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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.

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

The DeFi landscape is complex, encompassing digital assets, blockchain technology, and tokenization. Despite skepticism, it holds potential for financial inclusion, improved taxation, and democratizing investment in private markets.

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.

During the 2017 winter session of parliament, PM Modi stated that India’s foreign policy stood on its own independent merit, and if it wanted to purchase oil from Iran, it would do so.

When India first began developing the ANI in the 1980s, the defence and foreign policy establishments were not entirely in agreement

Constructing a border of cooperation with Bangladesh should liberate India from one of major geopolitical constraints imposed on it by the Partition of Bengal. When he travels to Dhaka in the near future, Modi is in a position to unveil a genuine strategic partnership with Bangladesh.

Whatever be the academic arguments, the die has been cast in Dhaka for a definitive contest between the forces of progress and regression. The outcomes are likely to have a lasting impact on the subcontinent's political future and India's regional security environment. It is time Delhi's political classes paid some serious attention to the developments in Bangladesh.

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.

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.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, released the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 (DPDP Rules) in early January this year and invited feedback by 5 March 2025. On 18 February 2025, MeitY organised a consultative session on the draft DPDP Rules; the event, held in New Delhi, was attended by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF). Based on the consultative session and discussions wi

The Kashmir floods have exposed our communication faultlines. Why is there no disaster management plan in the case of a communication blackout? This is perhaps even more pertinent given that the remote corners of India, be they coastal, mountainous or otherwise, are not well connected to modern telecom networks.

By curtailing the effectiveness of the Armed Forces Tribunals, the Government is destroying the military justice system which is a disservice to serving and retired personnel

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has given enough reasons for President Pervez Musharraf to feel at ease. His unambiguous expression of not letting the peace process between the two countries flag should lay to rest speculations and allegations in Pakistan about India's commitment to peace in the region.

Delhi must focus on realising the full potential of bilateral cooperation with both the US and China, instead of precluding beneficial bilateral engagement with one in the name of avoiding conflict with the other. The current policy of "doing nothing" and finding reasons for inaction will steadily reduce India's relevance for both Washington and Beijing.

AUKUS fits into a growing network of minilaterials crisscrossing the Indo-Pacific and rooted in shared strategic interests.

Globalisation reduces commodities and perceptions to a common destiny. Thus a spectre that is haunting the west, of Muslim group identity, seems to have reached India too.

Indo-Pak relations appear to be on hold largely because of complications created by the Afghan situation. Part of the problem are Pakistani suspicions about Indian ambitions in Afghanistan. Former Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri believes there are misperceptions on both sides.

The moment finance minister Pranab Mukherjee announced a mere 4% nominal increase in defence budget pegged at Rs 1,47,344 crore for 2010-11, members of Indian strategic community started showing their frustrations.

Does the United Nations really matter when it comes to war and peace in the 21st century? To ask this question when long promised reform of the UN seems at hand ¿ the report of the High Level Panel appointed by Secretary General Kofi Annan will be out on Thursday ¿ and India is stepping up its efforts to become a part of an expanded UN Security Council sounds heretical.

Conflict between the two Asian giants will act as a drag on their rise.

While India has been assertive in protecting interests it considers vital to its security posture in the region, New Delhi remain cagey when it comes to drawing lines on a map.

India has many reasons to nurse a nuclear grievance against China. For, Beijing's decision to arm Pakistan with nuclear weapons has given Rawalpindi the impunity to pursue cross-border terrorism against India. But Delhi has no reason at all to blame Beijing for its own failures on the nuclear policy front.

To explain the causes of the present unsatisfactory situation many in India would argue that a self-absorbed India has neglected its neighbourhood

Israel being India's most trusted ally in West Asia and among the three or four closest friends in the world, Prime Minister Modi's visit to Israel needs to be a standalone, a single country trip. The India-Israel relationship is important enough, even sacred enough, to merit that respect.

At first sight, it would appear that Sarabjit Singh's case, which dates to 1990, may fall in the category of Indian involvement. But other evidence suggests the case against him is weak. There are also reasons to believe that Sarabjit's was a case of mistaken identity

The bilateral relationship is growing due to a newfound convergence in their strategic orientation. Let’s not burden Sunak with unrealistic expectations.

Going without cash is a good idea whereby studies indicate that paying by card or e-money encourages you to spend more than you would otherwise.

Nor has the Narendra Modi government been deaf to the needs of the farming community.

From America to Bangladesh and Australia to Europe, those who bet on big breakthroughs with India in the last few years can't hide their disappointment at its seeming inability to seize the opportunities at hand. It is up to Delhi to prove that the concerns of its friends and partners around the world are misplaced.

World renowned management professor and author, Dr. Jagdish Sheth, delivered a lecture on "The Tectonic Shift: The New Geoeconomic Reality" at Observer Research Foundation. Dr. Sheth, Professor of Marketing in the Goizueta Business School, Atlanta, USA, and the author of 'Chindia Rising: How China and India will benefit your business' forecast a new geo-economic reality in the world driven by markets of emerging nations.

The problems India is facing are hard to solve in the short term and only incremental changes can be undertaken in the five-year term of any government at the Centre. As per an Oxfam survey, India is a highly unequal country on all counts. There are inequalities in wealth, income and consumption as well as structural inequalities of opportunity, region and social groups.

Given the enormity of challenges, there is a need for all the space-faring powers to unite in this exercise. It is important for India and others to debate and decide on what it thinks the norms should be and what sort of future it wants to achieve in space.

Difficult basins with poor prospects like the kind in India will never be explored or developed under fair-returns-cost-plus regimes. Successes such as those of Lundin in Norway or Cairn in Barmer do not come to the faint-hearted.

There is a sort of consensus among the security agencies that this attack couldn’t have happened without the Pakistani army’s involvement.

Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) in India is enshrined in the Constitution and mandated under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009. Yet, its implementation remains tentative for many reasons, primary of which is the absence of a clear government guideline regarding which Ministry is tasked with policymaking and implementation. This brief attempts to offer an answer for the government. It examines the conc

India's ranking in the World Bank's ease of doing business index is 134. Ease of doing business has ease of settling commercial disputes at its centre. With the Arbitration and Conciliation (amendment) Bill coming in place, India could play a greater role in shaping the way forward.

This brief examines the historical dimension of the tensions between Japan and South Korea and its implications on the current breakdown in their bilateral relationship. It argues that the battle over historical memory has led to lasting animosity between the two countries, contributing to serious problems in their defence ties and creating space for China to expand its influence in the region. The brief explores why efforts to overcome the histo

In 2019, India and Russia announced their intent to connect the ports in their respective cities, Chennai and Vladivostok. One year on, the project remains only on paper. This paper explores the economic and strategic viability of this proposed maritime connectivity corridor. While not purporting to be a feasibility study, this analysis seeks to examine the potential benefits and pitfalls of the proposed link and its place in the Indo-Russia stra