Parliament of India plays an important role in carving out the country’s foreign policy. Over the decades, as representatives of the people, Members of Parliament have exercised the option of conducting a review of the policy pursued by the government of the day. The Constitution, while resting the subject under the exclusive domain of the Union, empowered the institution to set the course and conduct oversight of foreign policy.
Under the Constitution, Parliament is vested with the power to make any law for the whole or any part of the territory of India for implementing any treaty, agreement, or convention with any country or countries; or any decision made at any international conference, association, or other body.
The book focuses on three specific dimensions—security, geo-economic, and geo-political/strategic—from the prism of key decisions that left a lasting imprint on India’s foreign policy. These are the Indian Peacekeeping Force in Sri Lanka, India joining the World Trade Organisation, and the India-United States Civil Nuclear Cooperation. Each of these developments occurred a decade apart from the other. The book examines these developments through the intersection of politics, policy, and processes and whether interventions in Parliament led to a change of course.
K V Prasad
spent the last four decades working as a journalist with prestigious news organisations, The Press Trust of India, The Tribune and The Hindu in New Delhi.
During these years, he reported on a range of events from the field of sports and its administration; city administration and its politics; national politics; Parliament; Home Affairs; Election Commission; Defence; Foreign and Strategic Affairs. He covered eight Parliamentary and several state assembly elections since 1996.
Before ending tenure as a full-time journalist in 2020, Prasad served as the Officiating Editor of The Tribune for a brief time. He covered both Houses of Parliament for 30 years, which offered him a vantage view of the dynamics of politics its intersection with policy, and its grind through parliamentary processes.
During 2007-2008, he worked in the United States Congress on being awarded the prestigious Fulbright-American Political Science Association Fellowship. He was the Chairman of the Lok Sabha Press Advisory Committee and in a similar capacity of the Rajya Sabha Media Advisory Committee. He was the president of the Press Association, a body of correspondents accredited to the Government of India. At present, he is an office-bearer of the Editors Guild of India.
Prasad comments on radio, television and social media networks in the country and overseas on contemporary developments in the fields of politics, Parliament, and Foreign and Strategic Affairs and writes Opinion pieces in these areas.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Constituent Assembly: Drawing the Contours of Foreign Policy
2. Provisional Parliament: Continuity and Change
3. Sri Lanka and India: Origins, the IPKF Experience and its Fallout
4. World Trade Organisation: The New World Trade Arrangement
5. Nuclear Energy Debates Since Independence
6. Civil Nuclear Cooperation, Historical Background and Forward Movement
7. Endgame: Left Intensifies Opposition and UPA Wins
8. Embers Continue to Glow and Singe as Opposition Forces the Pace
9. Expanding Scope and Forays into Policy-Making
10. Policy Dictates of Single-Party Governments and Compulsion of Coalition Arrangements
Bibliography
Index
Political Science
download catalogue
