Ram Madhav writes: With Mauritius joining project, India’s rising power in the Indian Ocean

News Snapshot:

Agalega is a tiny speck in the vast waters of the Western Indian Ocean. This atoll, comprising two islands, North and South Agalega, separated by a short channel not wider than 200 metres, is just 25 square kilometres in area. From the air, it looks like an exclamation mark. Many strategic observers in the world were sceptical when the prime ministers of India and Mauritius, Narendra Modi and Pravind Jugnauth respectively, announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2015 to develop this atoll. Although it existed on the radar of agencies like the CIA, which suspected, without any evidence, that...