New Delhi: The parliamentary committee on external affairs has urged the foreign ministry to better use Indian missions abroad for a deeper exchange of ideas and insights with scholars across the globe in order to meet India’s short- and long-term foreign policy objectives.
The panel in its 24th report on ‘India’s policy planning and role of think-tanks’, presented to the Lok Sabha Monday, stated: “The Committee feels that Indian Missions can play a more proactive role towards greater engagement with (global subject) experts and hence, urges the (foreign) Ministry to utilise Indian Missions and posts abroad for a deeper and regular exchange of ideas.”
It also observed that the Ministry of External Affairs’ (MEA) Policy, Planning and Research (PP&R) Division, that deals with policy issues, analysis of world affairs and more, needs to be “strengthened” and better equipped to participate in and conduct global conferences as well as collaborate with think-tanks.
“The Committee desires that the PP&R Division of MEA position India before the international community through multiple structural platforms and strive to make each one of them a platform that the entire world aspires to be part of,” the panel said.
It further urged the PP&R Division to highlight, support and get involved in other national-level foreign policy seminars, looking beyond those held in the Capital, such as Maharana Pratap Annual Geopolitics Dialogue (that was held in Udaipur in March this year), and ‘Act East to Indo-Pacific: Role of North-east Indian states in ‘Connecting the Connectivities’, held in Imphal last October.
The report pointed out that the majority of New Delhi’s policy planning dialogues focus on Europe. It recommended that the MEA include more countries from Africa, North and South America as well as India’s neighbours in its bilateral and multilateral policy planning dialogues.
“The Committee desires the Ministry to proactively map out each of the neighbourhood as well as the African countries and explore the possibility of initiating policy planning dialogue with them, especially in view of India’s rising interest in African countries and thrust on Neighbourhood First Policy,” the panel stated.
In a separate report focused on India’s ‘Neighbourhood First Policy’ released last month, the committee had advised that the nation consider re-establishment of economic ties with Pakistan in spite of the strained relationship between the two nations.
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‘Special focus on ICWA and RIS’
The parliamentary committee on external affairs has recommended, among other things, that the MEA support more think-tanks such as the New Delhi-based Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) and Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS).
Exploring the importance of ICWA, the panel advised the think-tank to function more closely with the MEA and “work in a proactive than reactive mode”.
It also suggested that the MEA use the expertise of RIS in formulating India’s connectivity strategy, in which the nation has been planning infrastructure projects with several countries to boost its connectivity across the globe.
“MEA should encourage and support RIS to continue to act as a bridge and be the voice of the country in its attempts to bring about convergence of Global South with the Global North in areas of collective interest,” the panel noted.
The report further advised that the MEA should make its work more accessible to the general public through “wider dissemination” of its reports and by speaking on foreign policy matters in simpler as well as regional languages.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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