Aug 1-15, 2021 - Vol 1, Issue 27
INDIA NEWS
EDUCATION
India News-JGU-IAIE SMART program JGU has signed Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with Australia-based INDIA NEWS and Institute for Australia India Engagement (IAIE) to create opportunities for students to undertake internships in Australia. With INDIA NEWS and IAIE students will participate in the Student Mentoring and Research Training (SMART) program over a period of 1-2 months. As a part of the internship students design, edit and publish this page which contains commentaries by them on issues which they deem relevant for Australia-India relations. Page Editor: Ms. Anushka Saxena, Lady Sri Ram College (graduate), New Delhi Associate Page Editor: Ms. Vaibhavi Nagar, JGU Commentators: Mr Dhruv Kumar Jha, Ms. Harshita Calla, Ms. Sumedha Maheshwari, Ms. Sri C. Khyati Reddy, Mr. Shivam Shukla and Ms. Tanya Goel ( JGU students and graduates)
Australia’s food culture
Harshita Calla
T
o understand Australia’s food culture, we need to take a quick look at its history. Before Australia became a settlement, aboriginals inhabited the continent, and they survived by consuming native plants and animals - a unique huntergatherer diet called bush tucker. The food habits of the settlers were influenced by the tastes of the British and Irish migrants. Chinese influence was introduced during the Australian gold rush, with food becoming more diverse due to the post-war immigration. After the World War I, immigrants brought influences from South Asia, the Mediterranean and East Asia. Cut to the Australian cuisine of the 21st century, which is influenced by globalisation, has had a long history of evolving tastes and flavours. It is accompanied with the rising popularity of international restaurants and fast-food chains. The most popular meat in Australia is chicken, with the average Australian consuming around 47 kgs of chicken every year. Another common meat is lamb, with it being used in many cuts – chops and shanks being the most popular ones. Lamb is a popular dish that is served for Sunday Roasts and barbecues.
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Along with food, Australia has had a distinct coffee culture from the beginning of the 20th century. An interesting thing to note about the coffee culture of Australia is that the international coffee chains like Starbucks have a small market share, while the native brands of Australia, like The Coffee Club and Zarraffas Coffee, are much more popular. One explanation for this can be that Australia harboured an independent, entrenched coffee culture, and the American brands entered the Australian market late. The fact that Australians are foodies with historical food traditions, is no secret. A famous Australian bread that dates back to the 1920s is the fairy bread, and is commonly served at children’s birthday parties. There also exist regional foods like YoYo biscuits and Balfours frog cakes. Popular desserts in Australia are the pavlova and various meringuebased desserts. The lamington cake, which is made from two squares of a butter or sponge cake and coated with an outer layer of chocolate and desiccated coconut, is also a popular dish. Clearly, Australian food makes the country a hotspot for food-lovers from around the world!
New Quad, new stakes: The US-Pak-Uzbek-Afghan era
Anushka Saxena
O
n 16 July, 2021 the United States President Joe biden announced the formation of a new Quad among the US, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Strategically, the move aims to keep interregional trade routes alive, and the Afghani peace process going, even though the withdrawal of US troops is being rapidly executed. “The parties consider long-term peace and stability in Afghanistan critical to regional connectivity and agree that peace and regional connectivity are mutually reinforcing. Recognizing the historic opportunity to open flourishing interregional trade routes, the parties intend to cooperate to expand trade, build transit links, and strengthen business-to-business ties,” said an official US press release. Clearly, there exists a lot to unpack here, considering this move shows the US inability to fully move out of its Afghani stronghold, knowing that border security and trade with Central Asia will prove to be a major earner for the Americans. At the same time, the non-involvement of India in the new Quad signals a slight shift away from the goals of “peace” and “trade stability,” and I’d like to demonstrate why. It is a known fact that Afghanistan is central to connectivity between the Central Asian Republics (CARs)— Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and South Asia. The country is now under the politico-military grip of the Taliban, a body that is becoming increasingly aggressive with the closure of US military bases, claiming to have 85% of Afghanistan under its control. In this light, the stakeholders to the Afghani peace process are not just the Afghani government and Taliban itself, but also the more violent local militias that historically opposed Talibanirule and fought the organisation in the 1990s, the US, of course, and the surrounding nations like the CARs, Pakistan, India, and Iran. All these nations are becoming calmer and friendlier in their approach to the Taliban - an unprecedented move away from most of their foreign policies - especially India’s and Uzbekistan’s, both of which did not recognise Taliban at one point, and now for the sake of peace and prosperity of the region, have come back on the negotiating table. Two other “superpower” stakeholders are
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China and Russia, both having their own stakes in the region. Historically, Russia has been a dominant aggressor and trader in the CARs and Afghanistan and China, on the other hand, is becoming the biggest marketshare-holder, especially in terms of trade in Central Asia. But it’s not just these nations that are altering their policies, but non-state actors too. In a recent statement, a senior Taliban official stated, “We care about the oppression of Muslims, be it in Palestine, in Myanmar, or in China, and we care about the oppression of non-Muslims anywhere in the world. But what we are not going to do is interfere in China’s internal affairs.” The new Taliban stance is going to make the China-Taliban relations more workable than before. China offered to train young Afghan soldiers in China (statement of the Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan, September 2018), and has also engaged Afghanistan in several strategic Belt and Road projects such as the ‘Sino-Afghanistan Special Railway Transportation Project’ (focused mainly on North Afghanistan), the ‘Fibre Optic network’ project linking China with the Wakhan border, and even the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Not only this, China has also extended more than US $70 million in military and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan since 2016. In this context the Quad can be seen as a countervailing rival force to increasing Chinese influence in the region. The Russiadominated Collective Security Treaty Organization, which also maintains peacekeeping and peacebuilding in the region, also needs to realign its strategic priorities. Uzbekistan, which shares a 90-mile border with Afghanistan, withdrew from the CSTO in 2012, in a bid to boost ties with the US and to take a first step in lowering Russian dominance among the CARs. In this light, it’s no surprise that Uzbekistan has found a new friend in the US through the Quad, and while the country is still hesitant to welcome Afghani refugees and military personnel, it is actively playing a peacemaker in Afghanistan. Russia too has the Afghani Opium trade up its sleeves. On 8 July, 2021 the consultations of the Russian Special Presidential Representative for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, with a delegation from the Taliban’s political
office, released a statement, “... the Taliban is firmly determined to ward off the threat of ISIS in Afghanistan and eradicate drug production in the country after the end of the civil war.” This may be acceptable to stakeholders like Russia, the US, and India, even though the cessation of trade may not come immediately. This new understanding may help Taliban strengthen its image in the eyes of Russians with whom they have had a difficult relationship. India’s involvement in the new Quad, even if in an observerlike mandate, similar to the Old Quad plus, is essential, if President Biden’s statements on the New Quad is to be actioned upon successfully. India is an important stakeholder in Afghanistan, having invested millions in Afghanistan for post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding including, the Indo-Afghan Friendship Dam for US $290 million, the new Afghani parliament for US $90 million, and the Delaram-Zaranj Highway in Afghanistan, connecting Afghanistan to the Chabahar port in Iran, costing India US $135 million. India also realises that given its enduring presence and investment in Afghanistan and support to intra-Afghan peace talks, it needs to remain plugged in the restive region. India and Russia too are together working on operationalising the International North-South Transport Corridor. The IranAfghanistan connectivity too is significant, considering it’s the only trade project that stays clear of Pakistan or China in the region. To conclude, the New Quad signals a new era in the Afghan peace process, which remains prisoner to Pakistan’s support to Taliban. CSTO can help enable a more peaceful transition in Afghanistan in collaboration with the New Quad. India’s involvement as a strategic, trade and peacebuilding partner is critical as well. Similarly, the central Asian republics CARs too will have to keep a vigilant eye to ensure that that troubles in Afghanistan do not spill over into their territories.
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