Jaishankar meets Afghan President Ashraf Ghani discusses Taliban

Jaishankar meets Afghan President Ashraf Ghani discusses Taliban

Subject: International Relations

Context: Recently, India faces a situation in which it may have no role to play in Afghanistan as the Taliban push ahead with military offensives and preparing to take over after the exit of US and NATO forces.

Concept:

• India built vital roads, dams, electricity transmission lines and substations, schools and hospitals, etc.
• India’s development assistance in Afghanistan is now estimated to be worth well over $3 billion.
• The 2011 India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement recommitted Indian assistance to help Afghanistan.

India’s projects across Afghanistan

Salma Dam

• It is a 42MW Dam in Herat province.
• It is known as the Afghan-India Friendship Dam.

Zaranj-Delaram Highway

• It is the 218-km highway built by the Border Roads Organization (BRO).
• Zaranj is located close to Afghanistan’s border with Iran.
• The $150-million highway goes along the Khash Rud River to Delaram to the northeast of Zaranj.
• It connects to a ring road that links Kandahar in the south, Ghazni and Kabul in the east, Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, and Herat in the west.
• It provides an alternative route into landlocked Afghanistan through Iran’s Chabahar port.

Afghan Parliament

• The Afghan Parliament in Kabul was built by India at $90 million.
• It was opened in 2015 and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the building.

Stor Palace

• In 2016, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the restored Stor Palace in Kabul.
• It was originally built in the late 19th century.
• It was the setting for the 1919 Rawalpindi Agreement by which Afghanistan became an independent country.
• In 2009, India, Afghanistan, and the Aga Khan Development Network signed a tripartite agreement for its restoration.
• The Aga Khan Trust for Culture completed the project between 2013 and 2016.

Health Infrastructure

• India has reconstructed a children’s hospital it had helped build in Kabul in 1972.
• It was named Indira Gandhi Institute for Child Health in 1985.
• India has also built clinics in the border provinces of Badakhshan, Balkh, Kandahar, Khost, Kunar, Nangarhar, Nimruz, Nooristan, Paktia and Paktika.

Bilateral Trade Relations between India and Afghanistan

• India-Afghanistan trade has grown with the establishment in 2017 of an air freight corridor.
• In 2019-20, bilateral trade crossed $1.3 billion.
• The balance of trade is heavily tilted i.e. the exports from India are worth approximately $900 million, while Afghanistan’s exports to India are about $500 million.
• Afghan exports are mainly fresh and dried fruit.
• Indian exports to Afghanistan take place mainly through government-to-government contracts with Indian companies.
• The exports include pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, computers and related materials, cement, and sugar.