The Australia-India relationship is not just about stronger economic and geopolitical ties with each other, but how we can as two nations work to support other nations in our region for peace and prosperity. That is why the Institute will host the Inaugural Kolkata Dialogue, to help build resilience for small island states in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. We have partnered with leading Indian think tank ORF to invite leading experts from both countries to find solutions to how Indo-Pacific small island nations can manage security risks, economic coercion and climate change. This is the first of its kind hosted in Kolkata, which is a major port city and the gateway to the north-eastern Indian Ocean.
Congratulations to India on becoming just the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the moon. It now embarks on a new expansion into space, with September’s launch of the Aditya-L1 – the first space-based Indian observatory to examine the sun.
India achieved another great milestone at the G20 leaders’ meeting, by putting the focus on the Global South and achieving consensus through the New Delhi Declaration for the inclusion of the African Union, giving a stronger voice to developing nations alongside traditional superpowers.
It was a pleasure to share my personal family links with Fiji at the Australian Fiji Business Forum, as part of a speech on the need for trilateral cooperation between Australia, India and Fiji. My great grandparents went to Fiji as indentured labourers and settled to build a life alongside the local Fiji community, with my grandfather’s political career in the 1960s inspiring my own work in public life.
Finally, I am writing this message from Dharamshala, in Himachal Pradesh, home to the Tibetan govt-in-exile and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, where I have recorded a podcast with the Sikyong on the Middle Way approach, the Sino-Tibetan conflict and the support Australia and India can continue to give to help Tibetans achieve freedom, peace and justice for the Tibetan people.
Best,
Lisa