On July 31 2017, DU Beat in conjunction with the American Center hosted a debate on the vital issue, ‘Is India’s future foreign policy still unaligned?’ at the American Center, New Delhi. The debate was moderated by Geeta Mohan, the foreign affairs editor of India Today TV accompanied by Douglas Fowler, Acting Director, North India Office, U.S. Embassy and Richard Pinkha , Director of Programs, American Center, U.S. Embassy. Finest debaters from Delhi-NCR’s top universities like Ashoka University, National Law University (Delhi), University of Delhi participated in the event and shared their insightful viewpoints on India’s position in the current international geopolitical scenario.
The debate proved to be engaging and fruitful with witty remarks from the participants’ side on the current India-China Standoff at Doklam, contentious superpower equations between U.S.A., China and India, Nehruvian Non-Alignment, nuclear power rivalry, bilateralism, Cold War politics and foreign relations of India vis-a-vis other nations with valuable inputs from the moderator and the audience as well. The discourse raised questions on whether following the post independence – Cold War defence mechanism, that is , the Non Alignment policy would prove to be a concrete safeguard for India in the long run so as to extract maximum benefits from the East Asian and the Middle East countries as well as not to err the dragon next door, or to vouch for a harder stance aligning oneself with America remaining benign with Japan, Russia, Australia, Eurocrats and other allies at the same time.
Anmol Mittal from National Law University, Delhi (in proposition) and Kartikey Dwivedi from Jindal School of International Affairs (in opposition) emerged as winners amidst a tough competition.
Feature Image Credits: PV Purnima for DU Beat
Oorja Tapan
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