India's voice begins to count!

Reproducing below a nice message received from my good friend. 

I do not know as to what is cooking on the international front but for the first time I have seen that a host of top influential countries are trying to connect with India either through calls or visits of top officials.

Just see the sequence of events in the last 21 days and all these events are sudden and were not declared earlier.

  1. Since 24 Feb 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at least four times.

  2. Ukrainian President talking with Narendra Modi at least twice and appealing for help. He, in fact, invoked the Mahabharatha and Gandhi while asking for help.

  3. India is the only country which has been able to evacuate almost 14,000 odd people from war torn Ukraine without corridors established between Russia and Ukraine. In fact, if reports are to be believed then India had also successfully evacuated citizens of other countries.

  4. Russia offered massive 25 - 30% discount on oil to India and also, for the first time,  has borne expenses towards shipment and insurance of oil consignment.

  5. US President Joe Biden tries to bulldoze us by indicating that India importing Russian Oil when the US has imposed sanctions, is not good for India and within two days, back tracks on the threat by saying, that they understand India's economic compulsions and are, therefore not against Indian import of Russian Oil.

  6. MEA hitting back hard at the US on their uncalled for advice of not to import Russian Oil and the US keeping quiet and not saying a word.

  7. A Brahmos missile, without warhead, hits Pakistan and India says that it was a malfunction. Pakistan, at first, tries to make noise about the incident but after the US declares that such a malfunction can be a possibility, the entire world ignores the incident. (Frankly, I do not believe that it was a malfunction because when any missile is fired, it gets tracked closely. In this case, the Indian radar operator not tracking and informing about the malfunction remains a mystery, despite the missile remaining in the air for 14 minutes and the flight path showing a steep 90 degree turn). Also the Chinese radars on Pakistani soil could not detect it!

  8. Japanese PM  Fumio Kishida suddenly visits India on a short two-day trip along with a huge line up of delegates. He and his team lands in New Delhi at 4 PM and by 7 PM, commits and signs deals worth US $ 42 billion.

  9. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Yi and team visit India and is scheduled to meet our EAM, S Jayashankar and the NSA, Ajit Doval.

10.  Israeli PM Naftali Bennet will be on a four-day visit to India from 02 Apr onward. The visit has been announced at short notice.

One common thing in all these visits is that all of them are unscheduled visits and have been decided just a week before the visits. (Normally, such high level visits get planned at least a few months in advance).

So, what has happened suddenly? Has India become so important to all countries including biggies like US, Russia and China or does the world want India to either play an active role in stopping the war or be on their side and agree with their perceptions?

My take

India, under a dynamic Prime Minister like Narendra Modi, has become the cynosure of everyone's eyes. It has begun to get noticed and respected after years of neglect.

Tailpiece.

Got up at a 10' past 6, the chores and was ready by 10.

Went through the third day's medical routine on my eyes as prescribed by the Ophthalmologist. The eye is improving.

Have planned to reach Kochi by Sunday evening to go through Lekha's and my medical reviews on Monday, the national bandh called by the trade unions notwithstanding.