India's External Affairs Minister - EAM hereon - Excellency Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in another recent declaration stated that India has three redlines: that she will protect her farmers — read, a trade deal with the US may not ask it to remove tariffs on agricultural products which possibly shuts out American farmers from the India market; that India cannot be asked to cede economic sovereignty — read India will continue to buy Russian oil, refine it and reexport it to make an extra buck short-circuiting American sanctions on Russia; and, that India will not accept any arbitration on Pakistan over issues that cause enmity between the two — read, despite President Trump intervening on behalf of India to force Pakistan into a ceasefire ( Day 4 was a testing day in particular) she will not let Trump mediate to bring the two to the table to resolve the underlying issues.

That is quite a list as President Trump announces a new Ambassador to India with an expanded mandate as his special envoy to South and Central Asia. In fact, it is an announcement of conditioned protocol on arrival of the ambassador-designate. It also dampens any aspiration to bring peace to a conflicted region and encourage prosperity of the unfortunate toiling masses. Almost two billion of them. That is twenty-five per cent of humanity. Add China's 1.4 billion and that almost equals half the humanity on this planet.

China is geographically attached to the over two billion of Central and South Asia. These are serious numbers currently separated by conflict and strife and some stubborn hardheadedness emerging out of misplaced arrogance and hubris. Not based on real logic but essentially, 'I will, because I can.'........

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