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China’s naval push is leading India and the United States to do a lot more together, especially in the seas.

The Ministry of Defence released the Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020 (DAP 2020) in September last year, in a move to further streamline the procurement process and provide a boost to indigenous arms manufacturing. This brief argues that measures articulated in the DAP—highly anticipated as it was—need to be complemented by additional reforms to create a robust procurement machinery that supports faster and cheaper acquisition as well as hi

Allocations made for capital expenditure must increase if India is to keep pace with China's rising military might

There is need to re-prioritise the expensive items in the services' wish list in a manner that will not strain the economy, without necessarily increasing the vulnerability of the country.

While allocations for the defence forces have been prioritized, the country's policymakers still grapple with the question: Despite spending billions, how strong is our Defence?

The defence component of the national budget accounts for 14% of central government expenditure, but gets less than 5% of media space. Virtually no discussion on the issue takes place in Parliament either. A call for increased resources for national defence usually goes out only when defence spending by Pakistan and China makes headlines.

U.S. President Joe Biden should recognize that countries elsewhere need to be key allies in the fight.

The norm to protect the public core of the internet, originally advocated by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy, can be operationalised in two ways. Both a layered approach and a functional approach to defining the public core of the internet provide productive ways to discuss safeguarding the functionality and integrity of the core logical and physical infrastructure of the internet from unwarranted state interventions. Thi

With the Delhi Durbar at its weakest in decades and the national parties in a funk, India's ability to deal with externally induced challenges in the run-up to the elections and after is being undermined by an irresponsible domestic discourse.

For decades, global agriculture has pursued an extractive model of relentless yield maximisation—at a devastating cost. Soil degradation, water scarcity, and deepening inequities have made it clear that the promise of perpetual growth in a finite world is an illusion. This brief challenges the dominant narrative of industrialised, high-input farming and reimagines Indian agriculture through the lens of ‘degrowth’—an emerging concept that

If Maldives becomes the biggest radical Islamic cell using the present political situation in the country, it would affect every nation in the Indian Ocean region as a huge part of trade in the Indian Ocean passes through the Maldives, according to former President Mr. Muhamed Nasheed.

By 2041, Delhi’s population is expected to reach 28-30 million. To meet the requirements of a massive population in a systematic and sustainable manner, the Fourth Master Plan for Delhi (MPD) is being prepared and expected to be completed in 2021. This paper describes the progress and preliminary focus areas of the forthcoming plan, highlighting current challenges during preparation, as well as future ones expected in the implementation

The shockingly stunning victory of the two-year-old Aam Admi Party (AAP) in the assembly election in the national capital this week is expected to impact the national politics in a significant manner as it is bound to trigger the process of political realignment across the country.

Can things change even before 2020, if Arvind Kejriwal resigns, admitting he has lost the mandate to rule?

As India reels from the economic fallout of Covid-19 despite the announcement of a relief package, calls for a more refined and demand-inducing stimulus have emerged. However, the bleak state of the government’s coffers has left limited fiscal space to act. This brief explains the plausibility of financing a demand-inducing stimulus using debt monetisation as a one-time policy measure. Outlining the criticisms against such proposals and how the

The Observer Research Foundation¿s (ORF) Institute of Security Studies hosted a roundtable discussion on the ¿Demilitarisation of Siachen¿, on May 4, 2005, at ORF Campus, New Delhi. The discussion was chaired by Gen (Retd) VP Malik, former Chief of the Army Staff.

The South Asian region is witnessing some kind of democratic upsurge. For the first time, all the countries in the region have embraced democracy. Yet, democratic transitions in the region are filled with uncertainties and fragility. South Asian countries need to learn from each other's democratic experiences and support each other.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy framework, by being blind to history and to context, is not doing itself any favours.

The Indian leadership has been able to earn a lot of goodwill by sheltering the Dalai Lama and his people, but after his life, the 90,000-strong community will become a political and economic burden.

Questioning the choices made by the government in terms of its response to the Pulwama terror strike is not 'questioning the forces' and thus unpatriotic

Democracies have not always been true to the ideals they promote and it is precisely because of their ambitions that such ideals have taken a backseat

With Iraq back on the chess-board of international diplomacy, there is Once again the talk of democratizing individual West Asian nations, if not West Asia as a region. Going by the neighbourhood experience in recent times, it has also raised the question if West Asia is ready to be democratized, if it is not through the barrel of the American gun.

Endorsements have energised the party base with hopes of swaying undecided voters.

Access to, and development of indigenous digital platforms and cutting-edge technologies is imperative for robust socio-economic development and national security. In turn, such process needs to be democratised, and undertaken in a sustainable manner. India is a first mover in this novel idea of democratising technology and developing Digital Public Goods. Operationalised in the digital infrastructure called India Stack, India’s strategy aims t

Demonetisation is still hurting India's monetary stability, and govt/RBI have been unusually poor stewards of the macro-economy

With the November 8 announcement, about 85 per cent of your bodily functions merely in the hope that the system will be cleansed with Demonetisation

Now in the fourth phase, China is rebalancing by emphasising consumption and promoting an innovation-based economy. This is a forty year timespan, not the half-decade process under Mao.

Pakistani establishment would have to be out of its mind to enter Osama bin Laden's Abbotabad hideout on a white charger. Such foolhardiness would swell the ranks of Jihadi outfits in Pakistan. Murderer of Punjab Governor, Salman Taseer would resurface as a model.

Some voices in India had advocated a tough response to the Chinese. This would be untimely and irresponsible. In retrospect, the handling of the situation which involved a symmetrical non-threatening military response by Indian forces, along with patient diplomacy has paid off.

The rising animosity has a great potential to affect the ability of the two nations to counter regional threats.

Mumbai's public healthcare sector is approaching exhaustion. The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), despite its untiring efforts to provide affordable healthcare through its general hospitals and peripheral centres.

The manner in which to determine the relationship between India and Africa is two-fold: micro analysis and macro analysis. This includes focusing on economic and energy diplomacy, political and security engagement and pan-African projects and strategies, says Dr. Arndt Michael of the University of Freiburg, Germany.

Nepal's former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has stressed on the need to develop "a joint approach" with India to exploit the huge hydro power potential of the country. He said Nepal has the potential of generating over one lakh megawatts of power.

In Devas Multimedia Pvt. Ltd v. Antrix Corporation Ltd, the Supreme Court of India has upheld the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) order winding up Devas Multimedia Ltd on the grounds of fraud. Antrix is the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and Devas is a multimedia services company. The decision comes at a crucial time, as foreign investors of Devas are endeavouring to attach Indian assets

The use of drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), both for military and civilian purposes, has increased in India in the past decade. At the same time, counter-drone systems are also being developed to address the threats posed by UAVs. How effective are these counter-drone mechanisms? This brief explores this question, and offers suggestions for India to reduce the growing threat from drones. Any evaluation of the efficacy of anti-drone syst

While pursuing growth of the sector, the environmental sustainability and social equity aspects must also be understood using science, technology, finance and innovation

The story of the Maotai town in the Guizhou province in South China is an interesting case study of developmental economics - how a relatively underdeveloped region was turned into a rich town.

The Russia-Ukraine war has dealt a massive blow to a world already battered by the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) appear farther from reach. The current global scenario demands greater international cooperation for development. Yet, development aid is increasingly getting more securitised, and the imperative is for the international community to leverage cooperation during the current Decade of Action fo

There is a strong feeling that the signing of a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between Japan and India has not led to the full utilisation of the potential that exists for larger trade and investment. Further efforts should therefore be undertaken to realise those ends.

The relatively small tactical operation did not meet its military objective but generated spectacular political theatre. The release of the videos in the run up to the elections is further evidence of the true nature of the exercise.

The US's war in Iraq is over but it has ended in a fiasco. Iraq is unstable and Iran is emerging as the strongest force in the region.

Elections will not be won or lost because of events in Sri Lanka, but Sri Lanka could be lost because of our electoral politics. Our PM's absence in Colombo at this juncture is akin to a public snub to Sri Lanka and the vacuum that we create and show little intention or urgency to fill, can only be filled by one country - China.

Terrorism in Chechnya has three major trajectories ' first, the terrorist campaign of the Chechens and others who are a part of the international terrorist network and who derive legitimacy from Islamic fundamentalism and whose fight is not just against the alleged oppression of the Russian state, but also to establish Islamic rule in Chechnya and to facilitate its integration with the pan-Islamic world.

China's decision to sell two additional nuclear power reactors to Pakistan has dimensions that need to be better understood. China is persisting with its internationally destabilizing proliferation activity.

India, like much of the rest of the world, is faced with the twin but opposing conditions of economic potential and social concerns that need to be negotiated to realise the digital dividends from artificial intelligence (AI) and achieve sustainable and balanced growth. AI systems involve layers of technological dependencies that necessitate and enable social and institutional interdependency between stakeholders, enabling conditions, and resourc

India will become a digital society. It is also deploying all the right pieces and infrastructure for a digital economy. The foundation for both will be the cloud ecosystem, which, however, needs to be protected through a robust policy and legal framework.

Social media’s impact on mainstream media, and the way people communicate with one another and disseminate information, has become a subject of serious study for journalists, academics and policymakers alike. While it has been a significant equaliser as a vehicle by which the fundamental right to freedom of expression is guaranteed everyone irrespective of class, creed or geography, these very same platforms are also becoming spaces where—in

People in smaller cities of India were more hopeful about the prospects of Digital India than the people in big cities which are traditionally thought of as 'tech savvy', according to a survey conducted by Observer Research Foundation.