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Nomenclature notwithstanding, the evolution of an Indian National Security Industrial Complex (NSIC) must be watched with interest and caution.

Despite sharing a close historical relationship based on the Soviet Union’s support during the 1971 Liberation War, Bangladesh had for long been out of the scope of Russia’s foreign policy priorities. This is best exemplified by the fact that no Soviet/Russian foreign minister had visited the country until September 2023. However, amid Western sanctions due to its war in Ukraine and tensions with the US, Russia is seeking to reinvigorate ties

Floods are a recurrent phenomenon in many parts of India, and human and economic losses are consistently rising with increased exposure to the hazard. These losses can be significantly reduced by eliminating the encroachment on floodplains and regulating the land use within it through floodplain zoning, a widely accepted and effective non-structural policy measure. Despite its benefits, floodplain zoning has not been widely adopted in India, main

The 2023 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report highlights a surge in drug production in Myanmar, posing serious security challenges. The cultivation of poppy, key for heroin production, increased by 33 percent in 2022, reversing a downward trend seen since 2014. Experts attribute the rise largely to livelihood challenges: Myanmar’s economy contracted by 18 percent in 2021, with only a modest rebound in 2022, and there are the compound

This paper analyses India’s participation in more than two decades of global climate politics. India has transitioned from a protest voice on the fringes of global climate policy to one that is actively shaping international efforts to combat climate change. Analysis of the drivers behind India’s negotiating positions on climate change thus far has focused on the competing motives of equity and co-benefits, which has however been insufficient

Climate adaptation has been at the forefront of UN climate negotiations over the past decade, given the increasing frequency of extreme weather events at the global, national, and sub-national levels. Climate vulnerability and risk assessments (VRA) are essential for adaptation planning, as they help identify areas, populations, and systems that are most at-risk from the impacts of climate change. They can also be used as a tool to develop adapta

As global food production faces the negative consequences of climate change, best practices in climate-smart agriculture (CSA) must be promoted to achieve food security. This requires adequate financial and human resources to be channeled to the upscaling of CSA activities in high-impact, priority areas. Considering India and Africa’s complementary sectoral priorities and their similar roles in evolving global food markets, various opportunitie

A year and a half since United States (US) President Joe Biden took the helm, both sides of the country’s political divide continue to debate whether the incumbent’s China policy is distinct from that of the Trump administration. The Republicans claim that Biden’s China policy has not veered away from Trump’s; the Democrats, meanwhile, argue that it is different. This brief weighs in on the debate, and finds that despite the Biden

Angola is rich in natural wealth, with massive petroleum and diamond deposits across its territory. Most of its people, however, continue to live in poverty. Since its independence in 1975, Angola has had a tumultuous journey: from being a war zone, to becoming a poster child for Chinese engagement in the continent, and since 2015, declining to its current state where the challenges are so massive—negative growth rates, high external debt, risi

India’s engagement with Southeast Asia entered a new phase following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third consecutive electoral victory in June 2024. With the ‘Act East’ policy too, marking its 10th anniversary in 2024, New Delhi has intensified its regional outreach through an unprecedented series of high-level diplomatic exchanges, security partnerships, and strategic dialogues. This brief examines how this surge in engagement is both a

For India, which is also experiencing declining growth rates in the last couple of years, the priority at the forthcoming G-20 summit at St Petersberg would be issues including the spillover of the global slowdown on emerging economies as well as quota reforms of the International Monetary Fund.

The agenda hosts Turkey has set for the G20 summit is undoubtedly overloaded. But, to achieve good results, it would make sense for global leaders to focus on the most pressing regional issues affecting the global economy in general and Asia in particular, before the next summit in China in 2016.

जी20 के असरदार प्रबंधन से “संशोधित बहुपक्षीयवाद” से जुड़ी भारत की मुहिम को ज़्यादा विश्वसनीयता हासिल हो सकेगी. भारत आज वैश्विक ज़िम्मेदारियों में अपना योगदान देने को तत्प

वैसे G20 में ग्लोबल अजेंडा को नया स्वरूप देने की भारत की कोशिश की कामयाबी इस बात पर भी निर्भर करेगी कि अन्य देश इसे कितनी गंभीरता से लेते हैं. 

The G20 Summit at Antalya in Turkey is expected to focus extensively on infrastructure investment on one hand and climate and energy policy on the other. The latter seems quite natural, ahead of the Conference of Parties in Paris in December.

पंतप्रधान नरेंद्र मोदी यांच्यासमोरील कार्य स्पष्ट आहे: विकास परत आणण्यासाठी जगाला सुरक्षित करा. यासाठी ते G20 च्या आत आणि बाहेर आंतरराष्ट्रीय सहमती निर्माण करत आहेत.

आपल्या G20 अध्यक्षपदाच्या काळात, भारताने सरकार आणि धोरणकर्त्यांशी संवाद साधला पाहिजे आणि या क्षेत्राला चालना देण्यासाठी या क्षेत्राला भेडसावणाऱ्या नियामक अडचणी दूर केल�

जी-20 के मंच पर नेताओं के बीच व्यापार तकनीक और आपूर्ति श्रृंखला को बेहतर बनाने पर चर्चा हुई जिसकी आवश्यकता भी थी. अंतरराष्ट्रीय स्तर पर बिगड़े समीकरणों से व्यापार का ताना बा�

१९९० पासून जगभरात जी आर्थिक प्रगती झाली आहे, ती चाके कोरोना महामारीमुळे पुन्हा एकदा उलटी फिरतील, अशीच जागतिक परिस्थिती सध्यातरी दिसते आहे.

Modi Speaks in G20 रूस यूक्रेन जंग को समाप्‍त का मामला ऐसे समय उठाया है जब अमेरिका व पश्चिमी देश रूस के प्रति भारत की तटस्‍थता नीति की निंदा कर चुके हैं. हालांकि भारत यह साफ कर चुका है क�

जी20 की गतिविधियों के केंद्र में रहते हुए भारत इस दिशा में अहम योगदान दे सकता है. इसे प्रधानमंत्री मोदी के डिजिटल इंडिया कार्यक्रम को संचालित करने वाले सिद्धांतों की बुनिया

संयुक्त राष्ट्रांच्या अजेंडा-२०३०मध्ये शहरे सुरक्षित, शाश्वत व सक्षम करणे हे ध्येय आहे. त्यासाठी जी-२० राष्ट्रगटाच्या धर्तीवर सिटी-२० गट बनणे आवश्यक आहे.

A plan to clean Ganga needs to shift focus from centralised large capital expenditure projects, to a decentralised process that undertakes cleaning-up from upstream to downwards, progressing through each watershed before entering the major trunk channel.

Gas in its varied avatars is going to become the most important bridge fuel for the next decades at least, with the world probably going to see very different gas markets dictating the geo-politics of the future.

Despite the unprecedented growth of India’s gig economy and possible benefits to women service providers, little attention has been paid to the hurdles faced by women in pursuing gig work. Indeed, gig work has witnessed similar gendered division as has been evident in traditional work, and has not led to a direct increase in Female Labour Force Participation (FLPR) in India. This brief examines the existing literature on the problems faced by w

Current data suggests that the global community is far from achieving the 2030 agenda of ending hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. By the end of 2019, 650 million people suffered from chronic hunger and 135 million experienced acute food-insecurity. Not all regions are equal: the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2020 found that some are experiencing less severe incidence of hunger on the GHI scale, compared to others. The most serious levels of

This paper assesses the gendered division of labour for household-level domestic service activities, of which water management remains a primary component, across Indian states and the various dimensions of gender that are relevant in this context. Women have traditionally played an essential role in water management at the household level, devoting a significant share of their day to related unpaid domestic service activities. Such engagements o

Gender disparities in Kenya’s entrepreneurship cycle are a manifestation of both the historical marginalisation of women and the structural barriers limiting equal participation in the economy. Recent progress in the legal framework has been suboptimal in closing the gender gaps, as seen in the persistent inequalities in formal employment and the high concentration of unlicensed women-owned enterprises in the informal sector. The inequalities a

Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) is a targeted fiscal instrument that several developing countries have cemented into their growth plans. GRB is used to ensure that policy prescriptions to alleviate gender inequality translate into outputs by linking them to budgetary allocations. Although the concept was introduced in India, Bangladesh and Rwanda at around the same time (the early 2000s), the three countries have followed different routes and a

India introduced Gender-Responsive Budgeting (GRB) in financial year 2005-06 to design public spending in a way that ensures that the benefits accrue as much to the country’s women as they do to the men. India’s effort has influenced both the government’s expenditures and its revenue policies—such as additional tax rebates on properties owned by women, for instance—at the levels of both central and state governments. However, 18

Rapid advancements in medicine and falling fertility rates have contributed to the rise in the population of India’s older adults in recent decades. This demographic and epidemiological shift has a gendered impact: A higher proportion of women over the age of 60, compared to their male counterparts, suffer from Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, hypertension, heart and bone diseases, cancers, cognitive decline, and depression. T

Women make up a majority of the four billion people excluded from the digital economy. Policy narratives assert that the digital economy has the potential to transform the world of work. Conversely, there are concerns that the existing ‘digital divide’ within and across nations will simply exacerbate existing social inequalities and reinforce gender hierarchies. G20 member states have repeatedly committed to bridging pervasive gender gaps in

नेपाल के आम चुनाव में पड़ोसी मुल्‍क भारत और चीन की दिलचस्‍पी बनी हुई है. खासकर तब जब चीन भारत को चौतरफा घेरने के लिए चीन नेपाल की जमीन का बेजा इस्‍तेमाल करने में लगा हुआ है.

As the partner that stands to benefit the most from any expanded BRICS play, China needs to be singularly more magnanimous and mindful in accommodating the legitimate interests and aspirations of other member states.

In 1990, after the end of the Cold War and the unification of Germany, the United States of America gave an assurance to the Soviet Union that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would not expand its role beyond the borders of Germany.

Can China slow down without imploding? No, says Mr. Osamu Tanaka, the Executive Vice President of the Policy Research Institute of the Ministry of Finance, Japan. He predicts that 2017/8 will be the beginning of a Chinese financial meltdown.

It offers a notable contrast that India’s ties with Russia haven’t taken off despite New Delhi’s keenness while its relationship with the US has expanded notwithstanding hesitations.

An autonomous Judicial Commission can effectively nudge the judicial system towards its intended Constitutional mandate; apolitical, enlightened and efficient application of the rule of law and protection of the fundamental rights of private entities, against encroachment by the executive or the legislature.

The recent terrorist attacks in China's Xinjiang and the involvement of terrorist camps operating in Waziristan and nearby areas have raised serious questions about Pakistan's commitment to battle terrorist groups.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping have just made back to back visits to the United States. In keeping with the times, both began their tours from that Mecca of our age - Silicon Valley.

At the current rate of around thirty-four billion tons of CO2 emissions per year, we could exhaust our carbon budget in less than a decade

Emissions from fossil fuel-powered motor vehicles adversely affect air quality and contribute to global warming. The manufacture and use of electric vehicles (EVs) is among the ways by which this challenge can be mitigated. This brief evaluates the best practices adopted by countries in the forefront of EV adoption, and outlines the lessons India can draw from them to inform its own EVs strategy. It finds that in addition to strengthening

The IMF estimates that State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) assets totalled US$45 trillion in 2018, close to 50% of the global GDP, and calculated the debt of the largest SOEs to be US$7.4 trillion. Clearly, SOEs have a direct bearing on the global economy. The most systemically important SOEs are the State-Owned Multinational Enterprises (SOMNEs) since they are focused on cross-border financing and business. A global framework for regula

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, reforming the global health governance system has become a key area of concern for the G20 and other multilateral platforms. This comes at a time when the world has increasingly become volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. As a grouping of developed and developing countries, the G20 must prioritise addressing global health challenges by identifying its direct and indirect determinants. This brief

What should be India's approach towards the international internet governance discourse? This Issue Brief attempts answer this question by examining the Indian government's engagement with the global community, using the recently concluded NETmundial conference on internet governance as a case study. It also provides policy recommendations for the way forward.

The All Party Hurriyat Conference¿s rather studied acceptance of the Centre¿s offer of talks while welcome should also add to the seriousness of the peace process in Jammu and Kashmir. While distancing Pakistan from a process that had been trilateral in the past formulations of the Hurriyat, the current round would expect the Centre to go beyond traditional pulse-feeling, and gestures.

The Power sector reforms in the country have presented the next strategic challenge that could redefine global interest in India. The country has set an ambitious target of producing 20,000 MW of Nuclear power by 2020 i.e. around 1000 MW of additional nuclear capacity per year for the next 17 years.

The 2011 anti-corruption movement in India—characterised by a huge trust deficit in the political class—was the culmination of several such localised movements that marked the birth of a new civil society in contemporary urban India. This paper studies the profusion of middle-class-led associations in Mumbai fighting for good governance, and their increased political mobilisation in the city. It argues that a new civil society bypasses electe