The South East Asia and Oceania Centre focuses on policy-relevant research with respect to the ten ASEAN states, East Timor and Oceania, including Australia and New Zealand. The Centre studies India’s bilateral and multilateral relations with states of the region with a view to providing contemporary relevance to India’s Look East policy. It has a futuristic-looking approach and examines the emerging trends in the regional security architecture. The Centre studies the potential for India’s enhanced defence cooperation (including maritime issues) and cooperation in non-traditional security issues with the region. It examines internal developments of countries in this region, especially political transitions and the role of the military, and their implications for India. The Centre seeks to promote Track-II institutional linkages with the region. Southeast Asia & Oceania Centre brings out a monthly newsletter – Insight Southeast Asia.
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To distance herself from the adverse fallout of the unpopular policy decisions taken by Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard has decided to seek a fresh mandate from the electorate.
While there is no denying the fact that Rudd’s ideas on foreign policy were well-intentioned, one cannot possibly overlook the fact that it all fell apart in the course of practice.
India needs to engage Singapore more robustly so as to enable the forging of deeper and more broad-based friendships in the Southeast Asian region through Singapore’s good offices.
Australia is not finding it economically prudent and diplomatically rational to deny uranium to India, while other countries profit from nuclear commerce with India.
By giving away Asia to China on a platter, the Obama Administration’s posture undermines its traditional allies (Japan, South Korea, and Australia) as well as its new partners like India.
India-Australia relations have become an intricate set of positives and negatives, with the former outweighing the latter. Kevin Rudd made an honest attempt to redress Indian grievances but he has to walk the talk to improve bilateral ties.
In early August, India’s Minister for External Affairs S. M. Krishna visited Australia as part of his trip to attend the Pacific Island Forum meeting, held in Cairns. India is a dialogue partner to the Pacific Island Forum, comprising the countries of the South-west Pacific region, including Australia and New Zealand. Most of Mr. Krishna’s time during this trip went in visiting Melbourne and Sydney, where a number of Indian students had been attacked in recent months.
Howsoever much others may want to distance India from mlitary-ruled Myanmar, the widespread devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis has brought India into the spotlight. That it occurred barely a week prior to Myanmar’s proposed constitutional Referendum on May 10 brought this out in bold relief.
In the recently concluded ASEAN Summit (November 18-22), apart from issues like Myanmar, ASEAN Charter and ASEAN Economic Community, nuclear energy was also discussed at length. A declaration on safeguarding the environment and the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes was agreed by the ASEAN members. This was, in spite of the fact that many non-governmental organisations as well as domestic pressure groups in some of the ASEAN countries have consistently raised apprehension about the safety of nuclear power plants which lie in the seismically active zones.
Malaysia’s so-called multi-ethnic harmony was deeply shaken when the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) organised in Kuala Lumpur the largest ever mass protest against the ‘marginalisation’ of ethnic Indians as a consequence of the government’s ‘discriminatory’ policy. The incident has clearly exposed Malaysia’s political class of creating and favouring a unified trans-racial community called Bangsa Malaysia (‘Malaysian race’).
