Will urge US Ambassador to open consulate in Bangalore soon: EAM S Jaishankar

During PM Modi’s visit to the US in June 2023, it was announced that the US would open two new consulates in Bengaluru and Ahmedabad, while India would establish a mission in Seattle.

Jaishankar also emphasised that India’s ‘new approach’ to diplomacy especially in the ‘neighbourhood’ was witnessing a paradigm shift. He stated that India’s neighbours are not competitors but partners with benefits. “We take our neighbours and make them partners, not competitors and not partners who envy you, but neighbours who benefit from what you do… Our neighbours today associate India with education, health… we stood by them during Covid, with Sri Lanka we were bold enough to put out $4 billion to bail them out economically. We are actually recapturing our history,” said Jaishankar.

On border tensions with China, the minister said, “India is able to send and maintain troops (at the China border) because of the development work carried out at the border. Border development budget has roughly gone up from Rs 3,500 crore a year to Rs 15,000 crore per year. The speed of road building, tunnels, and bridges has enabled us to send troops there. We have actually made a difference on the ground. We are also troubled by the trade deficit with China and we blame the flooding of Chinese goods in our market. The best way to counter this is to produce Indian goods.”

Talking about the abrogation of Article 370, the EAM said, “Taking Kashmir to the UN Security Council was a fundamental error because these were Western countries who had vested interests in Pakistan. If we were hard-headed and had a good sense of international politics, we wouldn’t have taken that call. In fact, countries have used Kashmir as an issue of vulnerability for us. To me Article 370 was not a call within the country we had to take but for profound foreign policy implications. We have closed the window of vulnerability which we opened in 1948.”

Jaishankar also highlighted the connection between Korea and Ayodhya. He said the inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya will be an important moment for people outside India as well.