No, it is not Manmohan Singh's love in Tokyo. Call it 'strategic love'.
The proof of the pudding is in eating. Apply this dictum in the context of India-Japan relations and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's about-to-be concluded Japan visit, and the facts speak for themselves.
Here are some facts as reflected through the just-released Joint Statement on the Prime Minister's visit to Japan, appropriately titled "Strengthening the Strategic and Global Partnership between India and Japan beyond the 60th Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations."
Japan has agreed to give loan to India worth 71 billion yen (almost seven billion US dollars) for the Mumbai Metro Line III project as well as the yen loan of the fiscal year 2012 totalling 353.106 billion yen (34.7 billion dollars) for eight projects. Besides, Japan has also pledged 17.7 billion yen (1.74 billion dollars) for the Campus Development Project of Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (Phase 2) and 13 billion yen (1.27 dollars) for the Tamil Nadu Investment Promotion Programme.
All this put together amounts to a staggering 44.6 billion US dollars and all of that in just one visit of the Indian Prime Minister and his talks with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe. More importantly, the Japanese money will flow into actual infrastructural development works across the length and breadth of India with Japanese technical assistance and it is not a dole to keep the Indian economy afloat - just taking a leaf out of the Pakistan brand of aid politics.
During United States President Barack Obama's India visit in November 2010, Obama had sewn up some twenty deals worth ten billion dollars. An elated Obama had then said that he would go back to his country and tell his people that his India visit had yielded fifty thousand American jobs.
Now imagine how many jobs the Japanese financial assistance over the next few years will generate for India
And yet there is no grandstanding by the humble Japanese. This.... |
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