South Asian foreign policy of the Narendra Modi government

rdf:langString South Asian foreign policy of the Narendra Modi government

rdf:langString Neighbourhood First Policy of India, a core component of India's foreign policy, focuses on peaceful relations and collaborative synergetic co-development with its South Asian neighbors of the Indian subcontinent encompassing a diverse range of topics, such as economic, technology, research and education, connectivity (digital, surface and air transport, energy grid connectivity, logistic chains, etc), space program, defence security, environment and climate challenge. This policy creates new avenues as well as leverages existing regional cooperation initiatives, such as SAARC, SASEC, BBIN, and BIMSTEC. It compliments India's Look East policy focused on Southeast Asia and Look West Policy focused on Middle East. It was conceived by Narendra Modi as his priority, in early days of which then Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj played an important role, was taken forward by former Foreign Secretaries and next Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, all of these were supported by the important roles played by NSA, Ajit Doval, and several successive Foreign Secretaries.