India signed two MoUs with Malaysia on Cyber Security

India signed two MoUs with Malaysia on Cooperation on Cyber Security and Cooperation in Project Delivery and an agreement on Cultural Exchange Programme for 2015-2020. Bilateral ties with Singapore also got a boost this year as India signed ten pacts, including a joint declaration on elevating ties to a strategic partnership, besides agreements for enhanced defence cooperation and in areas like cyber security, shipping and civil aviation. The year also saw underworld don Chhota Rajan, who was on the run for the past 27 years, being deported to India from Indonesia on November 6 for facing trial in over 70 cases of murder, extortion and drug smuggling against him in Delhi and Mumbai.

One of India's most wanted criminals, the 55-year-old gangster, whose real name is Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, was deported to New Delhi after his arrest in Bali on October 25. The gangster had flown to Bali from Australia where he had been hiding for several years. Vice-President Hamid Ansari visited Indonesia where he emphasised that the time is ripe for the two countries to work together in international forums like the WTO and the UN and look to bring more equity into the international order.

In other major developments in the region in 2015, Singapore lost its founding father Lee Kuan Yew, who dominated the country's political scene for over half a century and transformed the tiny former British colony into a thriving global trade and finance powerhouse. 91-year-old Lee, the city-state's Prime Minister for 31 years, who had been under intensive care for pneumonia, died on March 23. Myanmar saw a historic shift in power from the army with Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party winning a parliamentary majority on November 13 that will allow it to elect a president and form a government next year.

Delhi's Lady Shri Ram College alumni, Suu Kyi's party secured a landslide election victory, propelling the pro-democracy movement to power after a 25-year struggle against authoritarian rule. In August, Thailand witnessed one of the deadliest terror attacks when 20 people, mostly Chinese tourists were killed and over 120 injured, in a powerful bomb blast inside a popular Lord Brahma temple 'Erawan Brahma Shrine' in a crowded area of capital Bangkok.