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A roundtable on India-US-Australia cooperation at ORF revolved around issues that are of common interests to all three countries, such as maritime security and cooperation, piracy and disaster management among other issues.

People voted for change in three of the four Indian States that went to polls recently. While the voters in Tamil Nadu severely punished the ruling DMK combine, which included the Congress Party, for their reported large-scale corruption and inefficiency,

The provisional figures of the decennial Census-2011 has just been released in India, with the final head-count to be commuted and made public in about a year's time.

The outbreak of a gargantuan health crisis in the form of COVID19 seems to have interrupted the monotony of dysfunctional and polarised politics, albeit in a limited way.

Crime and politics have had a very close nexus the world over. But in India, this trend became dominant and struck deep roots in mid-Sixties when the Indian National Congress, the country's oldest party, started losing its sway over the electorate.

The race for the 'Rashtrapati Bhavan' (President's House) has begun in right earnest though no political party has yet played its cards formally. A new President is going to be elected in two months as the term of the present President Smt. Pratibha Devi Singh Patil ends on July 25.

Technology is important, but who you get it from is even more important. U.S. drones in the Indian inventory would have a huge value in terms of messaging, to friends and foes alike. Strategic partnerships are among the best force multiplier options in an uncertain Asia, and India should leave no stone unturned.

The Indian polity appears to be in a state of drift as the established political parties, oblivious to the problems of the country and its people, are currently engaged in game of power.The political class, as a whole losing credibility, is being widely perceived as "loud mouths",

In the last four decades, India’s geo-political identity has evolved from being the leader of the non-aligned movement - a representative of the developing poor nations of the world to becoming a member of the G-20, the world’s leading industrialized and emerging economies. The change has also been evident on its evolving position on climate change as it became a signatory to The Paris accord. However, the paper argues that key tenets of self

Left-wing extremists in India are gaining in strength and spreading their reach to newer and hitherto unheard of regions. The guerrillas have been carefully and consistently planning strategies to survive in their bastions, consolidate themselves in regions of moderate presence and expand their activities to new areas.

Social activist Arvind Kejriwal announced on October 2 in New Delhi with lots of fanfare that a new political party has come into existence whose name would be decided later, but it has started functioning.

On June 14, the British newspaper, Times London, broke the story about issuing of British travel documents, on the recommendation of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in 2014,

India needs to find money to put into strategic investments and projects across the IOR -- whether it is Myanmar, Iran, Sri Lanka or Mauritius. The way to do it is not governmental schemes which are all running late, but to draw strength from India's entrepreneurial class and the private sector.

On 26 May, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Narendra Modi assumed office after he was sworn-in as the country's 15th Prime Minister by President Pranab Mukherjee.

From all accounts, the two-day visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Nepal on August 2-3 was a success. It was also a demonstration of the BJP-led government's neighbourhood policy which seems to be at the core of country's foreign policy.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which was sworn-in on May 26, has completed 100 days in power.

A cross-analysis of the three regions indicates multiple complementarities between India and Europe vis-à-vis Africa — and that there are good reasons to initiate triangular cooperation in certain sectors.

This brief examines India’s defence procurement record for fundamental platforms, weapons, and systems, as well as planned acquisitions and projects under development. The new Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP 2020) assumes greater salience not only against India’s chequered acquisition history, but also the increasingly constrained resource environment and deteriorating regional security scenario. The brief offers a set of broad recommendat

Prof. S.D. Muni, a Sri Lankan expert, says that it was unlikely that the 13th Amendment would be implemented, but the spirit of the amendment, i.e., accommodation, would play a much larger role relative to Rajapaksa's rule.

A host of issues that were crucial to the interests of developing countries, and to a large extent India's, were off the table at Bali. For instance, rich country farm subsidies. The US has still not budged from its position vis-à-vis farm subsidies, despite years of push from poor countries, including in Africa.

Much of PP&R's engagement with civil society remains limited to event-oriented modes. There is a fundamental problem in the extant approach.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, extremist groups find workarounds to the digital blockade as ordinary citizens endure restricted access

For a country that has faced repeated betrayals from Pakistan, it is another historical blunder for our government to again place faith in it.

Not recruiting from civilian and scientific talent pools risks a ‘failure of imagination’, hindering India’s ability to pre-empt previously unanticipated dangers.

This article makes a case for increased engagement of India’s scholars of international relations (IR), especially of the theoretical variety, with the global IR community. While India has increasingly been integrating itself in global economic and political orders, its IR scholarship is yet to become truly global. This article outlines the structural and domestic-level causes for the relative absence of theoretical IR works in India while argu

Indian investments in Africa, from both public and private sector entities, have increased considerably in the last decade. Yet despite the growing importance of Indian investments in Africa, only a few empirical studies have been carried out on the subject. This paper undertakes a disaggregated analysis of Indian foreign direct investment outflows to Africa from 2008 to 2016, and presents three main findings. First, it confirms earlier analyses

Observer Research Foundation, with support from the Ministry of External Affairs, hosted the Indian Ocean Dialogue 2014. The event witnessed participation of delegates from the far corners of the Indian Ocean and beyond, capturing the vastness and diversity of the region.

A decade and more after the ¿reforms regimen¿ caused a rethink of the ¿national agenda¿, the Indian polity may be at the crossroads again. If cascading fiscal compulsion was behind the earlier re-think, this time round it has more to do with the evolving polity and ageing personalities.

While Non-Congress parties spare no opportunity to accuse the Congress Party of psychophancy and a feudal culture, regional parties are not far behind. In fact, they have perfected the art of dynastic politics, beating the Congress Party.

New Delhi requires partners both outside and inside Afghanistan to protect its presence and interests in the war-torn country.

Instead, on Sunday, US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad left Qatar, where the US-Taliban talks were being held, the September 1 deadline having been crossed without any final agreement.

The Gorkhas, a Nepali military community, have long been recruited by the Indian Army into its Gorkha regiments. Gorkha youth are keen to join the Indian Army since its perks and payments are superior to those of the Nepali Army. However, India's new short-term military enlistment scheme, Agnipath, could alter this association. This brief discusses the impacts of the Agnipath scheme on military labour migration from Nepal to India, and on

Anulekha Nandi, Basu Chandola, Anirban Sarma, Eds., India’s AI Imperative Building National Competencies in a New World Order, January 2025, Observer Research Foundation.

This paper examines India’s role, and stakes, in the so-called ‘Arctic Paradox’: As the Arctic region witnesses an unprecedented rate of ice-melt because of global warming, new routes are being opened, paving the way for untapped hydrocarbon and mineral resources to be exploited. While India has been active in the Arctic for over ten years, it has not fully made use of its Observer status, and it must give new energy to its activities in th

India’s approach to Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis demonstrates the tension between its geopolitical interests and values.

ISRO recently announced its plans to undertake a mission to Venus in the early 2020s and has also invited international proposals for scientific payloads.

Nuclear cooperation has brought a new dimension to India’s diplomacy in the 21st century. India’s status as a responsible nuclear power is predicated upon the civil relationships in the nuclear domain that it has established with major powers. This, despite not being a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and operating outside the ambit of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. This brief analyses the impact of key agreements with different count

India has a role to play in global climate diplomacy, with its large population, fast-growing economy, and vulnerabilities to the consequences of climate change. Utilising a review of existing literature, this brief evaluates the country’s involvement in international climate forums in the past decade, its negotiation strategies and policy coherence, and their effectiveness. It finds that India’s strategy for climate diplomacy has aimed for a

Coal India Ltd. (CIL) has not been able to supply the committed quantity of coal to the powerproducers, forcing them to source coal from other countries. Apart from this, many coal blockswhich should have been in operation by now are yet to come on-stream.

There are calls for India to declare a net-zero year and offset its carbon emissions by various processes of absorption and removal of greenhouse gases. For India, such calls are irrational; despite international pressure, it has avoided making pledges or setting hard targets beyond its commitments at the Paris climate conference in 2015. This brief argues that “net zero” is not possible with India’s current levels of reliance on coal. Its

The November 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai the commercial capital of an economically resurgent India?left a deep and indelible impact on the Indian security psyche. The attacks exposed the lackadaisical attitude of the Government, at both the Central and state level, towards coastal security and the sheer illpreparedness of the country to combat such terror threats from the seas.

Despite significant improvements in India’s near-seas security architecture, the country’s coastal security project remains a work in progress. Recent developments show there have been more than a few “misses” in the near-littorals. This report attempts to document India’s enduring coastal vulnerabilities, identifying reasons why a number of promising initiatives have not added up to a system of efficient littoral management, and explai

Myanmar, which shares a border with four of India’s north-eastern states—Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland—is crucial to the country’s ‘Act East’ policy. India has a number of projects with Myanmar in the pipeline, seeking to improve physical connectivity through transport links, which in turn can assist in both countries’ development goals. Since the military coup in Myanmar on 1 February 2021, the country has been

The year 2021 began with hope that the development, manufacture, and deployment of vaccines will soon bring the COVID-19 pandemic to an end. Halfway through the year, vaccination is underway across the world, albeit at a much slower pace for the mostly poorer nations. There is promising news from countries like the United States and Israel – where the vaccination drive has proven to be successful, and where health experts are considerin

Budget woes are unlikely to ease. The Chief of Defence Staff and the Army leadership are likely come under pressure to seriously think about downsizing the Army.

In the past decade, India has successfully demonstrated the three pillars of effective deterrence—capability, credibility, and communication—in its strategic posture towards China. It has bolstered its defence diplomacy with key partners in South Asia and Southeast Asia, and across the broader Indo-Pacific region, through regular joint military exercises, military officers exchange programmes, frequent high-level diplomatic visits, and the co

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has launched many reforms under the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiatives to strengthen India’s moribund defence industry. These reforms have led to some visible improvements, as evidenced by increased defence production and exports, and a large bank of in-principle government approvals for future domestic production. However, several challenges persist that require urgent attenti