The Russian-Ukrainian war has caused a fuel, food and fertilizer crisis that will lead to famine situations and have a very significant inflationary impact, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday.
“The implications of the situation in Ukraine … manifest themselves in what we call a crisis of the three Fs – fuel, food and fertilizer. The prices of these three have gone up. They have a very significant inflationary impact,” Jaishankar said. at a conference on national security during the eight years of Narendra Modi’s government.
The event was organized by the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) in association with International Studies Network Bangalore (ISNB) in the city.
“In the case of food, they will actually lead to starvation situations. In the case of fertilizers, it will create a cascading problem until the next harvest in many countries.”
The minister said the country faced four major challenges over the past two years. These four issues were COVID-19, tensions with China along the Line of Effective Control, the situation in Afghanistan, and the war in Ukraine.
These four major events showed how something far away has a direct implication on a nation’s well-being, Jaishankar said.
Speaking of China, the minister said the neighboring country had tried to unilaterally change the status quo on the line of actual control in Ladakh in the northern sector.
“As far as China is concerned, we are again very clear that we will not allow the Line of Actual Control to be changed unilaterally and in violation of the agreements we have,” he said.
He also said that the military deployment was probably the largest since the 1962 war. The troops were able to withstand more than two winters thanks to the infrastructure improvements made in this region for the supply of logistics.
Regarding Pakistan, Jaishankar said, “I think we have seen (over the past eight years) the degree of clarity that we will not be brought to the table by the pressure of cross-border terrorism.”
Another significant achievement of the last eight years of the Modi government has been the land boundary agreement with Bangladesh, which has had a huge impact on India-Bangladesh relations.
The deal, Jaishankar said, has really opened up huge opportunities for Bangladesh and for India’s northeast states.
Speaking of Myanmar, the minister said the country has a foreign policy committing the regime there to make it difficult for Indian insurgent groups to grow.
As a result, there is peace in the northeast region, he added.
According to him, the nation has been able to overcome these challenges thanks to the holistic vision of the Union government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He pointed out that the Modi government has tried to boost the nation’s skills through various programs such as Digital India, Skill India and focused on girls’ education.
“I want you to connect these dots. If you connect these dots, you will realize that there is actually a holistic view, an integrated view of government,” he said.
Jaishankar asked the public not to imagine national security as something limited to soldiers guarding borders.
It is also about the country’s response to the outbreak of a pandemic, shortage of fuel, food and fertilizer, and radicalization.
I look at national security in terms of the well-being of the country and society in terms of protecting against vulnerabilities that we may face and, in a sense, a positive way of improving our competitiveness, the minister said.
I believe that national security is the foundation of all development and progress of society, he added.
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