Question

Repositioning India: A Global Perspective.

Answer 1

Over the past two or three decades there has been a constant effort in re-positioning India on the world stage. India's voice today is heard in business and economic circles around the globe, in the field of culture and art, in sport and games, in politics and diplomacy etc. While Indians living within the country have contributed towards spreading the message about the country in every possible field, so has the Indian diaspora living in every nook and corner of the earth. Today, globalisation is the new-age mantra, so just as India's successes have been lauded in many spheres, this great country too has assimilated the best of things that have been available in other countries.  

Answer 2

While ports are traditionally considered national infrastructure sites that connect states to global markets, special economic zones and past free ports are portrayed as threats to national sovereignty. This book calls these narratives into question as it explores the history of planning Mumbai’s ports and free zones during periods of global and regional transition from the British Raj, to national independence, to economic liberalization. The book opens with a study of an unsuccessful plan hatched by merchants in 1833 to make Bombay a free port to deal with an emerging British India and the advent of free trade. The book ends with how India’s current special economic zones and emphasis on port expansion are part of broader goals to reposition India in transregional Asian trade, to connect Mumbai with northern India, and to enact local plans for a global city that threaten the very port that first connected Mumbai to the world. To understand the functionality of these port and zone projects beyond typical policy prescriptions, this book proposes portals of globalization as a spatial format that fosters processes of reterritorialization.