India wants to deepen its strategic ties with eastern countries located close to China
Iftikhar Gilani
New Delhi
Thailand’S Premier Yingluck Shinawatra
credit: www.thaigov.go.th
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has invited glamorous Thailand Premier Yingluck Shinawatra to be the chief guest at 2012 Republic Day celebrations in continuation of the government’s policy of ‘Look East’.
Shinawatra (44), a Thai businesswoman and politician, is the youngest and first female Prime Minister of Thailand in over 60 years. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak were the chief guests in the 2011 and 2010 Republic Day celebrations respectively.
Shinawatra is seen as a proxy of her telecom tycoon brother Thaksin Shinawatra, who was twice elected Thailand’s Premier and went into self-imposed exile in Dubai to evade a two-year jail sentence for corruption after being ousted in a military coup.
Eyebrows are being raised in the political circles here over the invite at a time when the government is reeling under the telecom scam and corruption particularly since she headed the Thaksin-promoted Wireless Communication & Advanced Info Services Public Limited, which had tried to make forays into India's telecom sector, and her brother was convicted by the military-appointed tribunal for corruption.
India and Thailand work closely in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, East Asia Summit and other groupings, a partnership that consolidated further with the implementation of the India-ASEAN agreement on goods trade from January. Since 2000, bilateral trade jumped by six times to over $6.64 billion in 2010, a 34 per cent jump over 2009.
Of late, India has been on a diplomatic overdrive to deepen its strategic ties with eastern countries located close to China. It held strategic dialogue recently with Japan, Vietnam and South Korea. Last April, Singh held summit-level talks with Shinwatra’s predecessor Abhisit Vejjajiva in which both the leaders agreed to give high priority to the proposed tri-lateral highway project linking India and Thailand through Myanmar.
Iftikhar Gilani is Special Correspondent with Tehelka.com
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http://www.tehelka.c...11LOOK_EAST.asp
Edited by cvy, 31 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2554 - 19:34.











