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Why India is the next global leader?
In the 20th century entire world considered USA, Russia, Japan and some of the European countries As the global leaders. But in the 21st century two more countries from Asia emerged as the global leader that is India and China. Now the question is who is a global leader? Though there is no clear cut definition, a global leader is one who can a play major role in world affairs, work for maintaining peace and tranquillity and can extend all type of help in preventing global crisis such as climate change, food insecurity, hunger, poverty etc.
As mentioned above India emerged as a global leader in the 21th century due to it's all round development. She got freedom from British government in 1947.From there on she never looked back and made rapid progress in the growth trajectory. First of all entire credit goes to her founding fathers and constitution writers. They did not left any loophole in the constitution .They established a responsible legislative body to make law and new policy, an executive body to execute various policy enacted by legislation and an independent judiciary to safe guard the constitution and the fundamental rights of each citizens. No individual or politician in India can take the power and law into his own hand at will, like what is happening in African countries, even in Pakistan .Pakistan is a country got freedom with India but the military power there has the power to topple the civilian government creating instability. But this is not the case with India, her founding father made a system by amalgamating the best features of other democratic countries. That is why India is known as one of the stable country of the world.
Since independence India became part of all important international organisations and plays a significant rule in creation of non-aligned movement during the Russian USA cold war period. Now India is member of major international organisation such as UNO, WORLD BANK, IMF, UNESCO, UNICEF, ILO, WTO, FATF etc. Currently India is a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for two years for which the election was held this year. In that election she got a record 189 votes, only four countries voted against its membership. This shows her popularity throughout the world.
In the first three to four decade after independence India could not play any major role in international affairs due to her fragile economic condition and involvement in three major wars, two with Pakistan and one with China, she was mostly dependent on foreign aid for it's socio economic and infrastructure development, but after 1991 economic liberalisation she has become a major contributor of aid to the third world countries. In 2008 India achieved a remarkable feat by becoming a trillion dollar economy. Currently India is at the cynosure of the world leader for it's contribution to each and every continent of the globe.
Currently India is engaged with various countries for their infrastructure development, capacity building, and socio economic development. Being a part of south Asia India always take the leading role in promoting peace, financial stability, and facilitating free trade among the south Asian countries under the SAARC umbrella. She is helping Srilanka by providing financial and technical assistance in the construction of railway line, road, housing for displaced Tamils during LTTE war, renovating a Kankasanthurai harbour. She has provided $1 billion grant in aid to Bangladesh for their infrastructure development at the interest rate of .75%. India has allowed Bhutan and Nepal to use it's land to do trade with Bangladesh and to import or export goods using Bangladesh port. Due to India's sincere effort the relation with Pakistan is also improving.
India formed south south co-operation with Brazil and South Africa to provide financial help to the least developed countries which were earlier dependent only on the north for aid. India started an India Africa e-network project to connect all the 53 countries of Africa through fibre optic connection. This network will also be connected with some of the reputed technical institutions and famous medical colleges to provide e-education and telemedicine services to African people. Apart from this some of the other Indian project in Africa got international acclamation like construction of railway line linking Ethiopia and Djibouti, setting up of 80 institutions for capacity building in various sectors such as food processing, agriculture, textile, weather forecasting and rural development.
India has the observer status of SCO and also planning to join CSTO. She is working closely with the SCO member countries in maintaining peace and stability and preventing terrorism, drug trafficking from central and south Asia. She is also planning to extend help in construction of nuclear reactors for some of the central Asia countries like Kazakistan.She is the world's 6th largest contributor to the Afghanistan infrastructure project and also providing training to Afghanistan security forces so that they can protect their country after Americas pull out from 2014.Along with this India has taken the responsibility of giving training to Afghan Gov. employees through VV Giri National labour institute , constructing road from delaram to Zarang and building power plants to meet its energy need.
With the grouping like BIMSTEC, Mekong Ganga co-operation, India ASEAN summit, East Asia summit India is maintaining cordial relations with all the south east asean countries. India has promised to promote culture by protecting all important historic monuments through ASI of India. She has proposed to build a highway which will connect Myanmar, Thailand , Laos ,Vietnam and Cambodia to facilitate free movement of goods and spur economic development in that region. India also establishing training institutions to provide vocational training to the students as a part of Indian ITEC (Indian technical and economic co-operation) program. She is also providing grant in aid to these countries. Recently Indian P.M Dr Manmohan Singh offered 500 million grant in aid to Myanmar. As a peace loving nation India wants peace to prevail in the west Asia and North Africa. She wants an amicable resolution of outstanding issues between Israel and Palestine and India is one among the few countries who recognised Palestine as an independent state. As a larger democracy of the world she promotes democratic government instead of autocratic Government throughout world.
Above all India has developed strong institutional capabilities that will benefit the world community. Indian election commission providing all necessary assistance to the countries which want a strong impartial election process in their system. Recently Indian election commission extend help to Egypt for their election reform. India also providing it's wonder machine EVC(electronic voting machine) to Nepal, Mexico, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Afghanistan etc. for conduction of their election. Indian CAG (Controller and auditor general) which is another example of a unique institution in the field of audit appointed as the external auditor of two major UN organisations: IAEA and world intellectual property right.
India has one of the largest and advanced security forces in the world. She has a strong navy, army and air force which is not only protecting our countries but also engaged in UN's peace keeping process weather it is in Srilanka, Somalia , Afghanistan or any other countries. She has also engaged in the Indian Ocean's international transit corridor to protect the merchant vessel from the Somalia pirates which has become a sanctuary for them. Till now India escorted more the 1000 vessels including some Indian vessels. India has a well develop space research centres (ISRO) which is regularly launching satellites for itself and for other countries. The types of satellites include communication satellite, weather forecasting, remote sensing etc. Recently ISRO launched a satellite called meghatropics with collaboration with France which will benefit all tropical countries. This will provide real time data regarding rainfall pattern in tropical region thereby helping farmers in agriculture and ensure food security. India is World's first country to identify presence of water on Moon surface through her Chandrayan-I mission and planning for Chandrayan-II mission to send humans on to the moon surface.
21st century belongs to the country leading in food production and having large work force and India has both the above factor. India's food production is increasing year by year to feed the world And she has one of the largest work forces of the world which is a boon for her. The contribution India will make to the global society is prefigured by the upsurge in the national mood which is marked by ambition, optimism and the spirit to accept the challenge of innovation and accomplishment. There is no doubt that India is a present leader. The world leaders should acknowledge it by providing unequivocal support for its quest as a permanent member in UN's reformed Security Council. Then only her efforts and contribution towards the world will be rewarded.
- Biswaranjan Sahoo
