 the impact of the CAA, the NRC, other recent internal decisions on our external situation, our image broad, and on our foreign policy. Because what has happened as a result of, well, the last year or so especially, is that we are increasingly isolated. There has been no meaningful international support for this series of actions that we've been discussing today. Apart from a few committed members of the diaspora and a ragtag bunch of Euro MPs from the extreme right. And this isolation is really increasing. If you look at what's happening abroad, the list of critical voices abroad is quite long. From President Macron to Chancellor Merkel to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to visitors like the King of Norway and so on, who would normally be polite, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for our human rights, for instance, has condemned the CAA, calling it fundamentally discriminatory in nature. But it's actually a cumulative effect of a series of actions. The same UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had also expressed extreme concern about the situation in Kashmir and urged that India rapidly restore the rights that are currently being denied. And we seem to know that we are isolated. I am ducked a meeting with the heads of the two foreign affairs committees in the US Congress because an Indian origin representative, the only Indian origin woman actually in the House, was going to be present who has tabled a resolution which is critical of the CAA and of several recent actions by the government. Rather than attending the meeting and rebutting these charges, we chose to duck this. And one result of our recent actions, including saying Abhikhar Trump, Sarkar Rath, Haudy Maudy, is that we have actually broken the bipartisan consensus that used to exist in the US, at least existed for the last 25 years. NDA-UPA doesn't matter. On improving India-US relations, all the significant democratic presidential candidates have spoken out on these issues. There have been hearings held in the US Congress. Language on Kashmir has been inserted into the Annual Foreign Appropriations Act for 2020. And the resolution, which Pramila Jaypal has introduced, now has 29 co-sponsors, including Republicans and the only Indian origin lawmaker who attended the Haudy Maudy conference. So the question arises, why is this? Are we in violation of our international commitments? After all, India is a signatory, not only to the University Declaration of Human Rights, but since 10th April, 1979, to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, 1967. You be the judge. Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights says, each state party to the present covenant undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction, the rights recognized in the present covenant without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status. Notice it's for all persons under your jurisdiction. It's not for citizens, this prevention of discrimination. There's a very similar article in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. So secondly, not only is it not confined to citizens and applies to all persons present on the territory, it also prohibits discrimination on grounds of national origin, which, as you've just heard, is exactly what the CIA does. All the knowledgeable people that I have spoken to agree that we seem to be in violation of our international commitments. And for those who think that the law isn't as that in any case international law cannot be enforced, you must consider the political and other consequences of being perceived as violators of international law and of not keeping our word. Global public opinion on India has shifted in the last few months. Look at the media abroad. I mean, the criticism in the West comes from the extreme right, the Wall Street Journal, all the way to the Guardian, and other leftist sort of papers includes almost everybody in between, New York Times, Washington Post, and so on. Some in India, supporters of the bill and the act, have drawn comfort from official media in authoritarian states. To them, one can only say, be careful what you wish and whom you hug. Even our friends have been taken aback. The Bangladesh Home Minister is quoted in a Bangladeshi paper as saying when asked what he was going to do about the NRC, CAA, and threats of deportation to Bangladesh, let them fight among themselves. Is this what you want? If this is how our friends feel, think of how happy we make our adversaries. What we have achieved in the recent past is to hyphenate our image with Pakistan's in a fundamental way, as religiously driven and intolerant states. Kashmir has been discussed in the UN Security Council again after 40 years. And we've lost, in a sense, India's ability to be an example and a model for other countries in the subcontinent, as we were during the freedom movement and in the early years of the republic, and immediately after radical reform started working in India in the 90s and the first decade of this century. We have gifted our adversaries platforms from which to attack us. At the very least, this inhibits investment because investment is an act of trust and of faith in the future. Our ratings have declined. Seven countries have issued travel warnings. None of this helps us. It's one thing to go alone, to go it alone in pursuit of national goals, as we did in 1971 when assisting the birth of Bangladesh. But then we had global opinion on our side. It's quite another to do so in the pursuit of sectarian, divisive, and party political goals, as we seem to be doing now. What the world thinks matters more to India now than ever before. More than half our GDP is the external sector. We depend on the world for energy, capital, technology, markets, essential raw materials, fertilizers, 80% of our imports are maintenance imports. So disengagement or going it alone is not an option. But we seem determined with actions like this to cut ourselves off and isolate ourselves. This can lead to no good end. Thank you.