ownerships that could put the IPL team structures to shame. Critics portray this as a transaction among elites and the cost of adaptation, poverty alleviation and other development challenges remain at the periphery. And this is where the conflict lies, in the belief system of the EU and the imagination of its populace that it is the liberal market framework that offers the most efficient mechanism for redistributing wealth, historical evidence notwithstanding. The framework for allotting emission allowances and the trading of these alongside external carbon credits would need serious overhaul even if they were to have a nominal impact. Perhaps the proposal to auction EUA post 2013 would also enable national governments in the EU to commit some of the proceeds towards the adaptation challenges, state of their economies permitting.

The emerging and developing economies, however, make the case for direct fund transfers into their own treasuries that have historically (in most cases) been shown as incompetent in delivering development and governance to the millions they seek to serve. Do they have capacities to make use of the large cash transfers they so seek? And would they be better served in incentivising regulated markets and evolving state-centric capitalist frameworks for the same purpose? The cause of equity would be served only if the emerging world is able to receive funds from the complex maze of overseas funding mechanism and then enhance internal efficiency of delivery arrangements.

Technology continues to vex the global debate on climate and perhaps is the real non-negotiable, if global agreements and accords that emerge from climate conventions and summits are the frame for analysis. Over the last two decades, the language in these international documents has remained ambiguous on technology and the only certainty is that equity as an argument is not compelling for ceding intellectual property for the developed world. Pronouncements from President Obama and policies and legislations in the UK and EU clearly position green technology and high-tech industries as the basis for re-industrialisation as well as economic revival. The lavish incentive packages for low carbon business and research and the sheer subordination of policy making to corporate interests in this sector demonstrate the desire of the OECD economies to lead the race to the top in this low carbon game. The odds would have truly been stacked in their favour but for the economic meltdown.

The institutes of higher education, research and development in the developed world continue to lend them a distinct edge. They also benefit from a steady stream of the brightest minds from Asia, Latin America and Africa, who after acquiring basic education assist in furthering the research in these institutes for want of similar professional opportunities at home. Thus, even in this post-colonial world, the West continues to benefit from the resource provisions of its former colonies. Thus large pool of human talent backed by unmatched funding assists these countries to incubate innovation and invention, the two pillars of the new economy.

Much of the developing world is still caught up in the semantics surrounding technology transfer. For its sake, it must resist the temptation of being lured into conditional (indirectly priced) technology handouts and post-its-prime technology transfers. It must also realise, as the Chinese have come to realise recently that intellectual property vis-à-vis climate is not a rigid defined product but is more about tacit human knowledge. The centrality of human resources needs to be over-emphasised here. In the last 5 years, Chinese efforts to attract overseas Chinese back to its industrial and research institutes have gained momentum. Through landmark programmes such as the ‘Thousand talents programme’ it is rightly pricing and attracting human intellect located overseas.

It is also determined to tap into the Chinese diasporas that are part of the research and technology industry. Their policy initiative ‘Chinese serving China’ seeks to reverse the traditional flow of knowledge to western shores. The results of these initiatives are bearing fruit and there are reports that tens of thousands of non-resident Chinese have returned home; the process no doubt aided by the financial crisis and shortage of research funding in the US and EU. But the key learning here is that the Chinese are pricing the human capital right and offering salaries far in excess of their business as usual salary structures. They, unlike India, have realised that human resource is at the core of the IPR chain and they are now unwilling to reduce talent and merit to a UGC prescribed salary handout that India seeks to attract and retain talent with. A recent management reports has cautioned that US hegemony in scientific innovation can no longer be taken for granted. China will be investing over half a trillion dollars on green technology research in the next decade and furthermore has committed to deploy 2.5% of their GDP annually by 2012 towards R&D in line with the OECD levels. As a part of the economic stimulus China deployed $221 bn towards the green economy as against $112 bn by the US. Though much of this was for rail transport and water infrastructure, significant efficiency innovations and applications were in the mix as well.

India is committing to increase its outlay for research and is looking to be at par with OECD standards in a decade. However, outlays alone would not help. The systems that feed into the research agenda would need to be overhauled as well. Both China and India would need to improve the quality and spread of education, health of the population, social indicators and infrastructure will all need to be best in class if the environment for innovation needs to be created. There is great equity in this endeavour. Else we can live the dictum that constraint incubates innovation and hope for the ‘Slumdog Millionaires’.

Please find here the link to the original page.

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BRICS, In the News, Politics / Globalisation

In Economic Crisis, Conference Points to New Needs in Global Governance and Redistribution of Wealth

March 15, 2009
Brown University, RI, USA

Link of the video of Samir Saran speaking at the event (video II, 4.09 min onwards)

In the runup to the economic crisis meeting of the Group of 20 nations in April, a major international conference at the Watson Institute last week looked into global governance issues hindering the search for solutions, as well as ways in which a fundamental restructuring of the world system may in fact occur. The event, “Regional Powers, New Developmental States, and Global Governance: BRICSA in the New World Order,” was co-sponsored with the University of Wisconsin Law School. It focused on the role of the newly emergent regional and continental powers of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in this time of economic crisis, highlighting the risks and opportunities they face.

In addition to global governance reform, themes emerging from the two-day meeting also included a move toward redistribution of wealth – with a new emphasis in such countries as China and India on solving internal inequalities while refocusing on domestic growth. On governance, Nehru University Professor Bhupinder Chimni, a visiting professor at the Institute, said: “The way forward is for countries like India, in alliance with the BRICSA countries, to frame and articulate an alternative discourse on the future of global governance relying on its own experiences – pre-colonial, colonial, and post colonial. It should not simply react to Western proposals.” On the redistribution of wealth, Former Austrian Chancellor and Institute Visiting Professor Alfred Gusenbauer said: “If you want to have a recovery of the world economy, it only can work if there is a redistribution of wealth.”

Short videos below expand capture these two themes. Speakers in the videos include:
• “Conference Report I: Global Governance in an Economic Crisis”: Nehru University Professor Bhupinder Chimni, a visiting professor at the Institute; South African High Court Judge Dennis Martin Davis, a visiting professor at the Institute; and Watson Institute Professors David Kennedy ’75 and Barbara Stallings.
• “Conference Report II: Risks and Solutions in an Economic Crisis”: Universidade de São Paulo Professor Glauco Arbix; Former Austrian Chancellor and Institute Visiting Professor Alfred Gusenbauer; Indiana University Assistant Professor Ho-fung Hung; Observer Research Foundation Vice President Samir Saran; and attorney Leopold Specht, a visiting fellow at the Institute.

A summer institute at Watson on “Law, Social Thought and Global Governance,” organized under the new Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI) program, will explore these issues further as it convenes scholars from around the world for two weeks in June.

An in-depth report and video of the BRICSA conference will be posted in coming weeks.

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In the News, Politics / Globalisation

India’s global strategic outlook and US foreign policy

15 January 2011

India’s global economic orientation and strategic outlook are important to U.S. economic and security policy and interests. An increasingly global strategic outlook from India will impact U.S. foreign policy in significant ways. A conference co-hosted by Observer Research Foundation and the Heritage Foundation at Washington D.C. on 8 December 2010 examined the issues involved and the interplay between India’s economic path and its global strategic outlook to gain insight into the future of US-India relations.

In his opening remarks, Dr. Kim R. Holmes, Vice President, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation, invoked President Obama’s visit to India saying that it showed the growing importance of India to the US. He said that markets reforms have the ability not only to improve lives of Indians but also to transform the basis of the relations between India and the US.

Indian Ambassador Meera Shankar, in her keynote address, said that globalisation and the liberalisation of India’s economy have altered the way India interacts with the world and the transformation of its engagement with the US is part of this process. She said India and the US have agreed to work together to promote an open, balanced and inclusive architecture of cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. India sees the US as a valuable partner in meeting its development aspirations, in building peace and security in its neighbourhood and in the wider Asian region and in addressing shared global challenges. She spoke on a wide range of issues in Indo-US relations, including the security situation in Asia, Afghanistan, cooperation in counter-terrorism, the new Indo-US dialogue on homeland security and nuclear disarmament among others. She stressed on the need for the two countries to work together on these issues.

The first session, ’The Health of the Globalisation Model and Rise of Alternatives’, looked at the disagreements between the US and India at the WTO, particularly on issues like outsourcing. The session focussed on how and when the two countries could cooperate in global trade and finance. It also looked at how and when the two countries could cooperate in dealing with the rise in prices of energy and food, in the backdrop of more warnings about global resource scarcity. The speakers at this session were Ambassador Susan Esserman, Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP, and former Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, Sunjoy Joshi, Director, Observer Research Foundation and Ashish Chauhan, Deputy Managing Director, Bombay Stock Exchange. The session was moderated by Ambassador Terry Miller, Director, Center for International Trade and Economics, The Heritage Foundation.

The second session ’India’s Globalisation Experience/Future’ examined potential Indian paths of economic globalisation, including trade in goods and services, movement of capital, information and people. It focussed on the opportunities for cooperation between India and the U.S. created by those paths. The speakers at this session, moderated by Walter Lohman, Director, Asian Studies Center of The Heritage Foundation, were Kapil Sharma, General Manager, North America, Tata Sons, Ltd., Dr. Derek Scissors, Research Fellow, Asian Studies Center, The Heritage Foundation and Samir Saran, Vice President, Observer Research Foundation. The key messages emanating from this session included how India needed to transform significantly in terms of regulation, markets access and social inclusion as these would inhibit or aid development of the bilateral relations. India is also a global player with its global MNCs and more discussions were needed on the interaction of companies like the Tata Group and Reliance with the world.

In his luncheon address, Robert Blake, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Affairs, touched on the need for India and the USA to work together in dealing with the challenge of nuclear proliferation. He highlighted the US’ commitment to support full membership for India in multilateral export control regimes. He said that the two countries have decided to take mutual steps to expand India-US cooperation in defence, civil space and other high-technology sectors. Another area of cooperation that he focussed on was cooperation in the energy field, particularly in clean energy and the bilateral Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE). He argued that enhancing India’s food security is vital for continuing India’s globalising trends and sustaining the burgeoning strategic economic partnership between India and the US and said that the two have agreed to collaborate in agriculture for an ’evergreen revolution’ in India. Other issues that he focussed on were bilateral health cooperation, joint development projects in Afghanistan and cooperation in higher education.

In the final session, ’How Globalisation Will Impact India’s Strategic Outlook’, the focus was on how globalisation has impacted India’s global strategic outlook. It looked at convergences and divergences in U.S. and Indian perceptions of India’s expanding global role. Another issue that was examined was how Indian globalisation would impact specifically on its military modernisation efforts and the US-India defence relationship in the future. US and Indian priorities for expanding bilateral cooperation in the unfolding global strategic setting were also examined. The speakers at this session were Vikram Sood, former Director of India’s Research and Analysis Wing and now Vice President of Observer Research Foundation, Lisa Curtis, Senior Research Fellow, Asian Studies Center, The Heritage Foundation, Dr. Evan Feigenbaum, Director, Eurasia Group, Dr. Harinder Sekhon, Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation. The session was moderated by Nandan Unnikrishnan, Vice President, Observer Research Foundation.

(This report is prepared by Uma Purushothaman, Junior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation)

For video, please click on http://www.heritage.org/Events/2010/12/India

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In the News, Water / Climate

Energy News Monitor: Climate Change and Human Security: Building a Framework for Action

by Samir Saran
April 2011

’Climate and security’ is a narrative with multiple layers and irresolvable complexities. At the very core, it continues to remain a western narrative on a looming and enduring eastern reality. This very comprehension of climate and security lends to discussions an externality that both hemispheres find hard to reconcile. But before we discuss this inherent paradox within ’climate security’-a term used to broadly describe situations, discussions, and elements that constitute security within and resulting from climate discourse and global climate action (modest at best), it may be useful to shape the boundaries of what be the core tendencies, trends, and impulses that define it.

The use of the terms ’climate’ and ’security’ in popular literature conjures up images of apocalyptic storms, landslides, extreme weather conditions, deluge, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, droughts, floods, cyclones, and similar weather phenomena that will ravage countrysides, inflict loss of life and property on an unimaginable scale, and result in mass exodus of populations. Be it the Hadley Centre Report that feeds this imagery through a more scientific and nuanced approach (Department of Energy and Climate Change) or the Stern Review that deploys this description to urge action by the developed and developing worlds (Stern 2007), the correlation between climate and such threats is unmistakable. This continues to be the defining imagination of security within the climate debate-hotly contested in terms of scale, size, and timelines. Images of death and destruction remain the central argument in the arsenal of a section of the political class, both in the West and East, who are vociferously urging action, incentives, and commitments around green technology, carbon trade, and innovation.

The success of the approach of linking climate action to impending apocalypse is debatable. Also at doubt is its ability to elicit appropriate response from policymakers and institutions. Deploying images of death and destruction within the climate debate, some argue, is ’climate pornography.’ It is forcefully stating the obvious, and as some would argue, also the inevitable (Ereaut, Gill, and Segnit 2006).The semantics of this argument are clearly built on the ’fear for life’ and ’fear of the future’, and seek to compel political action on this basis by gaining support in the larger public sphere.

This approach seemed to have helped create a surge in the constituency of those seeking climate action, particularly in the Western countries. This has also resonated among a specific constituency in the emerging nations, prior to the Conference of Parties at Copenhagen last year. However, it has been unable to stem the disenchantment of the larger public from matters of climate, and ’climate fatigue’ is setting in. As per a 26-country survey conducted by GlobeScan, concern for climate change is dwindling both in Europe and North America (GlobeScan 2010).

According to the survey, support to climate efforts in the UK fell from 59% to 43%, and in Germany from 61% to 47%. This narrative was also unsuccessful in appealing to large constituencies in emerging countries and the developing world. This was a result of poor communication, hypocrisy, and inherent dichotomy in the construction of the debate. This predominantly western narrative on climate security describes the outcomes (floods, cyclones, and so on) through a matrix of predictive dates and probabilistic scenarios. This was an instance of science attempting to steer policy that, as some argue, failed. Science is comfortable with probability and percentages, but people are not.

Communications on the matter often sounded weak and convoluted and the messages lacked clarity. They also lacked a central appeal, but more importantly, they failed to offer a response to the challenge. This was perhaps the biggest failure in the communication of the imminent dangers of global inaction. The articulation lacked considered and feasible global responses without which communications were read as scare mongering or where there were indications of certain action (read technology as the saviour) it was read as lobbying by vested interests. Global inattentiveness to ’climate and security’, in some sense, is as much about a failure to communicate, as it is about political differences and high economic stakes.

However, the hypocrisy within the narrative surfaces when this debate seeks placing the occurrence of extreme climate events and disasters into the future and when action is urged for the benefit of future generations (such as the US President Barack Obama’s exhortation to act on climate change or risk ’… consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe’).1 If, as climate science suggests, man-made emissions are able to subvert some of earth’s natural systems, then why are the current extreme events also not a result of the last two centuries of industrialization and rampant mercantile capitalist production? To many, the answer is simple yet hypocritical. The rich would have to foot the bill today for having squatted and ravaged the limited carbon space available as a common resource for global citizenry.

The impact and solemnity of the climate and security argument would have far greater weight if developed nations were obligated to make good the costs of life and property that are lost in the poorer regions today due to floods, cyclones, hurricanes. Yet while we hear a call for action on pricing carbon (which allows the rich to usurp more carbon space), incentives for technology and securing intellectual property rights, a determined and unequivocal call for damages of past action is missing. Ensuring that the countries with the means to respond to the suffering caused by such climate-related disruptions in poor and emerging countries, are allowed to absolve themselves of any responsibilityy, adds to skepticism, and weakens the most important argument-that of security-for global action.

Calls for global action sound hollow for another reason-the quantum of commitment made by the affluent nations. While the rhetoric of preserving the planet and human life is pitched high, what we see in terms of response is tokenism. To save the planet, the mightiest nations in the world got together at Copenhagen last year and then at Cancun recently, and committed to a paltry $100 billion each year by the year 2020.2 Let us now place this pledged amount against another recent response by the world community.

It is estimated that over $3 trillion was committed by the US, China, EU, and other countries to help the world economy or as some suggest, to ’save a few banks and large corporations’ (Barbier 2010). Three trillion to save the financial system and a 100 billion to save the planet-a fact that will undermine any security discourse within the climate narrative.

The other extremity of the climate-security narrative is less popular, but fast shaping as a significant line of thought. It focuses on elements of human security outside of the ’life and property’ paradigm. This debate places the human right to develop, grow, and aspire for a better life as a primary objective of climate action (Saran 2010). Here, too, the western narrative seeks to focus the discourse on poverty reduction within the objectives of climate action, thereby reducing the aspirations of billions in the emerging world to that of survival and poverty-line existence.

The fact that the industrial economies of the OECD and their high income populations were assisted and subsidized by carbon-intensive fossil fuels is cast aside as an act of ignorance, and the importance of the use of coal and gas in determining the pace at which India and other emerging countries develop is undermined by real but superficial arguments on ethics and shared responsibility. Poverty and growing aspirations are the two imperatives for any political system in emerging economies, and there would be political unrest if the leadership in these nations were to compromise on these.

However, the climate narrative is beginning to exert itself in the development processes of poor countries. Last year, we saw the US EXIM Bank deny a loan to a coal project in South Africa, and dither on a similar proposal for India citing potential emissions as the reason.

If climate positions were to become barriers to trade and finance flows, we could perhaps be discussing the most significant and impending security paradigm for the emerging world. The impact of climate negotiations, and green capitalism that is rearing its head, are some elements that will define climate and security for India and other developing countries.

Let me conclude by posing some queries that policymakers in India and other developing countries will need to respond to. Can we ignore the real threat to life and property from extreme climate events? Can the actions of India reduce this threat? How can we compel the West to vacate carbon space, and cap and reduce lifestyle emissions? How will we be able to allow billions in India and the developing world to aspire and, seek homes, cars, holidays and infrastructure? Should we? Why should the first-time users of electricity in India (nearly 500 million) have to make do with token solar lamps that work for only a few hours? Why should the poorer 80% of the world’s population be made to bear responsibility for expensive climate action going forward? How do we ensure continued access to critical finance and technology required to develop infrastructure, and afford prosperity to millions? How do we carve out a global regime that removes carbon squatters and makes them pay for their historical retention of carbon space? Why should the emerging world support or incubate new technologies, when all major economies seek to place green technologies at the centre of their plans of re-industrialization and manufacturing competitiveness?

Lastly, can we ignore the ’green economy,’ and does it really provide India an opportunity to take a position of leadership in this new world?

These are some of the competing dynamics of the ’climate security’ narrative that we will need to navigate if we are to develop a robust framework that realizes the gravity of the climate and security narrative, and articulates the differentiated needs of the diversely developed regions of the world.

References:
Barbier E B. 2010. A Global Green New Deal: Rethinking the Economic Recovery. Cambridge University Press. 171 pp.
Ereaut, Gill, and Segnit. 2006. Warm Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better? London: Institute for Public Policy Research.
Department of Energy and Climate. Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change. Met Office, Hadley Centre. Available at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/publications/brochures/cop14.pdf
GlobeScan. 2010. ’Climate Concerns Decline since Copenhagen Summit: Global Summit.’ [Press Release 2 December 2010]. Available at: http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/cancun_radar/Cancun_climate_release.pdf.
Saran S. 2010. The Globalisation and Climate Change Paradox: Implications for South Asian Security. In South and Southeast Asia: Responding to Changing Geo-Political and Security Challenges, edited by K V Kesavan and D Singh. New Delhi: ORF-Knowledge World. 141-161 pp.
Stern N. 2007. The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Notes:
1Barack Obama’s Speech at the United Nations. 22 September 2009. The Sunday Times. Available at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/to1/news/environment/article6844525.ece
2See report on Outcome of the work of the ad hoc working group on further commitments for Annex I parties under the Kyoto Protocol at its fiftieth session. Available at http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_16/application/pdf/cop16_lca.pdf

Original link to Observer Research Foundation website.

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BRICS

Recommendations for the Third BRICS Leaders’ Meeting in China

April 2011

Scholars and experts from BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries have said that the current crisis in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions should be resolved expeditiously in the interest of regional stability and in conformity with the aspirations of the peoples of MENA and said that the current crisis demonstrated that the global governance system needed to be more responsive.

This formed part of a recommendation document prepared for the Third Leaders Summit to be held at Sanya, China in April this year. At a meeting of 60 scholars of think tanks from the five BRICS countries, held in Beijing on March 24 and 25, A seven-member delegation of Indian experts, led by Observer Research Foundation, took part in the meeting of the BRICS Think Tank Symposium, hosted by the China Centre for Contemporary World Studies (CCCWS) and the China Foundation for Peace and Development (CFPD). It comprised of former Indian ambassadors Mr. HHS Viswanathan (Distinguished Fellow, ORF) and Mr. T.C.A. Rangachary, Mr. Samir Saran, Vice President and Senior Fellow, ORF, Dr. Ravni Thakur Banan, Associate Professor, Delhi University, Dr. Saroj Kumar Mohanty, Professor and Senior Fellow, Research and Information Systems for Developing Countries, Dr. Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya, Fellow, Indian council for Research on International Economic Relations and Sriparna Pathak, Junior Fellow, ORF.

In the recommendations proposed for the consideration of the Third BRICS Leaders Meeting to be held in April in China, the scholars said that the leaders should give attention to the changing international context, sluggish economic recovery, governance issues, reform of the international economic and financial architecture, Sustainable Development and Climate Change.

In the opening speech, Mr. Sun Jiazheng, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and President of CFPD, made three suggestions regarding cooperation among BRICS: (1) Undertaking intensive studies, and recommendations on issues that concern BRICS. (2) Focusing on major areas of international finance, international order, world peace and stability (3) Strengthening exchanges between think tanks of BRICS.

At the opening session, delegates from the five countries spoke on the need for reforming the global financial institutions, democratising global governance system, avoiding unilateralism, increasing discussions within the grouping on issues of wages, poverty, energy, health and education, defining a BRICS identity and mission and widening the BRICS’ agenda.

The first session discussed “Challenges and Opportunities- Environment and Background for the Development of BRICS Countries”. The presentations focused on the opportunities and challenges for BRICS post the financial crisis and the way ahead on issues of development and global governance Delegates from BRICS countries also spoke on issues of technological innovations, moving away from reliance on OECD countries, and greater engagement with other developing countries to enable sustainable growth.

On the topic of ’Changes and Responsibilities: Agenda and Items for BRICS Countries in Advancing Global Economic Governance’, participants elaborated the need to realise inclusive growth and emphasised on stability, peace, shared prosperity, and development, South- South cooperation, open markets and mutual trade and investment among BRICS.

The theme of the third session was ’Unity and Cooperation- Practical Cooperation and Institutional Building of BRICS Countries’. This panel discussed how BRICS can be a bridge for North- South cooperation, and the need within the BRICS grouping to resolve differences and seek common goals. Presenters also spoke on strengthening trade among BRICS, strengthening framework for polycentric world, promoting cooperation and engaging private sector actors in agriculture and other sectors among BRICS.

’Exchanges and Mutual Trust- Cooperation Among Think Tanks of BRICS Countries’ was the final theme of the symposium. The discussions delved into ways to deepen BRICS interactions and the need to convene international seminars on areas of bilateral and multilateral areas interests. There was a strong emphasis on the need to establish a BRICS institutional framework at the governmental and non governmental level and to create working groups on select projects. It was also agreed to create a BRICS Think Tanks website for scholars to contribute to.

The interactions were free and friendly and there were no contentious issues. It was obvious that the delegates were trying to find the relevance, mandate and evolution of the Group.

One high level political interaction was organised for the delegates to meet Mr. Dai Bingguo, a State Councillor, where he praised the work of the delegates in coming up with new ideas. He also cautioned that the leaders may not have the same ideas. He spoke of “broadening” the Organisation, a concept not liked by the Russians.

Some divergences on issues like trade and currencies notwithstanding, there was a general feeling that BRICS is here to stay and contribute to a change in global governance. How this will be achieved is the question to which nobody seemed to have a clear answer. There were references to the need for an alternative model of development in which BRICS countries do not repeat the same mistakes committed by the developed world. There were also statements that BRICS should act as a bridge between the developing and the developed countries. But would the other developing countries (particularly potential aspirants to the Group like Indonesia, Turkey and Mexico) like BRICS to play this role?

One theme that came up constantly was the lack of intra-BRICS cooperation in comparison to the potential that exists. For example, BRICS contributes to about 20% of global GDP. Further, 60% of the global Foreign Exchange Reserves today are held by BRICS. But these are parked mainly in Western countries when BRICS themselves desperately need capital for development.

Apart from some general references to the need for reforms of global financial institutions and replacement of dollar by SDR as the global currency, no in-depth discussions took place on these issues. However, the increase in the voting shares of China, Brazil and India was referred to as a beginning of a change in the mind-set of the developed world. One theme that was very evident was the need to coordinate BRICS positions in G-20 so as to have a greater voice.

•  Complete report of the symposium

•  List of delegates

•  Symposium recommendations

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Books / Papers, Non-Traditional Security

Navigating the Near: Non-traditional Security Threats to India, 2022

Sunjoy Joshi, Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, Wilson John, Lydia Powell and Samir Saran
19 April 2011

National Security is most often thought of in terms of political and military threats to the State-either from other States or geo-strategic alliances. Given such a framework, both the challenges as well as the responses have for long been viewed in terms of military force or coercive ability of the adversary.
Events unfolding in today’s highly networked and globalised economies show the futility, and danger, of relying on such a simplistic template. Threats to national security are today multi-dimensional and call for a deeper study and understanding of a wide variety of factors to create a credible and deterrent response mechanism.Navigating the Near seeks to bridge this paradigm shift by studying non-traditional threats facing contemporary India. The study, with its sight on the next decade, evaluates how traditional threats confronting India are likely to be influenced in large measure by a range of factors and trends, both external and internal, that have, till now, remained on the fringes of security studies.

Link to Observer Research Foundation website.

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