Indian scholar Dr. Suba Chandran visited the Center for International Strategic Studies on September 18, 2018 and discussed Pakistan-India relations with CISS team.
Ambassador Naqvi provided an overview of the CISS activities, including publications of books and research journals and organization of seminars, conferences, workshops and round tables etc.
Later Mr. Chandran answered the questions asked by the CISS team. He explained that India practices its foreign policy at three levels. The immediate neighborhood, the region and global level. He said Indian Ministry of External Affairs is strong in its policy stances. However, the Ministry of Defence and the Indian Army are also becoming more assertive recently in respect of relations with China and Pakistan.
Responding to a question he said that India is trying to succeed in balancing its relations with Russia and the United States amid the controversy around the S-400 air defence system. India sent teams comprising of think tanks researchers/scholars to Russia to convince them about continued historic warm Russo-Indian relationship.
He said that Indian Prime Minister Narindra Modi uses the sub-groups of Bharatiya Janata Party to advance his own political objectives and his policy is not dictated by either RSS, Shiv Sena or other such groups.
On CPEC, he said as Pakistan has CPEC with China, the trade between India and China is flourishing and Indo-China economic relationship is also strong.
He underlined the significance of continued dialogue between India and Pakistan to resolve contentious issues.
