After Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India in 2014, New Delhi has been striving hard to achieve for India the great power status by consolidating its dominant position in South Asia and expanding its reach in the Indian Ocean. There have been many successes when it comes to foreign policy in general. However, five years after Modi began his term by inviting leaders of all SAARC countries to his swearing-in ceremony, the expectations aroused by his government’s neighbourhood policy and the energy invested in driving it seem to have faded, leading to a shift in focus on BIMSTEC. This article looks at India’s bilateral relations with India’s neighbours and argues that the major challenges come from insufficient perception management, lack of regional connectivity, gaps in project implementation, and external environment created by China’s unprecedented foray into each of India’s neighbours. The policy planners and decision-makers need to do serious policy homework to improve the outcomes.
The education sector is not untouched by the way COVID-19 has affected the whole world including in India. In Rajasthan, which has been a feudal state of India and where more than half of the population is not technology savvy, higher education has been badly affected. In the present chapter, an attempt has been made by the researcher to understand the negative effect on higher education in all the waves of COVID-19 that have come so far. Whereas the third wave is still ongoing and it’s not even that dangerous, the main focus of the research is the first and second waves. In this chapter, an attempt was made to make a comparative study of the negative effects between the two waves. An empirical method is used for this research. The analysis is based on both primary and secondary sources including a questionnaire, observations, interviews, and government/media reports. This chapter also outlines the positive impacts of the online mode of education. Some suggestions have also been made at the end of the paper for policymakers, teachers, and students so that improvements can be made.
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