Search

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented stress on India’s urban public health infrastructure, underscoring the need for urban planning to account for increased demand for health amenities during crises. This paper evaluates the city of Mumbai’s 1991 and 2034 development plans and finds inherent infrastructural inadequacies. It calls on urban-policymakers to complement development plans with robust dynamic health strategies that conside

This paper argues that India’s housing strategy should not be confined to merely creating affordable housing stock to tackle the shortage, as such an approach is myopic. Instead, a sound housing strategy must be informed by an adequate understanding of the multiple facets of housing poverty, including the factors that are responsible for the proliferation of slums. The blueprint offered in this paper understands an effective housing scheme as a

As if COVID-19 was not enough, Amphan has not merely damaged infrastructure, rendered many homeless, and affected small businesses — but has imposed a cost on the West Bengal economy whose indelible impacts will be felt in the long-run.

Though the devastating WannaCry ransomware attack was a failure on the NSA’s part, current UN cyber norms are far too weak to hold any international actor – let alone the US – responsible.

The pandemic COVID19 doesn’t just come in the way of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, but calls for a rethinking of the timeline.

Developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the K-4 will be an intermediate range submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM).

A Rohingya insurgency has been around since 1948, but it has waxed and waned depending on the level of repression.

As the COVID-19 infection rate continues to increase in the United States (US), this brief examines the country’s social protection system and compares it to those of other rich OECD countries. It argues that implementing basic social protection measures in a time of crisis such as this, may be costly both in resources and time. While addressing immediate needs imposed by the public health emergency is priority, in the long term, institutionali

The furore generated in Pakistan over the al-Qaeda chief, Osama Bin Laden's death in 'Operation Geronimo' by the US forces is symptomatic of Pakistan's dilemma in the 'war against terror'.

Adoption of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can affect the performance of firms in a variety of ways, including faster processing of information and products, the facilitation of changes in business practices and improved internal organisation and management. Indeed, much of the recent research on developed countries in this area has emphasised less the adoption decision per se than what adoption facilitates. In particular, ICT is

The Narendra Modi performance juggernaut can be rolled out uniformly across the state.

We could soon see America leave Afghanistan's brutal war half-finished. The implications of this will be dreadful for ordinary Afghans. This is no good news for India either.

Conventional investments cater to investors who intend to gain financial returns. Other investors whose aim is to generate a positive social or environmental impact at a decent rate of return, turn to “impact investments” for their purpose. Mobilised to finance social enterprises, impact investments assume three primary forms: embedded, integrated, and external. This paper discusses the ideas of impact investment and social enterprises, and o

Acquisition of air assets by the most successful guerilla outfit and a declared Terrorist organization, LTTE, has alarmed observers around the world.

Recent Facebook posts by the Finance and Company Affairs Minister are a compact assertion of reformist credentials. Not just because the has crossed a million 'likes.' People press the button absent mindedly, after all.

The financial health of the Indian Railways, the single largest employer in the Government of India, has been in a dismal state for some time now. With the recent merging of the railways budget with the general budget, it has become a daunting exercise to conduct an analysis of railway finances. Yet, it is no doubt in the national interest to not only locate the shortcomings in the system but also explore solutions to improve performance. This pa

Noting that the objective of the armed forces is not to win wars but to prevent wars, there was a consensus at an ORF discussion that India needs to overcome its deficiencies in order to create a credible deterrence.

Access to higher education has been a long-standing policy concern in India. Reservation for different social groups at the central and the state levels has been a typical policy response.

An urgent warning comes from a Harvard University study (bit.ly/3dthqiv), which establishes a correlation between long-term exposure to air pollution and Covid-19 mortality. The study finds that people living in polluted cities are more likely to have compromised respiratory, cardiac and other systems — and, therefore, are more vulnerable to Covid-19.

As misinformation and propaganda become the mainstay of public discourse, the space for reason is shrinking

This paper highlights the imperatives for India’s G20 Presidency for promoting development cooperation towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Given its unique development cooperation model—more precisely, its development partnership model—India can utilise its G20 presidency to push the sustainability agenda. This will help bridge the North-South divide in sustainable development financing. The paper recommends

India shares close political and strategic ties with the Southeast Asian subregion of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (or the CLMV countries). However, their economic ties remain weak, owing to various factors including lack of physical connectivity, as well as the absence of synergy between India’s Lines of Credit to CLMV and the country’s economic outreach. This paper analyses India’s investments and development cooperation initiative

Neighbours India and Nepal, who share an open border, have not always had the most amicable of relations, oscillating from one extreme to the other. One of their long-standing disputes is over the border area of Kalapani. This discord has the potential to disrupt the other aspects of their ties, especially in the domains of the economy and cross-border security. Further, if the two countries fail to arrive at a resolution to the disagreement, it

The deepening of India-New Zealand after a lull in relations is important both in bilateral terms and also within the wider regional context.

Re-kindling “the special and privileged nature” of the strategic partnership of India and Russia at BRICS

Proactively taking advantage of China’s involvement in the Taiwan Strait to fight China in multiple theatres is something Indian military planners should think about.

Worsening climate change will have impacts on global politics, creating new vulnerabilities as well as opportunities. India, given its emerging power status and high vulnerability to climate impacts, holds a key position in global climate action. This brief looks at the ways in which India has used climate policies to gain leverage. India has sought to incorporate the geostrategic uses of climate change into a wider shift in its foreign policy, i

Though the relationship between India and Bangladesh is at its best and the two countries currently share great warmth in their relations, India should take some more steps for the benefit of the people of Bangladesh to sustain the warmth, opined members of a delegation of journalists from Bangladesh.

Al-Qaida has put Pakistan at the top of its priorities. Its leaders judge Pakistan as the most vulnerable country for them to hijack, while independent estimates by security and intelligence officials suggest that Pakistan has the capability to add 8-10 China-model low-yield nuclear weapons in its kitty every year.