Multi-alignments are crucial in today's world: Tharoor

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Observing that the non-alignment policy has lost its significance, Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor today said the 21st century is a period of multi-alignments and no country, including India, could go forward without co-operating with other nations.

"We are living in a tightly-knitted world and India is becoming more globalised. Twenty-first century is a period of multi-alignments and non-alignment policy has lost its significance," Tharoor, a former UN diplomat, said.

India's foreign policy had been undergoing changes since the country's independence in tune with the changes happening the world over, he said after the release of the Malayalam translation of his book "Pax Indica": India and the World of the 21st Century", here.

The fact that India is a member in various groupings of countries like BRIC, RIC, SAARC, vouched the important role played by the country in the multi-alignment,he said.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who released the Malayalam version of the book by handing it over to writer George Onakkur, said India and China were the two widely discussed countries of the present century.

"US and Russia were the topics of discussion once. Now, India and China have become the mostly widely debated nations in the world," he said.

Chandy also said though India had many things to study from China in terms of development and economic growth,it could not emulate the growing human rights violation and absence of democracy in that country.