India’s clean energy targets and advanced manufacturing ambitions have heightened the strategic importance of critical minerals, particularly heavy rare-earth elements essential for high-performance magnets, defence technologies, and renewable energy infrastructure. With global rare-earth supply chains heavily dominated by China—especially in downstream refining and magnet production—recent ...
Policies designed to improve women’s mobility, safety, productivity, and access to public services have emerged in India in recent years but cities remain exclusionary, with urban budgets and infrastructure planning lacking a gender focus. This paper argues that gender-responsive budgeting is essential for building gender-inclusive ...
Recent debate over the need for an explicit national security strategy (NSS) in India warrants an understanding of the term ‘grand strategy’. The prevalent twofold typology—the narrow military-centric (Classical) versus the broader foreign-policy-centric definition (International Relations)—fails to capture the diversity in grand strategy literature. This ...
Global demand for critical minerals is predicted to increase manifold in the coming years, but India’s midstream capacity is underprepared. Despite some overseas projects, India’s partnerships have not progressed beyond the exploration phase, and it is still exposed to single-source supply disruptions. This paper argues ...
The Draft Framework of India’s Climate Finance Taxonomy released in 2025 was an important first step towards directing financial flows for climate action. However, its transformative potential remains constrained by structural gaps that include narrow sectoral coverage, ambiguous categorisation criteria, absent quantitative thresholds, and weak ...
The increasing number of urban flooding incidents in India reflects a structural mismatch between rapid urbanisation, erratic monsoon variability, and outdated urban infrastructures. From coasts to the mountains, floods are no longer episodic disruptions but systemic urban crises. This paper examines the political, ecological, and ...
The rapid growth of generative AI has sparked global debate on whether using copyrighted works for AI LLM training constitutes permissible use or infringement. This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of copyright laws, policy frameworks, and judicial approaches across the United States, European Union, United ...
The shifts in the United States’ (US) foreign policy since Donald Trump’s re-election as 47th president have perhaps been most visible in the country’s relations with the European Union. Meanwhile, the changes are more nuanced and complex in the case of the US’s allies in ...
Africa’s main challenges—climate change, conflict, water stress, and food insecurity form a nexus. They feed into each other and throttle the continent’s progress. Africa is currently battling multiple shocks and challenges—the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, unsustainable debt, the impact of the Ukraine–Russia war, climate ...
India has made reasonable progress in terms of quantum sensing systems via its National Quantum Mission, but needs a more refined and coordinated approach led by the Ministry of Defence. Given the importance of Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) systems, their augmentation should be a ...
Dr. Soumya Bhowmick is a Fellow at the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED) at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF). He completed industry- endorsed Ph.D. studies at BML Munjal University as a SYLFF Research Grantee (Tokyo Foundation), focusing on inclusive ...
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Sreeparna Banerjee is an Associate Fellow in the Strategic Studies Programme. Her work focuses on the geopolitical and strategic affairs concerning two Southeast Asian countries, namely Myanmar and Thailand. Her primary focus is on the Rohingya issue within the Bay of ...
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