Direction: Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow by choosing the correct/most appropriate options:

The recent visit of Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to Delhi and Islamabad is among multiple signs of India’s changing relations with the great powers. The others include the dramatic rise of China and Beijing’s new assertiveness. At the same time, Delhi’s growing strategic partnerships with the US and Europe have begun to end India’s prolonged alienation from the West. Meanwhile, New Delhi’s own relative weight in the international system continues to increase and give greater breadth and depth to India’s foreign policy.

Change is the only permanent feature of the world and Delhi has no reason to be sentimental about the past. Consider, for example, the shifts in the triangular relations between Russia, China and America. If you like to pick nits, you could argue with Lavrov’s claim in Delhi last week about relations between Moscow and Beijing being in their best-ever phase today. They were probably even better in the 1950s when Russia and China were ideological soulmates united by expansive economic and security cooperation. The leaders of the two nations — Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong — signed a formal treaty of alliance in 1950. Russia not only invested massively in the economic modernisation of China but also gave it technology that made it easier for Beijing to become a nuclear weapon power. However, by the 1960s, the two communist states were at each other’s throats, arguing about ideology and a lot else. Dispelling the illusions that communist states don’t fight with each other, the armies of Russia and China fought each other on their frontier in 1969. The Sino-Soviet split had consequences way beyond their bilateral relations. None of them more important than the efforts by both Moscow and Beijing to woo Washington. The break-up between Russia and China also opened space for Delhi against Beijing after the 1962 war in the Himalayas. As Sino-Russian relations worsened in the 1960s along with the deterioration of India’s relations with China, Delhi and Moscow found a common interest in balancing Beijing. That did not last too long though. Under intense American pressure on Russia in the 1980s, Moscow sought to normalise ties with Beijing. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow’s first instinct was to become a part of the political West. But disappointed with the Western response, Russia turned to build a stronger partnership with China. Stepping back to the 1960s and 1970s, China strongly objected to Delhi’s partnership with Moscow (much in the manner that Beijing complains about India’s relations with America today). In a pithy but vulgar summary of Delhi-Moscow ties, Mao Zedong described them as the Russian bear mounting the Indian cow. Although the Indo-Russian strategic liaison endured, it was never without its share of problems that Delhi had to cope with. Russia, which today resents India’s growing strategic warmth with the US.