Policy Briefs & Reports

India for long has been a provider of economic support as well as capacity building assistance to Maldives. It has also acted as a security provider to the island nation with one prominent instance being the coup in 1988. Even till recently in 2012, India was at the forefront when it came to providing support to the democratically elected Mohammad Nasheed during the soft coup in 2012. A stronger bilateral relationship with Maldives is also significant for India to maintain as well as strengthen its leverage over the Indian Ocean Rim states so as to counterbalance the growing Chinese influence in the region and play a much more substantive role in the 21st century global economy. Thus, keeping these factors into consideration, in this brief we have tried to analyze India-Maldives bilateral ties in detail highlighting India’s growing development partnership, disaster relief support, security cooperation and trade with Maldives as well as looking into Maldives’ geostrategic significance in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).