"The economic and moral decline of the West has created a hegemonic vacuum that presents both a challenge and an opportunity to emerging powers." China and Brazil are already beginning to fill some of it. India cannot afford to be left behind.
Niger is only one of a ring of perennially drought-prone countries that had come to depend on the remittances from more than a million foreign workers, who had found work in Libya. After three consecutive droughts, Niger is being tipped over into famine by the return of 100,000 of its nationals as refugees from Libya. If help did not come soon, people would begin to die.
The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Let India unleash its soft power:
India has so far believed that its responsibility ends with making modest contributions to the World Food Programme. But as the already fragile Saharan and sub-Saharan world disintegrates, it will be shirking its duty to humanity if it does not do more.
India is sitting on a food mountain, a part of which is rotting even as we speak. Can India not set up a permanent, half-million tonne wheat bank to be drawn upon by any sub-Saharan country in distress? The Indian pharmaceuticals industry is the envy of the world, because it produces and sells medicines at a tenth to a thirtieth of the retail prices abroad. Can Delhi not buttress its food aid with medicines and vitamins?
India has a duty to do more also because it can do more.
This will give an entirely new meaning to the concept of Soft Power for, unlike the West in its present incarnation, it would be seeking to build influence by protecting and preserving, not destroying; by expanding peoples' futures instead of ending them in darkness!
