The Economic Times
India, frankly, needs the UAE more than the other way round. A large market is less important than where the market is headed — high-tech manufacturing, creative industries, innovation pods, not merely consumers. The UAE recognised this ages ago and is investing massively in the future. All you have to do is sit in a driverless pod in Masdar City to get to your destination and see the possibilities of a future where you can store solar energy in batteries not yet invented, or build zero carbon homes for future families. That ought to be our future, we need partners who have already started on this journey.
Hindustan Times
Selecting the chief guest for the Republic Day parade is no routine affair. The choice carries either a strong intent or an emphatic reiteration on the part of the government, or both. As India wants to extend commercial and social ties with certain countries, the chief guest is usually picked from a nation that India wants to build — or reaffirm — its friendship with.
The Hindu
In recent years, Delhi has often used this ceremony to send out important signals on the foreign policy front by inviting its key partners. The Modi government has invested significant diplomatic capital towards strengthening its ties with the UAE. With the conclusion of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership agreement between India and the UAE this week, this relationship is poised for a dramatic leap. India is well positioned to emerge as a credible security and economic partner of the UAE and the larger Gulf region at a time when the West is looking inwards and China’s rise is getting hobbled by its aggressive rhetoric on territorial issues. India-UAE ties are an exemplar for the changing Indian approach towards the wider region.
The Indian Express
Sources in the government told The Indian Express that UAE is an influential voice in OIC, and India wants to impress upon the country’s top leadership that its statements on Kashmir are “counter-productive” and boosts morale of terror groups and pro-militant elements there. “We want to impress upon them during the visit that the same elements which were responsible for killing five of their (UAE’s) diplomats in Kandahar are (also) responsible for the violence and terrorist activities in Kashmir,” a top government source said. “Through our conversations, we will tell them that such OIC declarations only strengthen the hands of those forces, which disrupt peace in the country.”
The Times of India
Overall, it’s commendable that New Delhi is now reversing its tendency of viewing the Mideast as a diplomatic minefield with too many political and sectarian cross-currents — which ceded the Gulf to Pakistan as its ‘natural’ South Asian ally. Geopolitical circumstances today also provide India with enhanced opportunities to do so. And UAE can certainly serve as India’s springboard to the Gulf.
