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With China’s growing assertiveness in the Indian Ocean region, the Joe Biden administration in the US sees India as its most important partner to counter Beijing’s ambitions.

US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin called India an “increasingly important partner among today’s rapidly shifting international dynamic”, saying the bilateral relationship is a “stronghold of a free and open Indo-Pacific region”, reported The Standard. Recently, Austin met Defence Minister Rajnath Singh over the weekend on his first foreign trip in the role as the two sides concluded talks on defence cooperation. Austin also visited Japan and South Korea last week, Washington’s closest military allies in Asia.

“It’s important that the secretary of defence has made a trip to India on his first trip to Asia, along with Japan and South Korea,” Dhruva Jaishankar, Executive Director at think tank Observer Research Foundation America, said on an American news channel.

He also said the Biden administration’s investment in the Quad—the informal strategic alliance between the US, India, Australia and Japan—is equally important. Beijing has significantly expanded its engagements in the Indian Ocean over the last three decades and has been especially active since 2008.

A Brookings Institution report last June said American and Indian strategists are worried about China’s growing naval presence as well as its use of “debt-trap diplomacy,” which could provide Beijing with military advantages, reported The Standard.

China set up its first overseas military base in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa in 2017 and has invested in developing, managing or acquiring strategically located ports in countries surrounding India, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. “There is a growing Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean region,” said Arun Singh, a former Indian ambassador to the United States.

According to ORFA’s Jaishankar, India’s Navy has also increased its patrols over the last few years as New Delhi has taken a much more activist approach to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief across the Indian Ocean region. As China and India more frequently bicker over the area, there is bound to be some natural convergence between New Delhi and Washington, he said. While it is not as significant as its presence in the Pacific Ocean, the United States does have a permanent presence in the Indian Ocean region through military bases in the Middle East, Djibouti and Diego Garcia island, which is part of British Indian Ocean Territory, Jaishankar explained.

The US-India relationship has developed in “significant leaps and bounds” over past years, in part driven by shared concerns about China, according to Jaishankar. “We are at a stage where, while they are not allies, the US and India conduct a significant number of military exercises between themselves and with other partners involving all three military services,” he said.

This includes a trilateral naval exercise between the US, Japan and India called the Malabar games. Last year, India also invited Australia to participate.

With ANI inputs

Taipei: Two Chinese warplanes entered Taiwan air’s defence identification zone (ADIZ) on Monday morning, marking the 12th intrusion this month. Over the past few months, Taiwan has reported incursion by Chinese warplanes into ADIZ almost daily. Chinese planes were spotted in Taiwan’s identification zone on March 1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 20, and 22, Taiwan News reported.

Air defence identification zones are early warning systems that help countries to detect incursions into their airspace. Any aircraft entering such an area is supposed to report its route and purpose to the “host” nation, though the zones are classified as international airspace and pilots are not legally bound to make such a notification.

Two People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Chengdu J-10 fighter jets flew into the southwest corner of Taiwan’s ADIZ, to the northeast of the Dongsha Islands (Pratas Islands), according to the Ministry of National Defense (MND), according to Taiwan News.

Rishabh Tongya, Creative Director, Diacolor recently joined NewsX for an exclusive conversation as a part of NewsX India A-List and said that one might exclaim that there are more jewellers than confectionery stores in India, but when it comes to fine jewellery, there is a dearth of it. 

Tracing the journey of his family business Diacolor, Rishabh said, Jewellery has been my family business. It was started by my great-grandfather. We have been working with a lot of brands and designers around the world, mostly overseas. It was after I had my son that we decided to move to Delhi and open up our store. Since then, there has no looking back. It has been a tremendous, incredible and happy journey and i think that the best is yet to come.”

When asked about any significant milestones, achievements, or growth plans he would like to share, Rishabh said, “When you just start your first store, you want to get everything right. The checks on the list, you trying to get the right team in place, the right setting, the right product, and then of course reaching out to the Indian consumer. We have three branch stores in India with another two in pipeline and we have got plans to further move to other cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad. We really feel that in India, there’s the dearth of fine jewellers. One might sort of argue that there are more jewellers than confectionery stores in India, but when it comes to fine jewellery, i think there is the dearth of it. That’s where we find a space and that’s what we’re looking to expand.”

Diacolor has long been known for its range of rare emeralds as a jewellery brand. An admirer of his father’s craftsmanship, Rishabh said that his father is very passionate about stones, so whenever he comes across something nice and beautiful, he makes an attempt to acquire it. Speaking on two stones that they acquired a few years back, Rishabh shared, ”About five years ago, one of them was found in Zambia and it was one of the most important finds in the last 12-13 years. Post two years, they found another important, rough stone with the right colour, saturation and size. Again, we couldn’t resist from acquiring it. Interestingly, we got covered as one of the most read stories of 2019 by CNN. We’re very happy and proud to have it over with us.”

On acquiring the assets for their brand, Rishabh expressed, “The most important thing that remains a challenge for any jewellery brand today is the acquisition because there is no consistent supply when it comes to emeralds, diamonds and rubies. We took a step further and acquired some great assets in Mozambique for rubies, for emeralds in Ethiopia and Colombia. We sort of pursue further assets and so, like in the energy business where one tends to focus all the way from pit to plug, i think here our challenge and our sort of mission is to acquire and secure our own assets in coloured stones and diamonds”

When asked about the challenges they had faced during the pandemic, he expressed,“2020 has been a challenging year for everyone, especially in the luxury business. Unlike other products, unless you really have the feel of ambiance, one doesn’t really transact. I must say the first eight-nine months of the year were extremely challenging. But then, things in India sort of turned the corner and the wedding boom was back again.”

On a concluding note, He shared his success mantra and said,“I think persistence, I mean, nothing comes easy and nothing comes faster. We’re all living in a generation and at times where everybody wants to add things immediately, but I think if you believe in it and if you want it and if you are persistent about any project you wish to pursue or anything you’d like to do in life, then I think things sort of come around. Human persistence and passion, I think these are two things that work for me.”

Music composer Jatin Pandit recently got candid with NewsX as part of its special series NewsX India A-List. Popularly known by the name Jatin-Lalit, they duo have delivered timeless songs in movies like ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’,  ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham’ and ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ among many other blockbusters. The composer has now ventured into independent music with his first ever non-film music album called Dhadakte Rehna. In the exclusive interview with NewsX, Jatin reminisced upon his Bollywood journey so far, inspiration behind his new single and much more.

Speaking about the inspiration behind his new single Dhadakte Rehna, Jatin said, ”I was just sitting at home, utilising my time by playing some tune on my guitar. The rhythm and the words of this song hit out of nowhere. I was just humming the words and playing the tune accordingly. It felt really unique and pleasing to my ears and I realised that it had created a melody. My son Rahul, heard it and insisted me to complete the song.”

Underlining the meaning of the lyrics, he said, ”To me, it seemed like a new approach. When I reviewed the lyrics after writing a few lines, I knew that it was going to be a really different and good.  That’s when I decided to complete it. We decided to shoot the song and started our hunt for a few locations and finally decided to shoot in West Coast California. We shot the whole sequence with Rahul and a Mexican model named Jessica Lopez, who was really good, and the chemistry between the two looks amazing.”

Speaking about the experience of creating an independent music single, Mr. Jatin expressed that the entire experience has been amazing. ”The song was shot during the Covid-19 pandemic. The presence of Rahul in the video really appeals to the youth and re-generates the young-love element in the video. It was really a special moment for me,” he added.

When asked about his opinion on the changing trends in the music industry, Jatin Pandit said, ”With the advent of technology, new trends have emerged in the music industry, which I think is good. Music has evolved with time. Now, there are many music directors and background singers. Earlier, the music used to be so good that people would forget the stories, the films but good music stayed in their memories forever.”

When asked about his favourite song, he said, “Nothing like ‘Pehla Nasha’, composed by my brother Lalit Pandit and I, has ever been created or can be created in future. I believe that the song is immortal.” The interview ended on a musical note as Rahul Pandit joined his father for a brief moment and crooned a few lines of ‘Pehla Nasha’.

Aprameya Radhakrishna, CEO and Founder of Koo, recently joined NewsX’s special series ‘NewsX India A-List’ for an exclusive conversation. As Koo expands its network across the length and breadth of the country, Aprameya spoke to us about his journey, taking the big leap from the corporate world to establishing his own venture Koo. 

Sharing insights from his journey, Aprameya said, “After graduating from IIM Ahmedabad, I started working understanding how a business works. With that understanding, I started thinking about what businesses I could run. The first problem that we solved was the cab hailing problem. Before Vocal and Koo, I founded Taxi for Sure, which was the second largest player in cab hailing market in 2015. We sold it Ola for 200 million dollars and that was my first entrepreneurial state. Post that, we started thinking about what would be the next big wave. We saw that people were getting access to phones and the Internet. The one thing that would stop them from using the Internet was that every app was in English. More than 90% of people in India are not comfortable in English. That is when we started thinking about building something in local languages so that people can search for information, connect and communicate with each other, express oneself and that is how our product got formed”. 

Speaking about the necessity of microblogging in India, he expressed, “Vocal’ is a question and answer app. Although some of our community, which were answering questions, had a need to express themselves without answering questions. This made us curious as to why they needed a separate app even although there are other apps. When we deep dived, we saw that all the major options were in English and if you have to give a comfortable environment for people to express themselves on what is on their mind, it has to be in their own language. If you go in any community, you go inside, the app converts it into their language and you can find people from the same community who are speaking the language. You will be able to create content in that language very easily and the hashtags and you will talk about things that are important to that community. That was not existing and so to bring the voices of India, irrespective of language, you know was a new problem to solve. Connecting India deeper is a problem we are solving, whereas the existing options connect India to the English-speaking India to the rest of the world. The experience we have given for local languages and allowed users to express in those languages is the core philosophy of KOO. Nobody has built an app around microblogging and expression of thoughts and opinions ever before in local languages and that is what we have focused on.”

Emphasising that technology-building has undergone different stages in India, Aprameya said, “We have had the resources to built them. Internet access and technology access define who we built the technology for. Companies like Infosys and Wipro built technologies for companies outside because that is where it was needed. Next came, the English-speaking Indian where most cases was about booking tickets, searching for jobs, booking movie tickets, cabs and buying things online. Now, is when majority of Indians are getting access to internet and technology. There is no better person than an Indian to build technology for Indians to use them in their own language. Once we build this, we will know how to build apps for non-English audiences. We take this technology to the globe, which have a majority of non-English population, who will face the same kind of issues that India faces or Indian users face. We will take our technology to the world.” 

When asked about the policy challenges, Mr. Radhakrishna spoke about how the guidelines introduced by the Indian Government are rather flexible. “Most of the users on social media are behaving very well. Few are trouble-seekers or mischief-makers. Because of this small percentage, the community faces problems. The idea is to make sure that you behave like you would behave offline. While you have the responsibility while exercising freedom of speech, I think it is good enough. What you say should not harm other people’s lives. Abiding by the laws of the land is very important. As an Indian company, we respect that.”

The immediate priority for Mr, Aprameya is to “build the team and get young talent to join us in this mission”. He says, “Building and hiring especially in engineering is important. Our user-base has grown, we are close to 5 million downloads in India across various languages. That will grow to a 100 million users in a year or so. That is our primary objective.”

On a concluding note, the entrepreneur advised young entrepreneurs, ” Make sure you solve a real problem and you do not have to worry about users coming.”

Afghanistan Foreign Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar on Monday held talks with his Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar on various issues, including the expansion of bilateral relations and the peace process in Afghanistan.

“Foreign Minister Md Hanif Atmar met his Indian counterpart, S Jaishankar on Monday to discuss expansion of bilateral relations, strengthening of regional and international consensus on Afghan peace talks, economic cooperation, and regional connectivity,” said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Afghanistan in an official statement. Atmar arrived in New Delhi on Monday for a three-day working visit to discuss a wide range of issues with the Indian government, including the international efforts to unblock the Afghan peace process in Doha and briefed Jaishankar on the results of last week’s Moscow conference on Afghanistan.

The two sides reviewed the Troika Peace Meeting in Moscow and assessed the final declaration of the meeting as positive for strengthening and advancing the peace process.

Also, India stated its readiness to participate in regional conferences on peace and development in Afghanistan, including the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process in Tajikistan and Peace Talks in Turkey, read the statement.

The two sides also discussed regional connectivity projects, including the development of railways from Central Asia to South Asia via Afghanistan, read the statement. They also discussed the expansion of the Chabahar port and enhancing trade between the two countries.

The two sides agreed to form specialised working groups in various fields to strengthen economic and development cooperation and to follow up on the planned projects at technical levels.

Atmar also thanked and appreciated India’s effort for providing $3 billion for economic and development assistance to Afghanistan in the past two decades. He also expressed his gratitude to India for the delivery of 500,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine, and for providing 75,000 tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan.