Biden Presidency: Trajectory upwards for India? - 30 Nov 2020

: Y C N E D I S E R P N E D I B Y R O T C E J A TR S D R A W P U ?

A I D N I R O F

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Y A D N M P MO 5 4 : 7 0 :0 6 | 0 2 0 2 V O N 0 3 6:00 PM

GUESTS

OF

HONOUR

Welcome Address Mr Ravichandran Purushothaman President, Madras Management Association President, Danfoss Industries Pvt Ltd

Introductory Remarks Mr Peter Rimmele

MR M K NARAYANAN

Resident Representative to India

Former National Security Advisors of India (NSA) Former Governor of West Bengal

Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung

Panel Discussion Mr M K Narayanan Former National Security Advisor of India (NSA) Former Governor of West Bengal

MS NIRUPAMA RAO

Ms Nirupama Rao

Former Foreign Secretary of India & Former Indian Ambassador to USA and China

Former Foreign Secretary of India & Former Indian Ambassador to USA and China

Dr V Anantha Nageswaran

DR V ANANTHA NAGESWARAN

Distinguished Visiting Professor of Economics

Distinguished Visiting Professor of Economics, KREA University & NonPermanent Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister

Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister

KREA University, Non-Permanent Member of the

Moderator Air Marshal M Matheswaran (Retd), AVSM VM Ph.D Chairman & President, The Peninsula Foundation, Chennai

7:45 PM

AIR MARSHAL M MATHESWARAN (RETD), AVSM VM PH.D Chairman & President The Peninsula Foundation, Chennai

Vote of Thanks

Mr N Sathiya Moorthy Distinguished Fellow & Head (Chennai Initiative) Observer Research Foundation

MADRAS MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION

SYNOPSIS The tumultuous Trump presidency’s exit -- as it seems now -- burdens the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris Team, as the former becomes the next tenant of the White House on 20 January 2021.

Whether Trump will be as active in politics as he was over the past four to six years is immaterial, but 'Trumphism' and his kind of 'triumphalism' in the name of America is something that a Biden presidency cannot

walk

past,

particularly

if

the

US

Senate

is

going

to

remain

under

Republican

control.

More

importantly, close to 48 per cent of the US voters have preferred incumbent Donald Trump for another four years in office.

It is not as simple or simplistic as that for a losing incumbent, Republican or Democrat. Trump, first as a candidate and later as President, has triggered a hidden raw nerve in the all-American society. It does not stop with his 'middle America', urban-rural divide and jobs for millions of jobless. It is anybody's guess, if his presidency actually created as much as there were aspirants from among his voters for the first term four years back.

They also hailed President Trump for his muscle-flexing, whether it is friend or foe, ally or enemy. The muscleflexing also did not stop with geo-strategic matters, but extended, especially in the case of allies, to bilateral economic issues. President Trump asking the South Koreans to pay for the American forces on its soil was a typical Trumphism.

From an Indian perspective, on geo-political, geo-economic and geo-strategic issues, President Biden's positions will matter the most -- and at this particular point in time.

Can President Biden ease H1-B visa restrictions imposed by the predecessor administration and hope not to stir up job-seekers' sentiments nearer home?

With the Indian economy being what it is today, Covid or not, what kind of bilateral cooperation will help India?

With Chinese border incursions continuing to hang fire for the past several months, what will be a Biden presidency's initiative, if any, to help India out of the dead-lock? And what will be Biden's approach to China, Iran and Afghanistan in our immediate neighbourhood, which is of consequence to India?

With the views of Biden, Kamala Harris and their Democratic Party on Human Rights issue, particularly in the post-370 Indian context, where will it take bilateral political relations?

Will it be just a mild knock on the knuckle that the Trump presidency offered through multiple agencies, or will the US' approach to the 'Kashmir issue', the so-called 'minorities problems' in India, become more strident, and end up impacting on geo-strategic and geo-economic relations?

Last but not the least, given the possibility of the Biden presidency having to expend more time and greater energies first on repairing relations with America's traditional allies in Europe and elsewhere, after taking stock of the independent waters that some of them have traversed during the Trump presidency, when will the new President find time to pay attention to India and the rest of South Asia?

Finally, what are India's expectations from the US under President Biden, and what it can actually expect in terms of doubles and deliverables?

MMA MANAGEMENT CENTER TEMPLE FOR KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM

MADRAS MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION

SPEAKERS M K NARAYANAN Mayankote Kelath Narayanan is an Indian diplomat and former IPS officer.

M. K. Narayanan joined the Indian Police Service in 1955 and passed out as the best all-round officer of his batch. After a brief stint as Sub-Divisional Police Officer in the erstwhile State of Madras, he went on deputation to the Intelligence Bureau in February 1959. The rest of his service career was spent under the Government of India, mainly in the Intelligence Bureau, in which he dealt with a whole range of issues concerning internal and national security.

He headed the Intelligence Bureau (IB) from 1987 to 1990, before heading the Joint Intelligence Committee for a year.

He was National Security Adviser of India from 2005 to 2010. Subsequently he served as Governor of West Bengal from 2010 to 2014.

The Government of India awarded him the civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1992.

NIRUPAMA RAO Nirupama Menon Rao (born 6 December 1950) is a retired 1973 batch Indian Foreign Service officer, who served as India's Foreign Secretary from 2009 to 2011, as well as being India's Ambassador to the United States, China and Sri Lanka (High Commissioner) during her career.

In July 2009, she became the second woman (after Chokila Iyer) to hold the post of India's Foreign Secretary, the head of the Indian Foreign Service. In her career she served in several capacities including, Minister of Press, Information and Culture in Washington DC, Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow, stints in the MEA as Joint Secretary, East Asia and External

Publicity,

the

latter

position

making

her

the

first

woman

spokesperson

of

the

MEA,

Chief

of

Personnel,

Ambassador to Peru and China, and High Commissioner to Sri Lanka.

DR V ANANTHA NAGESWARAN Dr V Anantha Nageswaran has been appointed Dean of the IFMR Graduate School of Business (www.ifmr.ac.in) at Krea University. Dr. Nageswaran has a doctoral degree from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and has taught extensively in India and Singapore since 2006. He was the Chief Investment Officer of Bank Julius Baer from 2009 to 2011 and has co-authored three books - Economics of Derivatives, Derivatives and Can India Grow. He is a well-known columnist having written for Economic Times, BusinessLine, Financial Express and MINT.

AIR MARSHAL M MATHESWARAN (RETD), AVSM VM PH.D Air Marshal M Matheswaran, an Air Force Veteran, is the founder Chairman and President of TPF. He is the former Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (DCIDS- Policy, Plans, and Force Development) at HQ IDS – Tri Services Command and was the Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO – Deputy C-in-C) of the Eastern Air Command earlier. The Air Marshal has had an active service of 39 years in the Indian Air Force. Commissioned as a fighter pilot in 1975, he has flown more than 40 types of aircraft with vast operational and research experience.

He is a graduate of the IAF’s elite Fighter Weapons Establishment, TACDE (Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment), and also an Experimental Test Pilot from the prestigious Flight Test Establishment. He was intimately involved with many Defence projects and has been associated with many Indian military projects. He is a founder member of the Nuclear Command. He is a Senior Fellow and alumnus of the Harvard Kennedy School’s National and International Security program. He is a strategic advisor in Defence & Aerospace Business to Indian industries.

PETER RIMMELE Peter Rimmele is currently the Resident Representative to India of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

He has a First Law Degree from Freiburg University, as well as a Second Law Degree from the Ministry of Justice Baden-Württemberg, Germany and a M.A. in Geography.

After working as, a jurist, judge and lecturer, he took public office as Ministerialrat, Head of Division at the State Ministry of the Interior in Saxony, Germany, from November 1991 on until 2000. There he first served in the Police and Security and later in the Local Government Department. On behalf of the German Foreign Ministry he served in East Timor as Registrar General, Head of Civil Registry and Notary Services (UNTAET), and became later the principal

Advisor

for

Governance

Reform

for

GIZ

(German

International

Cooperation)

to

the

Ministry

of

Administrative Reform and the Anti-Corruption-Commission of the Republic of Indonesia, where he served for 7 years. He then moved to Rwanda, also as Principal Advisor Good Governance/Justice Program. Earlier he was Resident Representative Lebanon, Director of Rule of Law Program Middle East North Africa, Konrad-AdenauerStiftung.