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By:

Dr. V.L. Dharurkar

12 February 2025 at 2:53:17 pm

From Frost to Thaw

After years of diplomatic chill, India and Canada have attempted a strategic reset driven as much by geopolitics and trade anxieties as by a desire to repair a damaged partnership. For nearly three years relations between India and Canada resembled a prolonged winter. Yet, the visit of Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney to India at the start of the Month suggests that the thaw may finally have begun. If the past few years were marked by recrimination and mistrust, the present moment hints...

From Frost to Thaw

After years of diplomatic chill, India and Canada have attempted a strategic reset driven as much by geopolitics and trade anxieties as by a desire to repair a damaged partnership. For nearly three years relations between India and Canada resembled a prolonged winter. Yet, the visit of Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney to India at the start of the Month suggests that the thaw may finally have begun. If the past few years were marked by recrimination and mistrust, the present moment hints at a cautious but deliberate reset. Both sides have shown a keenness to replace acrimony with pragmatism. The chill began during the tenure of Justin Trudeau, whose government publicly alleged that Indian agents may have been involved in violent activities on Canadian soil. India rejected the accusations as unfounded and politically motivated. The dispute triggered tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions, the freezing of high-level dialogue and an atmosphere of mutual suspicion. For two countries that had long prided themselves on democratic affinity, shared Commonwealth ties and large diaspora links, the rapid deterioration was remarkable. Canada is home to one of the world’s largest Indian diasporas, numbering well over a million people. Trade and educational links have grown steadily since the late twentieth century. Canadian universities attract tens of thousands of Indian students each year, while Indian professionals and entrepreneurs have contributed significantly to Canada’s economic life. These human connections had long acted as ballast in the relationship. But politics, as ever, can overwhelm social ties. Symbolic Weight Carney’s New Delhi visit therefore carries symbolic weight. A former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, he has entered politics with a reputation for technocratic competence rather than ideological theatrics. His five-day visit to India, from late February to early March, was carefully choreographed to signal renewal. Beginning in Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, he met industrialists, bankers and policymakers, emphasising economic cooperation as the cornerstone of the revived relationship. India today is among the world’s fastest-growing major economies, with ambitions to expand its industrial base, modernise infrastructure and transition towards cleaner sources of energy. Canada, meanwhile, possesses abundant natural resources, technological expertise and capital. The two economies are complementary in ways that diplomacy had recently obscured. One of the most notable outcomes of the visit was a long-term agreement on uranium supply. Canada’s mining giant Cameco and India’s Department of Atomic Energy concluded a ten-year deal worth roughly $2.6bn to supply more than 20m pounds of uranium. For India, which is expanding its civil nuclear programme to meet rising energy demand while limiting carbon emissions, reliable access to uranium is strategically important. The agreement will help fuel a new generation of small and medium reactors, which India sees as crucial to its energy transition. Canada, for its part, is among the world’s leading producers of uranium. Renewed nuclear cooperation therefore reflects not only diplomatic reconciliation but also the convergence of economic interests. Previous agreements between the two countries had faltered amid political tensions. This time both governments have emphasised implementation and timely delivery. Trade Boost Trade, too, looms large in the reset. Bilateral commerce between India and Canada currently hovers around $10bn to $12bn annually, a modest figure for economies of their scale. Both governments have spoken of raising that number dramatically, potentially to $50bn by the end of the decade. Negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), long stalled, have been revived with renewed urgency. Here global geopolitics provides an additional incentive. The increasingly protectionist trade policies of the United States under Donald Trump have unsettled many of Washington’s traditional partners. Tariff threats and economic nationalism have encouraged countries to diversify their commercial relationships. India and Canada, both heavily exposed to the American market, now see advantage in strengthening bilateral trade and investment as a hedge against volatility emanating from Washington. Education and innovation are another pillar of the renewed engagement. Canadian universities are exploring the possibility of establishing campuses in India, enabling Indian students to access Canadian education without leaving the country. Joint research programmes and technological collaboration are expected to deepen intellectual ties that already run deep. Beyond economics lies a broader strategic calculation. The Indo-Pacific has become the central theatre of twenty-first-century geopolitics. As China’s influence expands across Asia, many countries are seeking new partnerships to preserve a balance of power and maintain open sea lanes. India has positioned itself as a leading voice in this effort, promoting a vision of a free, stable and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. Strategic Dynamics Canada, though geographically distant, has begun to pay greater attention to the region’s strategic dynamics. Collaboration with India could therefore form part of a wider network involving countries such as Australia, Japan and New Zealand. For Ottawa, engagement with New Delhi offers a way to remain relevant in Asia’s shifting geopolitical landscape. For India, Canadian support adds another partner to its growing Indo-Pacific coalition. Yet enthusiasm should be tempered with realism. Diplomatic resets are easier to announce than to sustain. The political sensitivities that strained relations in the past have not vanished entirely. Canada’s domestic politics, particularly debates surrounding diaspora activism, remain complex. India, meanwhile, is unlikely to tolerate external criticism on matters it considers internal. Managing these differences will require careful diplomacy and mutual restraint. Nevertheless, the symbolism of the present moment matters. The revival of high-level dialogue, the signing of concrete economic agreements and the visible warmth between leaders all suggest a shared desire to turn the page. In the grand sweep of history, relations between India and Canada have always rested on deeper foundations than temporary political quarrels. If the current reset succeeds, it could transform a once-strained partnership into one of the more promising relationships in the Indo-Pacific era. (The writer is a foreign affairs expert. Views personal.)

The Premier and the Payouts

Kerala’s Leftist Chief Minister talks of probity, but his daughter’s alleged corruption exposes the hollowness of his moral posturing.

Kerala
Kerala

When Pinarayi Vijayan swept to power in Kerala in 2016 and again in 2021, he had promised a government untainted by scandal, bolstered by a technocratic sheen and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s traditional moralism. Today, that façade has noticeably cracked - and not at the hands of the opposition, but from within his own family.


Last week, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs gave the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) permission to prosecute Vijayan’s daughter, Veena, in a corporate fraud case involving Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL). The agency’s chargesheet, filed after months of investigation, is unambiguous: Veena and her private firm, Exalogic Solutions, received Rs. 2.73 crore (around $327,000) from CMRL without rendering any services. The SFIO concluded these payments were fraudulent.


The SFIO has invoked Section 447 of the Companies Act, a serious charge that carries a minimum sentence of six months, extendable to a decade. The Delhi High Court, rejecting CMRL’s petition for a stay on the investigation, has implicitly validated the agency’s pursuit.


What makes this case particularly scandalous is not just the alleged graft, but the hypocrisy it exposes at the heart of Kerala’s leftist regime. The CPI(M), long fond of presenting itself as cleaner and more upright than its political rivals, has found itself fumbling for a defence. Instead of insisting on accountability, party leaders have leapt to protect their supreme leader’s kin. M.A. Baby, the party’s newly minted general secretary, declared that Veena had done nothing wrong and asked critics to show what benefits CMRL gained from the state government in return. This distraction tactic evades the fundamental problem: if money was exchanged for no work done, it constitutes corporate fraud irrespective of whether favours were exchanged in return.


The brazenness is galling. Vijayan has built his political persona on an image of steely resolve and incorruptibility, even when his governance has drawn criticism for opacity and arrogance. He refused to answer questions when the allegations first surfaced last year, brushing them aside as part of a political smear campaign.


The opposition Congress has pounced on the matter. VD Satheesan, the leader of the opposition, has demanded Vijayan’s resignation, arguing that a chief minister cannot credibly remain in office while his daughter faces prosecution for financial misconduct.


The central leadership of the CPI(M), known for its tight discipline and internal debate, has been conspicuously silent. This is not just a local embarrassment but a national one. The party risks eroding whatever remains of its moral capital in the eyes of the public if it continues to pretend this is a non-issue. The central committee should immediately demand an explanation as the appearance of impropriety alone is enough to damage public trust. And the facts appear damning. That a private company agreed to pay large sums of money monthly to the daughter of a sitting chief minister without services rendered is not only deeply suspicious, it is politically radioactive.


The CPI(M) in Kerala has survived many storms, including corruption scandals that have dogged previous administrations. But never before has a direct family member of the chief minister been at the centre of such a serious financial controversy.


For decades, the Left has taken pride in scorning the venality of dynastic politics, accusing parties like the Congress of running family fiefdoms and mocking the Bharatiya Janata Party’s rhetoric of development while pointing to its crony capitalist underbelly. Yet when faced with strikingly similar charges involving its own top leader’s daughter, the comrades fall back on tired denials and whataboutery. The silence of Marxist intellectuals who would have raised hell had this involved a BJP or Congress scion is equally telling. The Left, which once prided itself on being the moral conscience of Indian politics, is now indistinguishable from the very establishment it once claimed to resist. Ideology, it turns out, is no vaccine against hypocrisy.

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