Resetting India-Maldives ties

Though Maldives is a small nation with a population of 4.25 lakh but due to its strategic location in the Indian Ocean, it is on the high priority list of the Indian government. The result of the recent elections that took place in Maldives are out and surprisingly the Yameen government is also out of power, which is a big sigh of relief for India.  Why? You ask. 
It is because the former president of Maldives, Abdulla Yameen, who is said to be a pro-china, has been thrown out of power and the new presidential candidate from the Maldivian Democratic Party, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has been elected to power by the public. The controversial Yameen was never good news for India due to its close relations with sugar daddy China. In the infant years of his tenure, the polices seemed neutral towards India, however over time, he grew more close to China and Pakistan, which resulted in the fall of Indian ties with Maldives.  Maldives, being an active member of SAARC was invited to the swearing in ceremony of Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, this goes on to prove that by 2014, the Indo-Maldivian relations were in a position but soon the tables began to make a turn. The Yameen government which was accused of distorting the democratic institutions in Maldives by imprisoning its opponents faced a lot of criticism worldwide due to which Yameen decided to pull off Maldives from the Commonwealth republic, in the year 2016. All this ensured a rough response from India too and Prime Minister Narendra Modi cancelled his planned visit to the island nation. At this critical juncture when the world was criticizing Yameen, China was hailing the leader by supporting the country with all its power and wealth. This closeness of Mal-China relations can be measured by the fact that Maldivian government have already signed a Free trade agreement with China, despite all the protests and resistance. Not just this, Maldives had also signed a MOU with Pakistan, wherein Pakistan is supposed develop its power sector.  The funny thing is that even though Pakistan lacks the potential expertise and finance, it was chosen on priority basis over other well equipped nations like India.

All these were an indirect sign for India to understand the direction of wind in the Indian Ocean region. The bone of contentions was sown, and they became crystal clear when Maldives government denied to participate in the Indian naval exercise and also scrapped a helicopter deal to further ridicule the Indian government. Consequentially, India decided to stay clear from Maldives. Meanwhile the Mal-china relations flourished. China seemed to be trapping the island nation into it’s yet another debt trap. However before the Chinese government could have done more harm to Maldives, fair elections happened. To make sure that Maldives goes through fair elections, the United States and the EU threatened sanctions against Maldives, if anyone dared to render the democratic process and this is how Ibrahim Mohamed Solih came into the picture. Though there are many decisions that had been already taken such as giving Feydhoo Island on a lease to a Chinese company, we can hope that the new government would definitely try to reset everything that Yameen had done wrong.

COMCASA ordeal

Its been a while since India signed the COMCASA deal.  After contemplating the whole agreement, India finally signed the COMCASA during the last 2 + 2 meeting between USA's defense secretary, James Mattis and The secretary of the state, Michael Pompeo.
COMCASA or the Communication compatibility and security agreement is another version of CISMOA, specifically designed for India. COMCASA accord is a sign of growing intimate relations with the United States of America. It is one of the four major agreements that the US signs with its close allies. Though getting into this accord has not been too fruitful for India so far, this deal simply means that now India would be able to use advanced defense systems for communication, which is a creation of the states. It will work as a vehicle of contact between both militaries. Sure, it gives scope to India to buy high technology devices from US; however it also enslaves us in certain ways. Via this agreement the US military will have access to internal data of India, which can be a major setback, thus such a step taken by the Indian government aims at cajoling US at the cost of its security and safety, wherein they get a pawn in the form of India to control the south Asian region. Just a few days before signing COMCASA,  China's official newspaper named global times suggested India to not rush in into this deal. 
What India expected after signing COMCASA was a green flag for buying S400 missile defense system from Russia. This thing is illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia in the year 2014, which had resulted in economic sanctions on Russia by the West. Under these sanctions, an embargo on importing and exporting of military and dual used goods was also present. It seems that India have wistfully assumed that this accord would help them to buy the defense system from Russia without getting under the radar of the United States.
Even after becoming a close ally of USA, India failed to get any concessions. It is evident from the fact that the Oil crises going on in India are a result of sanctions placed on Iran by USA. The construction of chabahar port in Iran, which is a strategic point for trading with central Asia, is in midway due to the same reason. We could say that this diplomatic tie has not been a sugar deal for us and to say that this is the sanest decision taken by Indian government in a decade would be a clear cut lie too.
 

Coup against US dollar?

In a recent meeting amongst the top heads of Turkey, Iran and Russia, all pitched for a recurrent idea of trading in gold instead of accepting any other currency, especially the US dollar. They hinted that as gold doesn't carry any political baggage, it can be efficiently utilized as a potential common currency. The fact of the matter is that currently these three nations are facing severe sanctions from the United States for multiple political reasons which are in turn proving to be a huge threat to these economies. The recent fall of the value of Turkey's currency, Lira has worked as an alarming sign for the nation, which has forced them to take desperate steps. Not just Lira, the Russian currency, Ruble is also under constant devaluation and Iran is also on the same chord, the common threat of which being, as mentioned earlier, United States’ sanctions and its dollar. 
The market value of the US dollar is currently the strongest amongst every other currency in the world. In the year 1945 after the World War 2, America emerged as a valiant and technologically rich nation and was also pegged to be helpful as it was involved in helping other European nations for their re-habitation purposes. Every other nation looked up to the United States as a leader and that is when all the nations agreed on introducing a new monetary system known as Bretten Woods, under which, the US dollar was recognized as a global reserve currency. Not just this, US dollar was also linked to gold at the rate of $35 per ounce. The United States had the responsibility of keeping the price of gold fixed and had to adjust the supply of dollar to maintain confidence in the future. But soon these European nations started withdrawing their reserves, which resulted in America taking precautionary steps, such as discarding the use of US dollar convertibility to gold. This helped the USA to increase their circulation in the market. But still the amount of US dollar used was lesser by a notch. To maintain it further, the USA made a pact with the Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations which spoke about USA giving these nations security; in return of which they were to trade their oils in the US currency. This step taken by the American President Richard Nixon again increased the use of the Dollar in the market.  This is how dollar grew and maybe this is how it will fall. The recent meeting of Russia and China during Eastern economic forum agreed on using any other currency other than the US dollar while trading. This may not affect the united nation at the moment but will certainly raise a question on the status of super-power held by the American giant as even the rising trading country; China is also posing as potential threat to the monopoly of the States. Currently 63% of the world reserves contain US dollar which is major reason as to why $ still stands strong. It would be interesting to see that how long America gets to dominate in the prevalent globalized economies of the planet.