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Synopsis This is a first major attempt to analyse the whole gamut of India’s foreign policy during the fifty years of its independence. Combining different methodological approaches, the author has divided the book in three different parts. The first is devoted to the factors that determine the country’s foreign policy. While there are a number of them, the focus has been laid principally on the environmental factors, the most important of which are domestic, regional and global environments. Clearly, they are the major inputs in the determination of Indian diplomatic behaviour. The second part is devoted to the four goals that are the very basis of India’s behaviour vis-?-vis the outside world. They are security, modernisation, regional hegemony and international role-playing. The book defines each of these goals, and analyses its evolution during the last fifty years. The third part pertains to decision making. After systematically investigating the different institutions that are involved in the process, the author has introduced a new dimension—the dimension of the personality factor. In this connection, the study has investigated the role of all the Indian Prime Ministers from Jawaharlal Nehru to Atal Behari Vajpayee.