How Gulf ties became key focus of India’s foreign policy over past decade

Special How Gulf ties became key focus of India’s foreign policy over past decade
In this handout picture released by the Saudi Press Agency, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Indian PM Narendra Modi head a meeting of the Saudi-Indian Strategic Partnership Council in Jeddah, April 22, 2025. (AFP/SPA/File)
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Updated 09 June 2025
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How Gulf ties became key focus of India’s foreign policy over past decade

How Gulf ties became key focus of India’s foreign policy over past decade
  • Modi is the only Indian PM to have officially visited all GCC states
  • By 2018, the GCC became India’s largest regional trading bloc

Ties with Gulf countries have become a key focus of India’s foreign policy over the past 10 years, the latest report by the Council for Strategic and Defence Research shows, highlighting New Delhi’s special focus on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Headquartered in the Indian capital, the CSDR is a think tank specializing in research on geopolitics, foreign policy, and military strategy. Its report published last month, “From Trees to Forests: The Evolution of India-Middle East Ties post 2014,” highlights India’s investment in bilateral relations with Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which are independent of larger global frameworks.

The effort to strengthen the connection started before Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014, but it has gained momentum with his frequent visits to the six-member bloc comprising Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.

“In the last 10 years, India has substantiated this effort by filling crucial gaps in political, economic, and military contact with key states, with a special focus on Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” Bashir Ali Abbas, senior research associate at CSDR and the report’s author, told Arab News.

“In the last 10 years, the Middle East has also emerged as a strategic space for India, with new defense relationships, and economic visions which also fit with the Gulf’s own focus on economic diversification.”

While India’s relations with the Gulf region span centuries, it currently has the largest concentration of the Indian diaspora — about 9.7 million people.

“And India’s top oil suppliers at any point in time inevitably are at least three Gulf states. This alone necessitates that India pay close attention to the region,” Abbas said.

“In India, policy makers and official decision-making institutions have updated their understanding of the region, but more importantly its changing nature. This evolved understanding has enabled the rise of new strategic partnerships, and PM Narendra Modi is the only Indian PM to have officially visited all six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council.”

By 2018, the GCC became India’s largest regional trading bloc, with an annual trade value of $104 billion in FY2017-2018. The volume that year surpassed India-ASEAN trade of $81 billion, and India-EU trade — $102 billion.

Currently, it is even higher, with the Indian government estimating it at $162 billion in FY2023-24.

In 2019, India became only the fourth state to establish a Strategic Partnership Council with Saudi Arabia, following Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to New Delhi.

During the Kingdom’s presidency of the Group of 20 largest economies in 2020, the two countries started to forge partnerships and bilateral programs that saw further development as India took the G20 presidency in 2023.

Over the past four years, the countries have since also engaged in a series of bilateral navy, air force and army exercises.

“Today, India sees Saudi Arabia as a strategic partner, with political and economic ties robust enough to also substantial cooperation in defense and security,” Abbas said.

“Given both India’s own Viksit Bharat 2047 development vision and (the crown prince’s) Vision 2030, India and Saudi Arabia are now driven by shared economic and strategic goals.”

With the UAE, India signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in 2022, following which their bilateral trade grew to $85 billion in just over a year. The number of multi-sectoral memoranda of understanding between Indian and Emirati public and private entities has since reached over 80, according to the CSDR report.

“India also sought to reframe other bilateral relationships where fresh opportunities had arisen,” it said, adding that New Delhi was “closing the Gulf circle,” with strategic partnerships signed with Kuwait during Modi’s visit in 2024, and with Qatar during Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani’s state trip to New Delhi in early 2025.

The relations “will certainly see a positive trajectory in the near and distant future — especially if it is backed up by greater avenues of intellectual contact,” Abbas said.

“Greater intellectual contact and an evolved popular understanding will enhance the strategic relationships between India and its Arab partners, through the injection of more ideas, perspectives, and actors who can work as champions for closer ties.”


India marks inclusion of 12 Maratha forts on UNESCO World Heritage List

Visitors walk along the ruins of the Lohagad hill fort, near Lonavla in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. (File/AFP)
Visitors walk along the ruins of the Lohagad hill fort, near Lonavla in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. (File/AFP)
Updated 11 sec ago
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India marks inclusion of 12 Maratha forts on UNESCO World Heritage List

Visitors walk along the ruins of the Lohagad hill fort, near Lonavla in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. (File/AFP)
  • Forts were once used by the Maratha Empire between the 17th and 19th centuries
  • India now ranks 6th globally and 2nd in Asia for the number of World Heritage Sites

NEW DELHI: India’s Maratha Military Landscapes — a network of 12 strategic forts — have been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, becoming the country’s 44th site to receive the designation.

The forts were used by the rulers of the Maratha Empire, who held power across parts of central, western and southern India between the late 17th century and the early 19th century.

Marathas rose to prominence after the decline of the Mughal Empire, following the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, the last powerful Mughal ruler, who alone had controlled much of India for nearly 50 years.

The proposal to include the Maratha forts on the UNESCO list was submitted by India to the World Heritage Committee in January 2024.

The inscription, which took place during the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee in Paris on Friday, marked “a significant milestone in the global acknowledgment of India’s rich and diverse cultural heritage,” the Ministry of Culture said in a statement.

The Maratha Military Landscapes of India were nominated under the criteria in recognition of “their exceptional testimony to a living cultural tradition, their architectural and technological significance, and their deep associations with historic events and traditions.”

The fortification network covers 11 forts in the state of Maharashtra — Salher, Shivneri, Lohagad, Khanderi, Raigad, Rajgad, Pratapgad, Suvarnadurg, Panhala, Vijaydurg, and Sindhudurg — and one, Gingee Fort, in Tamil Nadu.

With the newest addition, India now ranks sixth globally and second in the Asia-Pacific region for the number of UNESCO World Heritage sites.

“The fact that UNESCO selected 12 forts from the Maratha dynasty as World Heritage Sites is a matter of great pride for the history of the Marathas, Maharashtra and India,” Prof. Santosh Mahadevrao Ghuge, who heads the Department of History at the Fergusson College in Pune, one of the main cities of Maharashtra, told Arab News.

“The war strategy of the Marathas has unique significance in Indian and world history, and forts have an important place in this war strategy. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Maratha military prowess and the use of forts in warfare enabled the Marathas to defeat the powerful Mughals.”


New Gaza-bound aid boat leaves Italy

New Gaza-bound aid boat leaves Italy
Updated 2 min 15 sec ago
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New Gaza-bound aid boat leaves Italy

New Gaza-bound aid boat leaves Italy
  • The Handala, operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, left the port of Syracuse shortly after 12:00 p.m.
  • The former Norwegian trawler will sail for about a week in the Mediterranean in the hope of reaching Gaza’s coast
SYRACUSE, Italy: A Gaza-bound boat carrying pro-Palestinian activists and humanitarian aid left Sicily on Sunday, over a month after Israel detained and deported people aboard a previous vessel.
The Handala, operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, left the port of Syracuse shortly after 12:00 p.m. (1000 GMT), an AFP journalist saw, carrying about fifteen activists.
Several dozen people, some holding Palestinian flags and others wearing keffiyeh scarves, gathered at the port to cheer the boat’s departure with cries of “Free Palestine.”
The former Norwegian trawler – loaded with medical supplies, food, children’s equipment and medicine – will sail for about a week in the Mediterranean, covering roughly 1,800 kilometers, in the hope of reaching Gaza’s coast.
In early March, Israel imposed a total aid blockade on Gaza amid an impasse in truce negotiations, only partially easing restrictions in late May.
The boat will make a stop at Gallipoli, in southeastern Italy, where two members of the hard-left France Unbowed party (LFI) are expected to join.
The initiative comes six weeks after the departure of the Madleen, another ship that left Italy for Gaza transporting aid and activists, including Greta Thunberg.
Israel authorities intercepted the Madleen about 185 kilometers west of Gaza’s coast.
“This is a mission for the children in Gaza, to break the humanitarian blockade and to break the summer silence on the genocide,” said Gabrielle Cathala, one of the two France Unbowed party members set to board the boat on July 18.
“I hope we will reach Gaza but if not, it will be yet another violation of international law” by Israel, she added.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that led to 1,219 deaths, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 that the Israeli military says are dead.
Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says that at least 57,882 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military reprisals. The UN considers the figures reliable.

Malaysia ex-PM Mahathir, 100, discharged from hospital

Malaysia ex-PM Mahathir, 100, discharged from hospital
Updated 43 min 44 sec ago
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Malaysia ex-PM Mahathir, 100, discharged from hospital

Malaysia ex-PM Mahathir, 100, discharged from hospital
  • Mahathir Mohamad was leader of the Southeast Asian nation for more than two decades
  • He has been hospitalized repeatedly in recent years, most recently in October for a respiratory infection

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has been discharged from hospital, his office said on Sunday, after being admitted for fatigue following a picnic celebration for his 100th birthday.

Mahathir, leader of the Southeast Asian nation for more than two decades, has a history of heart problems and has undergone bypass surgeries. He has been hospitalized repeatedly in recent years, most recently in October for a respiratory infection.

He was under observation at the National Heart Institute in Kuala Lumpur for fatigue-related issues on Sunday, his office said. “Mahathir has been allowed home as of 4:45 p.m. (0845 GMT),” it said in a statement.

A physician who was a member of parliament until 2022, Mahathir drove himself on Sunday to the celebration, which also marked the 99th birthday of his wife, Hasmah Mohd Ali, a day earlier, local media reported.

The reports said he cycled for an hour before appearing tired. His birthday was on Thursday.

Mahathir was prime minister for 22 years until 2003. He returned as premier in 2018 after leading the opposition coalition to a historic win, but his government collapsed in less than two years due to infighting.


Several hurt in anti-migrant unrest in Spanish town

Several hurt in anti-migrant unrest in Spanish town
Updated 13 July 2025
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Several hurt in anti-migrant unrest in Spanish town

Several hurt in anti-migrant unrest in Spanish town
  • The regional government did not say how many people were injured but stated that at least one person had been arrested for the violence.

MADRID: Several people were hurt in a second night of anti-migrant unrest in the Spanish town of Torre Pacheco after a pensioner was beaten up, authorities said on Sunday.
Despite a major police presence, groups armed with batons roamed the streets looking for foreign-origin people, regional newspaper La Opinion de Murcia reported.
The regional government did not say how many people were injured but stated that at least one person had been arrested for the violence.
The unrest erupted after a 68-year-old man told Spanish media he was beaten up in the street on Wednesday by three youths of North African origin.
The attack was filmed and put on social media.
The town hall organized a demonstration on Friday that was intended to be peaceful but where far-right elements shouted anti-migrant slogans.
One group, named “Deport Them Now,” posted a message on social media calling for attacks against people of North African origin.
Spanish authorities launched an appeal for calm on Sunday in the town of 36,000 people.
“Torre Pacheco must get back to normal,” said the head of the Murcian regional government Fernando Lopez Miras in a message on X.
“I understand the frustration but nothing justifies violence,” added the conservative politician.
“I call on residents to be calm, for tranquility,” said Torre Pacheco mayor, Pedro Angel Roca Ternel, on RTVE public television.
Spain’s Youth Minister Sira Rego, a member of the extreme left wing party Sumar, condemned the violence against migrants in a message on Bluesky, blaming the role of the “ultra-right” in the unrest.


Russia takes new village in Ukraine’s Donetsk region

Russia takes new village in Ukraine’s Donetsk region
Updated 13 July 2025
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Russia takes new village in Ukraine’s Donetsk region

Russia takes new village in Ukraine’s Donetsk region
  • Russian troops advance toward the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region
  • Russia’s defense ministry say troops had captured the village of Myrne

MOSCOW: Russia said on Sunday it took another village in the west of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as its troops advance toward the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region.

Moscow’s offensive on Ukraine has lasted for more than three years, with attacks intensifying this summer and US-led negotiations so far yielding no results to end the fighting.

Russia’s defense ministry said Russian troops had captured the village of Myrne, calling the village by its Soviet name “Karl Marx.”

It lies close to the administrative border between the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

The ministry claimed forces had moved “deep into the enemy’s defense” to take the village.

Myrne was one of two villages Moscow claimed on Sunday.

Russia has for months refused a ceasefire proposed by the United States and Kyiv.

Moscow launched its full-scale offensive against Ukraine in February 2022.