India's diplomacy needs to move from demonstrative style to hard substance

We don't have to produce another Henry Kissinger, but we must go beyond making statements on the wars now threatening world peace

For a country that is soon to overtake Japan to become the world’s fourth-largest economy, and possibly the third before the end of the decade, India punches below its weight in terms of diplomacy. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi is routinely seen as a rising global leader, he has to get more done through active diplomacy.

 

A visible personal rapport with global leaders is not a solid enough basis for conducting the kind of hard-nosed diplomacy that delivers net gains for the country. We saw this recently when, despite a seemingly close relationship with Donald Trump, he managed to deeply