Japan-India can further a free and open Indo-Pacific
The Japan-India strategic partnership plays a pivotal role in countering China’s dominance in the Indo- Pacific and ensuring the region remains open and inclusive.
The pandemic may open new doors for India-Japan ties
The increasing paranoia regarding China opens up several avenues for India and Japan to build a stronger bilateral partnership. Highlights: Japanese PM Shinzo Abe announced a corpus of $2.2 billion to help Japanese firms relocate their supply chain network from China. India tweaked its FDI policy to include China in the list of countries where any investment would need the government’s approval. The Gujarat government is preparing a bouquet of incentives to attract Japanese firms looking to shift from China. [...]
India set to become the world’s third largest economy
To get to the coveted third place India will have to outpace Germany and Japan; the good news is – it can. At a recent fireside chat with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman and India’s (and Asia’s) richest man, Mukesh Ambani, said India could become the third-largest economy in the world over the next decade and has an opportunity to become a “premier digital society” along the way. How feasible is this? Or should it be dismissed [...]
A step forward in India-Japan relations
The recent 2+2 dialogue between India and Japan aimed to push their relationship beyond bilateral trade and open up pathways for cooperation in defence and strategy. Highlights: The recent and first-ever 2+2 dialogue between India and Japan is an indication of the increasingly close ties between the two nations. The only other country India has held a 2+2 ministerial dialogue, which is seen as an upgrade from any meeting at a secretarial level, is the US. Despite the close relationship [...]
The rocky path to US-India alignment
Internal challenges hinder the US and India from fostering closer strategic ties. While there is clear logic to closer India-US strategic cooperation on a number of fronts, domestic priorities and capacity issues will continue to complicate ties. The United States and India are currently in the midst of a minor trade spat, cantered on medical devices, agriculture and e-commerce, among others. Washington has revoked India’s benefits under the 1970s era Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) arrangement, and New Delhi has [...]
Indo-Pacific: India’s factor markets hold back full integration with region
India has close economic and strategic ties with the ASEAN, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. But the new government will have to overhaul the country’s land, labour and capital markets for the relationship to reach its full potential. Even as India’s elections were winding their way to a final denouement, the Indian Navy was conducting drills in the disputed South China Sea, claimed in full by China, with the navies of the United States, Japan and the Philippines. [...]
Modi’s hectic overseas schedule has helped raise India’s profile, balance relations
A brief roundup of the impacts that Prime Minister Modi’s numerous diplomatic visits over the past five years have resulted in. Across 57 countries in six continents in a total of 92 trips, in his five-year tenure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as one of the most well-travelled heads of state of India ever. This is more than twice the number of trips that his predecessor Dr Manmohan Singh made in his second five-year stint at the helm between [...]
Chopstick Diplomacy: Decoding the Modi-Abe equation
The Modi-Abe chemistry can translate into a great partnership model of global economic and strategic cooperation, writes India Inc. Founder & CEO Manoj Ladwa. It was Shinzo Abe who, in his first term as Japan’s Prime Minister, had suggested an “Arc of Democracy” from Japan to India as the defining feature of the new global architecture in the 21st century. Though he didn’t say it in so many words, most geo-political experts interpreted this as some sort of a still-not-fully-defined [...]
India-Japan: Convergence at the top but…
India and Japan are on the same page on the Indo-Pacific, security, economic cooperation and on the need to cooperate on developing infrastructure across Asia and Africa in order to provide a counterweight to China. They now have to find a way of translating this convergence of goals into brick and mortar projects that actually make a difference on the ground. Japan has emerged as India’s closest strategic and economic partner over the last couple of decades. The close personal [...]
Japanese firm backs AI start-up AntWorks
AntWorks, a firm which offers artificial intelligence (AI) and automation products and solutions, has raised $15 million (around Rs 103 crore) in a Series A round of funding from Japanese investment firm SBI Investment Co. AntWorks stated that it will use the fresh capital to boost growth by expanding its marketing and sales channels apart from entering new geographies. The company, which has bases in Singapore and Mumbai, will also invest in research and development. SBI Investment, a subsidiary of [...]