It is encouraging that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that the Non-Aligned Movement (Nam) will provide strong impetus to tackle current political and economic challenges. Crisis grips Syria. The threats include the deteriorating situation in Syria, economic slowdown and other problems. The NAM summit has started in Tehran. Singh emphasised that the original wellsprings of the movement continue to be relevant. Old structures of global governance have failed to keep pace with present threats to stability. The NAM summit aims at achieving lasting peace through joint global governance. Singh pointed out that NAM should provide incentives to reform and democratic global governance structures. India is a founding member of the NAM. During the Cold War period and the consequent ideological and military confrontation across the Iron Curtain, the NAM constituted a voice of reason and sanity.
What Singh said was somewhat nostalgic. There is no doubt that the NAM has lost much of its significance with changes in Egypt, Yugoslavia and Cuba. But Manmohan Singh feels that the diversity and size of the membership of the NAM presents a tremendous potential for collaboration and cooperation to meet development challenges. India will contribute to endeavours of South-South cooperation. This is despite the fact that Indian economy is not in the pink of health. It will not be far wrong to say that Singh is trying to flog a dead horse. Already such alliances as the SEATO and CENTO have wound up, the NATO is getting anaemic and the Arab world is fractured. The NAM can have little influence in a changed world order.