Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
New Delhi, April 7
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a virtual summit with the newly elected India-origin President of Seychelles who holds the key to India’s bid to set up a naval base on this strategically located Indian Ocean island.
In his interaction with Wavel Ramkalawan, PM Modi will announce India’s participation in a new magistrates’ court building, hand over a new naval ship, inaugurate a mini solar plant and announce 10 high impact community development projects.
India was well on course for a naval base in Seychelles when in 2015, PM Modi signed an agreement with Ramkalawan’s predecessor Danny Faure who visited India in 2018 to affirm the pact.
But Bihar-origin Ramkalawan’s party in coalition with three other parties shot down the agreement on environmental grounds as the site, Resumption Islands, is close to a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Now, with the priest-politician Ramkalawan himself as President, PM Modi would be hoping to resuscitate the project.
India’s ultimate game plan is to achieve greater proximity with four island nations in the Indian Ocean—Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles – that are collectively called Vanilla Island nations.
South Block is also planning a stand-alone summit with the Vanilla Group after the last one held in 2019. It will also partner with France, which has maintained post-colonial ties with these nations in sensitive areas such as defence and security.
After the change in government in Seychelles, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visited Victoria in November last year to create a more conducive political environment for the revival of proposal to lease an island from Seychelles.
As is the case with Mauritius, over half of Seychelles’ maritime and air assets and most of the training is provided by India.
In the latest case, India will gift Seychelles a Rs 100-crore indigenously built Fast Patrol Vessel (FPV) for anti-smuggling and search and rescue operations.
The ‘PS Zoroaster’ will be the fourth gifted FPV. The others include PS Topaz (2005), PS Constant (2014) and Patrol Boat Hermes (2016).
Seychelles was among the first beneficiaries of India’s Covid assistance. India shipped over four tonnes of life saving medicines and 50,000 doses of vaccine doses to Seychelles under the Vaccine Maitri initiative.
