Recent Updates

Pakistan’s battered tribal regions set the stage for new Prime Minister
Neighbourhood Sep 14, 2018

Pakistan’s battered tribal regions set the stage for new Prime Minister

Pakistan’s new Prime Minister, Imran Khan, faces formidable challenges. For now, the most difficult one may yet be mollifying his restive fellow Pashtuns who have suffered grievously in the Army’s anti-terror operations in the country’s tribal regions. ...

Scraping the bottom of the barrel: Budgets, organisation and leadership in the Indian defence system
Indian Defence Aug 22, 2018

Scraping the bottom of the barrel: Budgets, organisation and leadership in the Indian defence system

A recent report of the 2017-2018 Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence (PSCOD) has revealed that India’s defence services are facing a severe resource crunch. Given the enormous amount of money that the country is already spending on defence, the chances are slim that the government ...

Towards a sustainable smart city: The case of Aizawl
Urbanisation in India Aug 17, 2018

Towards a sustainable smart city: The case of Aizawl

India’s hill cities are unique poles of development. While they have managed to record some degree of economic growth, increasing urban population and unfavourable topography have also made such growth haphazard and unsustainable. In turn, this has threatened the quality of the built environment and ...

India’s maritime connectivity and importance of the Bay of Bengal
Maritime Security Aug 15, 2018

India’s maritime connectivity and importance of the Bay of Bengal

The Bay of Bengal region is more than a channel for commerce — it has become an arena for power projection. ...

Deciphering grey-zone operations in maritime-Asia
Maritime Security Aug 03, 2018

Deciphering grey-zone operations in maritime-Asia

Recent grey-zone activity in maritime-Asia suggests an increase in hybrid warfare, even as the lines between military, economic, diplomatic, intelligence and criminal means of aggression become increasingly blurred. By replacing overt military aggression with soft provocations – kept well below the threshold of open warfare ...

Pakistan General Elections 2018: What’s at Stake?
Neighbourhood Jul 17, 2018

Pakistan General Elections 2018: What’s at Stake?

In well-functioning democracies where those who lose elections live to fight another day, the forthcoming general elections in Pakistan is a battle for survival for many of the main political players in the country. To begin with, the brazen intervention by the military establishment in ...

Contributors

Nikhila Natarajan

Nikhila Natarajan

Nikhila Natarajan is Senior Programme Manager for Media and Digital Content with ORF America. Her work focuses on the future of jobs current research in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence digital innovation and strategy. Nikhila also tracks ...

Read More + Premesha Saha

Premesha Saha

Premesha Saha is a Fellow with ORF’s Strategic Studies Programme. Her research focuses on Southeast Asia, East Asia, Oceania and the emerging dynamics of the Indo-Pacific region. Premesha’s other research interests include: Indonesia’s maritime strategy, India and Southeast Asia, India’s ...

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