Foreign relations of India

However, the country's oldest political party, the Indian National Congress, had established a small foreign department in 1925 to make overseas contacts and to publicise its independence struggle.

The policy was given an initial thrust with the then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao visiting China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Singapore and India becoming an important dialogue partner with ASEAN in 1992.

The hard, pragmatic considerations of the early 1990s were still viewed within the nonaligned framework of the past, but the disintegration of the Soviet Union removed much of India's international leverage, for which relations with Russia and the other post-Soviet states could not compensate.

Over the past three years, India has held numerous joint military exercises with US and European nations that have resulted in a strengthened US-India and EU-India bilateral relationship.

India's candidature for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council is currently backed by several countries including France, Russia,[48] the United Kingdom,[49] Germany, Japan, Brazil,[50] Australia[51] and UAE.

In 1977, New Delhi described the visit of President Anwar al-Sadat to Jerusalem as a "brave" move and considered the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel a primary step on the path of a just settlement of the Middle East problem.

[299] India has also offered to set up an India-Africa Institute of Information Technology (IAIIT) and a Food Processing Business Incubation Centre in Ghana under the India–Africa Forum Summit.

Both countries established diplomatic relations on 14 December 1963[309]As littoral states of the Indian Ocean, trade links and commercial ties between India and Kenya go back several centuries.

Uganda hosts a large Indian community and India–Uganda relations cover a broad range of sectors including political, economic, commercial, cultural, and scientific cooperation.

Visits from political ministers from Ethiopia provided opportunities for strengthening bilateral cooperation between the two countries in the fields of education and technical training, water resources management and development of small industries.

Tajikistan occupies a strategically important position in Central Asia, bordering Afghanistan, the People's Republic of China and separated by a small strip of Afghan territory from Pakistan.

There was even a conference held in Moscow, Russia, on 5 September between the Defence Minister of India, Rajnath Singh and Chinese Army General, Wei Fenghe, but that also ended up with no success.

According to Former Prime Minister Shinzō Abe's arc of freedom theory, it is in Japan's interests to develop closer ties with India, the world's most populous democracy, while its relations with China remain chilly.

The relations between India and Mongolia are still at a nascent stage and Indo-Mongolian cooperation is limited to diplomatic visits, the provision of soft loans and financial aid and collaborations in the IT sector.

When the struggle of resistance matured in November 1971, India also intervened militarily and may have helped bring international attention to the issue through Indira Gandhi's visit to Washington, D.C.

The move comes after the moderate Islamic nation approached New Delhi earlier this year over fears that one of its island resorts could be taken over by terrorists given its lack of military assets and surveillance capabilities.

After an invasion by Pashtun tribesmen and Pakistani paramilitary forces, the Hindu Maharaja of the Dogra Kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir, Hari Singh, and its Muslim Prime Minister, Sheikh Abdullah, signed an Instrument of Accession with New Delhi.

The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 started following the failure of Pakistan's Operation Gibraltar, which was designed to infiltrate forces into Jammu and Kashmir to precipitate an insurgency against rule by India.

The BIMSTEC member states – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand – are among the major South and Southeast Asia countries dependent on the Bay of Bengal.

In February 2007, India announced a plan to develop the Sittwe port, which would enable ocean access from Indian Northeastern states like Mizoram, via the Kaladan River.

[496] Relations between the two remain close which was evident in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, when India was one of the few countries whose relief and rescue aid proposals were accepted by Myanmar's junta.

Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Manmohan Singh, have visited Thailand, which was reciprocated by contemporary Thai Prime Ministers Chatichai Choonhavan, Thaksin Sinawatra, and Surayud Chulanont.

The spheres of trade are in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, textiles, nylon, tyre cord, real estate, rayon fibres, paper-grade pulps, steel wires, and rods.

[502][504] India and Vietnam have also built strategic partnerships, including extensive cooperation in developing nuclear power, enhancing regional security and fighting terrorism, transnational crime and drug trafficking.

[533][better source needed]Due to the security threat from a US-backed Pakistan and its nuclear programme in the 1980s, Israel and India started a clandestine relationship that involved cooperation between their respective intelligence agencies.

After a period of tension, in 2017 Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni visited India and met his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi; they held extensive talks to strengthen the political cooperation and to boost the bilateral trade.

[125] In 2012, Trond Giske met with Minister of Finance Pranab Mukherjee, to save[621] Telenor's investments to put forth Norway's "strong wish" that there must not be a waiting period between the confiscation of telecom licenses and the re-sale of those.

[664] Closer strategic cooperation between India, Japan, the United States and Australia also began during the second half of the 2010s, which some analysts attributed to a desire to balance Chinese initiatives in the Indo-Pacific region.

As a founding member of the United Nations, India strongly supports the purposes and principles of the UN and has made significant contributions to implementing the goals of the Charter and the evolution of the UN's specialised programmes and agencies.

Also, the boundary between the North Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand with China's Tibet is not properly demarcated with some portions under the de facto administration of India.