Where India Stands on Ukraine, and How It Can Help
On the eve of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Ukraine, the world’s most populous nation’s interactions with Ukraine and Russia deserve an in-depth look.
by Ugo Poletti| August 19, 2024, 12:35 pm Kyiv Post
This week, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of Indiais schedule to visit Poland (on Aug. 21) and Ukraine (on Aug. 23). It will be the first time an Indian prime minister has visited Ukraine. With India in a position to influence Russia, Modi could, in theory, help bring about a resolution to the conflict. India could also be instrumental in Ukraine’s post-war recovery. Kyiv Post spoke to Anastasia Piliavsky, Reader in Social Anthropology and Politics at the India Institute of King’s College London, about the state of India-Ukraine relations. Piliavsky lives between Odesa and the UK.
Kyiv Post: We know little about India, except that its population (1.6 billion) has now exceeded China’s (1.4 billion) and that it is a large country with growing importance for the balance of power, not only in Asia but also increasingly in the wider world, including Europe, what must we take into account to understand India’s global position and its role in Russia’s war against Ukraine?
Anastasia Piliavsky: More people live in India than in any other state on a territory that is only the world’s seventh largest. Unlike China, which has been spilling into Siberia, creating vast de-facto colonies in Russia, India has impassable physical or political borders. Its sheer density presents distinctive political and economic problems, from coordinating elections to managing industrial pollution to providing jobs and keeping everyone fed.
India is young and digital: half of its citizens are under 25 and most are avid mobile phone users, with over 1 billion sim cards in use.
How does democracy work in such a large country full of socio-cultural differences?
This year’s elections in India were the largest democratic exercise in human history, with nearly a billion eligible voters, more than 8,000 candidates and 744 political parties. The logistics are so labor-intensive that the elections were run in seven phases over the course of six weeks. India is also a pioneer of digital democracy: the first country to replace paper ballots with electronic voting machines, beginning in the 1980s.
India is not only the world’s largest democracy, it is also one of its most animated, with voter turnouts and women’s participation going up steadily since the 1990s. It is also an extraordinary example of political nationhood. Like Europe, India contains many regions with different social and political histories, with their own literary, artistic and culinary traditions. Its people practice many religions speak more than a hundred recognized languages. Its intensely liberal constitution, which gives 22 languages national status, has brought this bewildering cultural and linguistic diversity into a single resilient nation. Despite religious tensions and separatist movements, for 72 years Independent India has retained its political integrity. By rejecting the mono-ethnic, mono-linguistic national model of imperial states like France, India offers the world a progressive new model of political nation-building, a model for the new world, one founded on a joint commitment to democratic statehood, not tribal loyalties. Its achievement of democratic unity under conditions of extraordinary ethno-linguistic diversity is a dazzling example for any nation as linguistically, ethnically and culturally diverse as Ukraine.
What are the relations between India and the three great superpowers?
During his recent visit to Moscow, Modi reaffirmed India’s status as Russia’s “special and privileged strategic partner.” Russia inherited most of the Soviet ties with India: a vast network of diplomatic, cultural and intelligence relations, military trade and a deep historical sympathy that Russia still enjoys in India.
China is India’s chief strategic rival. A neighboring superpower with an economy at least twice the size of India’s, with vastly superior industrial and military capabilities, China is India’s looming, perennial threat. Since the 1962 Sino-Indian war, China and India have clashed periodically, with the most recent skirmishes breaking out on the border in 2020-21. China’s deepening relations with Russia strains Indo-Russian relations, pushing India away from its enemy’s friend to China’s chief strategic opponent: the United States.
Over the past decade, as Sino-American tensions have grown and Russia has come firmly under Chinese vassalage, India has moved closer to the US which declared it a “Major Defense Partner,” crucial to countering China in the Indo-Pacific. The burgeoning Indo-American partnership creates opportunities for new strategic relations between India and Ukraine.
What are the characteristics of Modi’s premiership and what are his political objectives? How solid is his leadership?
Modi entered politics through a violent Hindu nationalist youth organization, but he made his career, first as Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat and then as Prime Minister, on a platform of economic growth. In the 10 years of his premiership, the Hindu nationalists have often been sidelined and this year’s election showed how little religious identity matters to his electors. Modi’s party lost in the Mecca of Hindu nationalism: the town of Ayodhya, where Modi built a hugely expensive, long-promised temple to the Hindu god Ram. Most of his electorate wants roads and jobs, not religious identity politics.
This year, Modi secured an uncertain victory. His party failed to secure parliamentary majority, losing nearly a third of its seats. For the first time in his life, Modi has had to form a coalition. It’s the disaffected farmers and youths who decimated Modi’s party and it is they he will now have to appease. As global warming brings on drought after drought, Modi will be increasingly hard-pressed to create alternative work for rural India, where nearly 70 percent of the country still lives.
Over the past decade in office, he has done a lot to stabilize India’s economy. Resolving a banking crisis and attracting foreign investment, he helped India overtake the UK as the world’s fifth largest economy. At the same time, unemployment soared (from 3.2 percent to 7.6 percent since 2013) and the small-business sector – the backbone of India’s economy – shrunk from 27.5 percent pre-Modi to 19 percent. Now 65.7 percent of India’s youth are unemployed, private consumption is at a two-decade low, while household debt is at an all-time high. As agricultural profits fall precipitously due to persistent droughts, farmer suicides soar.
Modi’s large-scale personal ambition, which excites his party’s traditional middle-class urban electorate and India’s global diaspora, is to bestow on India superpower status. India’s first moon landing, debut G20 Summit hosting and Modi’s attempt to rebrand India into Bharat were all meant to attract global acclaim. But a true superpower needs to show that it can affect politics in the wider world. Russia’s war against Ukraine is Modi’s opportunity to do just that.
India’s cooperation with Russia is long-standing, but unlike Russia’s alliance with China, which is based on a common enemy, Russia’s relation with India seems more based on questions of convenience. How can we describe it?
Following India’s non-alignment doctrine established by Nehru, the country owes Russia no political loyalties. Today, it is a partnership of convenience: a source of cheap oil, and a large market for Indian pharmaceuticals and steel. While India has been shifting away from Russian weapons (from 62 percent in 2008 to 36 percent this year), it has made a killing on cheap Russian oil. Since 2021, India’s import of Russian crude oil has gone up 20-fold and today the country is importing more than two million barrels a day. A buyer of 37 percent of Russian crude, second only to China, India is now one of the Russian economy’s chief floatation devices.
Anastasia Piliavsky, a Ukrainian academic, teaches at King's College in London-KT
In 2023-24 trade between Russia and India rose to nearly $65 billion, mostly in Russian imports. While Modi’s visit to Moscow was advertised as a peace mission – this resonates with the Indian electorate – it in fact focused on sanction-avoidance, particularly on developing maritime trade routes, like the one between Chennai and Vladivostok. India is working with Russia to find vessels to build its own refineries and export Russian crude in avoidance of sanctions, which the US has done nothing to curb. The SWIFT system shutdown in Russia created a currency crunch in Russo-Indian trade relations. Initially, the countries traded in rubles and rupees, but 8 billion Rupees owed by India to Russia got stuck in the Indian banks. Russians resolved this by investing in the Indian market, much of it in its infrastructure, and more recently by trading in the United Arab Emirate Dirhams.
Such trade is not without reputational consequences, which do serious damage to India’s superpower ambitions. Being called a “dearest friend” by a mass murderer whose missiles demolish a children’s hospital while he hugs Modi does not look good. No wonder the Indian media worked so hard to present the visit as a “peace mission.” Even in the historically pro-Russian India, Russia’s war against Ukraine is increasingly perceived as imperial genocide.
The war in Ukraine may be seen as very distant from Indians, since it is taking place on another continent. How does the Indian ruling class view the war?
Indian citizens tend to care as little about European affairs as Europeans care about the Indian. India is a sub-continent with a population twice the size of Europe’s. Its own political life is so dense and eventful that much of the public interest remains nation-bound. Initially, the war was viewed in very vague terms, through the prism of a long-standing “friendship” with the USSR, which in India is commonly conflated with Putin’s Russia. However, as news of atrocities spread, the Indian public gradually started to rethink the war, with intellectuals and the press speaking out increasingly against Russian aggression. While Russia’s long-lived propaganda channels pressed narratives of an “American proxy war,” of the “NATO threat,” of Ukraine being Russia’s legitimate “zone of influence,” and of this being a “civil war,” the sheer horror of Russian violence in Ukraine is forcing Indian audiences to understand that this is none other than a war of imperial conquest.
How can India help Ukraine now?
India holds a vast arsenal of old Soviet tanks and munitions, which are urgently needed in Ukraine, but for which this will be the last war. These could be gainfully exchanged by Ukraine’s NATO allies for newer NATO equipment. This would in turn help India to speed up transition to NATO systems, in the way that Poland and several other NATO countries have done, by passing dated Soviet equipment to Ukraine.
India could help Ukraine negotiate some deals with Russia, such as the return of Ukrainian children. India’s advances in digital democracy could be of use to Ukraine. Electronic voting machines and experience of using them could help Ukraine conduct elections in time of war.
In the aftermath of the war, Indian companies, with their extensive experience of infrastructural and urban development projects, could provide urgently needed help. The Indo-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce is already planning such work.
What can India gain in Ukraine?
Ukraine surprised the world by defeating the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine’s waterborne drones can help India bolster its maritime security, at a minimal cost.
The innovative, low-cost defense technologies developed in Ukraine, like air and waterborne drones, could give India a military upper hand, especially in the control of the vast Indian Ocean.
Ukraine’s future reconstruction holds out many labor opportunities. While Ukraine will be severely lacking in human resources, Indian companies can take up jobs that will give much needed relief to its crisis of unemployment.
Ukraine is a global pioneer in digital governance. Revolutionary apps like DIIA could help India solve persistent problems of managing identification and other government documents.
What skeletons in the closet have made Indo-Ukrainian relations difficult?
Much has been made of Ukraine’s military exports to Pakistan, especially in Russian-sponsored media. In fact, Ukraine has been exporting more arms to India than Pakistan. Between 2018 and 2022, arms sales to India nearly doubled, while exports to Pakistan fell by a third.
The real skeleton in this closet is Russian. Since the embargo on the sale of arms to Pakistan was lifted in 2014, Russia rushed to develop military cooperation with Islamabad, helping Pakistan to acquire large Mi-26 transport helicopters, precision-guided munitions, artillery, air defense, and long-range missiles. Military exports to Pakistan are intrinsic to Russia’s regional strategy. A sale of aircraft to India is always followed by a sale of anti-aircraft systems to Pakistan “to keep the balance in the region.”
A media scandal broke out in the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion when videos of Indian students stranded at the Ukraine-EU border proliferated on social media. Pro-Russian media quickly accused Ukrainian border guards of mistreating the students, and of racism. In fact, it is European, not Ukrainian border guards who blocked students’ passage to the EU, which at that early stage had not yet been secured.
But the biggest skeleton is bigger than this. For decades, Soviet operatives ran anti-Western disinformation campaigns in India, the biggest Anglophone sphere outside the West. The KGB archives exposed by archivist Vasily Mitrokhin, who defected to Britain, showed the agency planting thousands of articles in 10 Indian newspapers and a press agency. In 1972 alone, Russian operatives published more than 3,500 articles in Indian newspapers and in 1983 they used an Indian newspaper, ThePatriot, to spread the fake about American military manufacturing AIDS.
Russia has maintained these communication channels and Indian mass media remains severely infiltrated by Russian operatives. Editors in two Indian newspapers I write for told me, and off-record, that they are required to follow each pro-Ukrainian article with a pro-Russian one. Ukraine, on the contrary, has no information network in India. So, while echoes of Kremlin narratives billow through India’s chai shops and sitting rooms, where people still often think that Putin’s Russia is the new USSR and that Russia is an anti-imperialist friend of the post-colonial Global South. At the same time, no one knows that the common slogan “Hindi-Rusi bhai bhai” (Indians and Russians are brothers) was in fact coined by the Ukrainian Nikita Khrushchev, under whom Indo-Soviet relations blossomed. Fewer still understand that this is Ukraine’s war of independence from Europe’s last rogue empire⍐.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is reportedly scheduled to visit Ukraine on Friday, marking the first visit by an Indian leader since the Russia-Ukraine conflict began in February 2022.
While India is prepared to contribute to resolving the conflict, analysts said on Tuesday that Modi's visit, which aims to repair ties with the West and the US, is a largely symbolic gesture and unlikely to significantly advance peace talks.
Modi will complete a two-day visit to Poland from Wednesday and thereafter he will travel to Ukraine, according to India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
This will be the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Ukraine after the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1992, India's MEA said in a release on Monday. The MEA announced that Modi's "landmark visit to Ukraine will help further consolidation and expansion of bilateral ties."
Shortly after Modi's return from a visit to Russia in July, India proposed a visit to Ukraine in an effort to balance its relations between the US and Russia, Liu Zongyi, secretary-general of the Research Center for China-South Asia Cooperation at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Modi's visit to Russia had sparked dissatisfaction among several Western countries, particularly the US. By Modi's visiting Ukraine, India aims to repair its relations with the West while maintaining a delicate balance between the US and Russia, Liu said.
However, the proposal to visit Ukraine was made before the conflict in Russia's Kursk region, and with the ongoing clashes now a daily occurrence, India finds itself in a dilemma, said Liu. He noted that Modi's visit to Ukraine is merely a gesture and will not have a substantial impact on the current situation.
Although India's international status has risen in recent years, its influence remains largely confined to South Asia. Mediation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict typically involves either major powers facilitating negotiations or smaller nations collectively voicing concerns through multilateral channels, Cui Heng, a research fellow with the Center for Russian Studies of East China Normal University, told the Global Times.
For India, the lack of collective support and limited resources it can dedicate to global issues like the Russia-Ukraine conflict make its role in mediation relatively limited, Cui said.
Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said on Monday that Moscow was not ready to hold peace talks for now given Kiev's attack on Russia's Kursk region, but that Russia was not withdrawing its earlier peace proposals, Reuters reported.
India's Modi to 'share perspectives' on ending Ukraine war during Kyiv trip
By Reuters August 21, 2024
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NEW DELHI, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he will "share perspectives" on the peaceful resolution of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia during his visit to Kyiv this week, more than a month after he travelled to Moscow.
Modi departed for Poland on Wednesday and will visit Kyiv on Friday, the first trip to Ukraine by an Indian prime minister since diplomatic relations were established more than three decades back.
The trip follows Modi's July 8-9 visit to Moscow which drew criticism from the U.S. and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as it coincided with a lethal Russian strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv.
Modi condemned the killing of innocent children in an implicit rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The short visit to Kyiv is seen by many Indian analysts as an attempt to control the damage from the Moscow trip and also a strategic balancing act at a time New Delhi has grown closer to the West, particularly Washington.
India's diplomats reject that and say New Delhi's ties with Russia and Ukraine are independent of each other and the trip builds on interactions between New Delhi and Kyiv across sectors.
"I look forward to the opportunity to ... share perspectives on peaceful resolution of the ongoing Ukraine conflict," Modi said in a statement on Wednesday before his departure. "As a friend and partner, we hope for an early return of peace and stability in the region."
India and Russia have been close friends since the days of the Soviet Union and New Delhi has not condemned Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, instead urging both sides to use dialogue and diplomacy to resolve their differences.
Russia became India's top oil supplier since the war began as Indian refiners snapped up cheap Russian crude.
New Delhi has also remained engaged with Kyiv, with Modi meeting Zelenskiy on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Italy in June. They have also spoken several times by phone.
The prospect of India mediating to help end the war in Ukraine has been raised in diplomatic circles from time to time but New Delhi has appeared cagey, saying only that it is willing to offer any support to resolve the conflict peacefully.
"Contrary to widespread expectations, Modi’s visit to Warsaw and Kyiv may be less about a new Indian peace initiative on Ukraine," C Raja Mohan of the Singapore-based Institute of South Asian Studies wrote in Wednesday's Indian Express newspaper.
"President Vladimir Putin knows how to reach out to the U.S., which has the most leverage in the Ukraine war, and open negotiations when he finds it appropriate," he wrote, adding that Modi's trip was more about boosting New Delhi's ties in Central Europe.
India's Modi to visit Ukraine on Aug. 23, weeks after rebuking Putin
By YP Rajesh August 19, 2024
NEW DELHI, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Ukraine on Friday to boost ties with Kyiv, weeks after a trip to Moscow in which he rebuked Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war with its neighbour.
Announcing the Aug. 23 trip, India's foreign ministry said it would be a "landmark and historic" visit, the first by an Indian prime minister to Ukraine since diplomatic relations were established over 30 years ago.
Indian analysts said the visit would aim to control damage from Modi's trip last month to Moscow, which coincided with a lethal strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv, embarrassing Modi and drawing criticism from President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi May 20, 2023. REUTERS/File Photo
New Delhi, however, said it has substantive and independent ties with both Russia and Ukraine and that the visit builds on continuing interactions between India and Ukraine.
"This is not a zero-sum game ... these are independent, broad ties," Tanmaya Lal, Secretary (West) in the Indian foreign ministry, told reporters.
"This is an important visit that is expected to catalyze our ties in a whole range of sectors," Lal said, listing economic and business links, agriculture, infrastructure, health and education, pharmaceuticals, defence and culture.
Lal said the conflict in Ukraine would also be discussed, and reiterated that New Delhi was willing to provide any support it can in pursuit of peace.
"Lasting peace can only be achieved through options that are acceptable to both parties. And it can only be a negotiated settlement," he said.
Zelenskiy's office said he and Modi would discuss bilateral and multilateral cooperation and that a "number of documents" were expected to be signed.
MODI REBUKED PUTIN IN MOSCOW
During Modi's trip to Moscow on July 8-9, old friends India and Russia sought to boost bilateral trade and cooperation in areas ranging from nuclear energy to medicine.
But the visit coincided with the strike on the hospital in Ukraine's capital, prompting Modi to use emotive language to deliver an implicit rebuke to Putin at their summit.
Modi told Putin the death of innocent children was painful and terrifying, and that Moscow and Kyiv should resolve their conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.
Modi's visit also coincided with the July 9-10 NATO summit in Washington at which the allies sought to bolster Ukraine and counter Russia.
The United States said it raised concerns with India about its ties with Russia but also said the relationship gives New Delhi an ability to urge Putin to end the war.
Top Indian diplomats have since held regular talks with their Ukrainian counterparts, and Modi met Zelenskiy on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Italy in June. They have also spoken several times by phone since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Ukraine has pitched for New Delhi to help rebuild its economy, inviting investment from Indian companies at a January business summit in India.
India has traditionally had close economic and defence ties with Moscow and refrained from criticising Russia over its invasion. It has increased purchases of Russian oil to record levels, saying it must protect its own national interest first.
The prospect of India mediating to help end the war in Ukraine has been raised in diplomatic circles from time to time but New Delhi has appeared cagey, saying only that it is willing to offer any support to resolve the conflict peacefully⍐.
Thailand says mpox detected in European who travelled from Africa
The 66-year-old male arrived in the country on August 14 and is being quarantined in a hospital.
Thailand has detected an mpox case in a European man who arrived from Africa last week and is awaiting test results to determine the strain, health officials said.
Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn, head of the Department of Disease Control, announced on Wednesday that the 66-year-old patient arrived in Thailand on August 14 from an African country, which was not identified.
The authorities are treating the case as if it were the Clade 1 variant of mpox, Thongchai told the Reuters news agency, which has caused global concern as it appears to spread more easily.
The infected person has been quarantined in a hospital while more tests are done to determine the strain. Thongchai said the man had transited in a Middle Eastern country, which also he did not name, before flying on to Thailand.
Thailand has detected 800 cases of mpox Clade 2 since 2022 but has not found any case of the Clade 1 or Clade 1b variants so far.
While the World Health Organization (WHO) declared mpox a global public health emergency, it said the outbreak is not another COVID-19, noting that much is already known about the virus and the means to control it.
The viral infection causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions. Clade 1b – comparatively a new, more deadly and transmissible strain – has driven the recent surge in cases.
Outbreaks have been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda since July.
DRC alone has reported more than 16,000 cases and 500 deaths this year.
On Wednesday, the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) appealed for $18.5m in assistance to provide healthcare to those affected in Africa.
“We must act swiftly to protect those at the highest risk and to mitigate the impact of this outbreak on the region,” said IOM Director General Amy Pope.
Mpox: What are the symptoms, and how does it spread?
Meanwhile, in Argentina, health authorities have quarantined a cargo ship in the Parana River over a suspected mpox case on board, the government said.
The Ministry of Health only identified the crew member as an Indian national. He reportedly showed cyst-like skin lesions predominantly on the chest and face and has been isolated.
Health authorities in the Philippines said on Wednesday that a recently detected mpox case is of the milder Clade 2 variant.
Clade 1b causes death in about 3.6 percent of cases, with children more at risk, according to the WHO.
Formerly called monkeypox, the virus was discovered in 1958 in Denmark in monkeys kept for research⍐.
Well-known Sri Lankan scholar Prof. Sasanka Perera has left the South Asian University (SAU) in protest against a charge sheet issued to him over the inclusion of Prof. Noam Chomsky’s criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a PhD research proposal supervised by him, and the mistreatment the student concerned had to undergo owing to the quotation at issue.
Prof. Chomsky’s remark which the SAU authorities have taken exception to is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi hails from a “radical Hindutva tradition” and is making attempts to “dismantle Indian secular democracy” and “impose Hindu technocracy”. The university officials could have had this remark removed from the research proposal. Instead, they went so far as to charge Prof. Perera with violating Indian rules and the SAARC Charter for not asking the student to remove the lines attributed to Prof. Chomsky. Are they driven by an ulterior motive?
It defies comprehension why the SAU authorities took umbrage at Prof. Chomsky’s remark, for PM Modi himself makes no bones about his Hindu nationalist outlook. On the other hand, very serious allegations against Modi and his devotion to Hindutva are in the public domain. Human Rights Watch has been quoted by the Indian media recently as saying that Prime Minister Modi ‘made Islamophobic remarks’ in 110 out of 173 speeches he delivered in the run-up to the last Lok Sabha election. Besides, it may be recalled that following the 2002 Gujarat riots, the US State Department denied Modi a visa to enter the US on the grounds that ‘any foreign government official who “was responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom” is ineligible for a visa to the United States’. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat during the riots. The visa ban lasted nine years until Modi became the Prime Minister. Reams have been written about the issue.
How can the SAU, which has taken punitive action against a senior don and a student for quoting a line from what an internationally-acclaimed intellectual like Prof. Chomsky has said about the Indian Prime Minister, call itself a seat of higher learning?
Prof. Perera finds himself in a predicament which is similar, in some respects, to that of Sri Lankans trapped in Myanmar’s Cyber Crime area. He has no way of safeguarding his rights, much less having justice served. He may even have to return to Sri Lanka without his gratuity after working for the SAU faithfully for 13 years; he cannot resort to legal action against the university, which enjoys diplomatic immunity as a SAARC outfit. The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry has let him down badly. This is a damning indictment of the government of Sri Lanka, which has not cared to stand by one of eminent Sri Lankan scholars fighting for justice, as a news feature published in today’s edition of this newspaper reveals.
New Delhi even goes out of its way to defend Indian fishers arrested for illegal fishing in Sri Lankan waters, but the Foreign Ministry of Sri Lanka has chosen to do nothing about a grave injustice a Sri Lankan academic has suffered in a university run by SAARC!
Academic freedom is on the line at the SAU. Let the academic communities of the SAARC member states, especially Sri Lanka and India, take up Prof. Perera’s grievance, and ensure that the SAU endeavours to adopt international best practices and treat its teachers and students fairly.
It is high time SAARC took serious note of the blatant violation of Prof. Perera’s rights and stepped in to ensure that justice is served and prevent the SAU authorities from abusing their institution’s diplomatic immunity to suppress academic freedom and launch witch-hunts against those who refuse to pander to their whims and fancies.
The official estimate of what Sri Lanka currently owes its financiers is $64.9 billion — $8 billion of which is owned by China. The country’s debt-to-GDP currently stands around 75% and 95.4% of all government revenue is currently going towards debt repayment.
This debt situation is clearly not sustainable, but there’s more:
In addition to racking up large amounts of government debt via the usual channels, it's now becoming evident that the previous government also utilized state-owned enterprises to take out additional loans on its behalf. While the full extent of this extracurricular lending seems unknown, current estimates peg it at a minimum of $9.5 billion — which is all off the books of the finance ministry.
“We still don’t know the exact total debt number,”
Sri Lanka’s prime minister Ranil Wikramasinghe admitted to parliament earlier this month.
Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (L), Sri Lanka Cricket president Thilanga Sumathipala... [+]
Much of Sri Lanka’s pile of debt accrued in the process of initiating an entire buffet of large-scale and extremely expensive infrastructure projects under the direction of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa.
But this doesn’t necessarily mean that Sri Lanka's current administration is doing much better. Under President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who came to office at the beginning of 2015, domestic debt grew by 12% and external debt by 25%without starting any new large-scale infrastructure projects.
This fact has not gone unnoticed by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who recently issued a series of public taunts, claiming that with the money the current administration has so far borrowed he could have built “two Mattala Airports, one Hambantota Port, one Norochcholai Coal Power Plant, one Colombo-Matara Highway, one Colombo-Katunayake Highway, not one, but two Colombo Port cities and one 500 MW Sampur Coal Power Plant...”
Sri Lanka may be in a debt trap that it can’t get out of. This year alone $4.5 billion is due to foreign lenders and next year $4 billion is owed — bills which the country has not yet figured out a way to pay.
The IMF did agree to provide Sri Lanka with a $1.5 billion bailout in the form of a loan in April after the country agreed to a set of criteria to attempt to right the course of its wavering economy. However, as reported by East Asia Forum, Sri Lanka’s Central Bank has stated that it is their intention to secure an additional $5 billion in loans after receiving these funds -- and corresponding seal of approval -- from the IMF as the debt trap continues getting deeper⍐.
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Correction 10/3/2016: the $42 million rock was removed from Hambantota not Colombo.
Wade Shepard
I'm a perpetually traveling writer and documentary filmmaker who reports from the ground on emerging markets, China, and the economic transitions that are shaping our world. I'm the author of "Ghost Cities of China," and "On the New Silk Road." My latest film is called The White Elephant and is about the local impacts of the Melaka Gateway BRI project in Malaysia. Previously based in East Asia, Central Asia, SE Asia, and Eastern Europe. Now in Central and South America.
I have appeared on CNBC Squawk Box, CBC The Current, Forbes.com, VICE, NPR Morning Edition, ABC News, and BBC World.
தமிழகம் வாழ் ஈழத்தமிழர்களை கழகக் கண்டனப் பொதுக்கூட்டத்தில் கலந்து கொள்ளக் கோருகின்றோம்! 
