Dr. S. Jaishankar is a diplomat-turned-politician who has served as India’s External Affairs Minister since 2019. He is a member of the BJP and a member of parliament representing Gujarat in the Rajya Sabha.
Dr. Jaishankar had earlier served as India’s foreign secretary between 2015-2018, after serving as ambassador to the United States, China, and the Czech Republic and as high commissioner to Singapore. He is well known for his assertive speeches and comments in the international media, such as the one when he addressed the UN, advocating for India’s permanent membership in the UNSC. Jaishankar is said to have played a major role in negotiating the India-US civil nuclear agreement. He has authored over three books, including ‘The India Way’ and ‘Why Bharat Matters’.
In 2019, he was conferred with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour in the country.
Sirji
These overseas visits can be called successful if those serve national interests ,otherwise those are just aimless private jaunts at taxpayers expense.
Voice of global south requires India to take principled stand. Ukraine and Israel showed that India failed to ‘lead’. Excepting off course for the take of the ‘godi’ media and few of the retired foreign secretaries their progenies and the so called experts placated in the govt. sponsored ‘think tanks’!
Gaza showed to the world that India has no followers in the Global South . The Change in India’s stand at UNO on Gaza showed that instead of the Global South following India it is actually the reverse case .
Our relations with neighbouring countries have reached to its lowest point. A sycophantic bureaucracy and the godi media which is engrossed in bashing less powerful countries like Pakistan and to an extent Canada (unlike to the USA) is not expected to get the Chinese aggressors to back out.
The improvement in relations with the US bloc does not reflect on the success of our diplomacy rather a success of the US diplomacy in getting India to be a pawn in the US – China geopolitics.
There are many instances which will substantiate the failures of Indian diplomacy in the last decade.
The causes for such failures may be many but the main one seems to be that international diplomacy and our foreign policy seems to be driven, unfortunately, by the whims and fancies of a few rather than by a well thought out institutionalised policy .
In the sycophantic world of today, India awaits that little kid who called the Emperor naked.
Amen.