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US prosecutors indicted Adani Group officials. Several countries are reviewing Adani projects. This impacts India's global image and connectivity goals. India's private sector needs to increase its role in international development. This will support India's foreign policy and strategic ambitions.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, there has been a surge in cases of online child sexual abuse and exploitation (OCSAE) in many parts of the world. This brief discusses the cases of India and Australia. It examines their efforts to combat the increased incidence of OCSAE resulting from greater use of the internet as movement was restricted in response to the pandemic. The brief focuses on India and Australia as bo

India is experiencing a surge in power demand owing to an expanding economy. Even as the country has embraced the idea of transitioning to clean renewable energy, its current demand for electricity can only be met by addressing the concerns surrounding coal-fired power plants. The goal of going green might be a medium- to long-term strategy that should be diligently pursued to avoid future crises. In the short term, however, focus should

The workforce participation rate of India’s women is significantly lower than that of the men; and amongst the women, the employment levels of urban women are lower than those of their rural counterparts. Using the findings of the 2018 Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), released in 2019, this brief provides an overview of the current state of female labour force participation in urban India. It analyses data on vocational training and employm

There is evidence that sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is strongly linked to menstrual health and hygiene (MHH). Yet globally, governments, policymakers, and non-government organisations (NGOs) fail to include MHH in their SRH agenda. This brief examines the most crucial evidence linking MHH and SRH, and offers a framework to underline the imperative of pushing MHH into the mainstream of India’s SRH agenda. It argues that gaps in t

The application of emerging technologies in humanitarian assistance has increased in recent years, and they have proven effective in delivering life-saving interventions to populations in need. In a fast-changing technological landscape, the use of such tools is only expected to increase further. At the same time, however, the use of technologies brings certain challenges, such as misuse of data and the spread of misinformation. This brie

India’s built heritage—rich and diverse, an amalgamation of the country’s multi-millennial interactions with different cultures—is managed by governmental agencies at the national, state and local levels. These bodies have their respective mandates in protecting and preserving the country’s ancient monuments and other structures of historical value. At the same time, India faces a host of natural disasters that pose a multitude of hazar

In many parts of the world, including India, Public Credit Guarantee Programmes (PCGP) improve access to credit for small enterprises that are unable to obtain assistance from mainstream financers. This brief discusses the relevance of PCGPs in India, their mechanisms, features, and efficiency. Although these programmes have improved access to credit for MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises), there are concerns regarding their efficiency an

According to the 2020/21 Global Education Monitoring Report, India has the weakest public perception of the government as the primary provider of school education. This issue brief analyses what such low public support for government education provision indicates and discusses the implications in terms of educational equity. It highlights how the hierarchical Indian education system, in which a family’s ability to pay decides the course

In November 2022, Qatar will become the first state in West Asia and the Arab world to host the coveted FIFA football World Cup. Doha’s winning the hosting rights has brought the country—home to only 2.9 million people, more than eight out of every ten of whom are foreign workers—out of the shadow of its large, and more powerful regional neighbours such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This brief views thi

The Quad’s growing effort to shape international norms and rules in the Indo-Pacific is taking place in an environment fraught with multiple challenges. China’s assertive rise as well as internal differences within the group pose significant risks to the plurilateral platform’s mission of creating a free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific. Focusing on the Quad’s cybersecurity cooperation, this brief examines the various internal and e

As the total number of fatalities in the earthquake, which struck the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and the North-west Frontier Province (NWFP) on October 8, 2005, crosses the 50,000 mark and is inexorably moving higher and higher as more and more dead bodies are recovered under the debris and more and more injured survivors are succumbing to death due to lack of medical facilities and protection against the severe cold which has already set in

India’s competitiveness in manufacturing and the success of ‘Make in India’ depend on its ability to produce high-quality products and services. Product quality is important for human health and consumer safety, as well as for protecting the climate and the environment. One way of ensuring that products and services meet certain standards is through technical regulations with mandatory compliance. However, technical regulations also have th

As the Modi Govt presents the rail budget this week, it is worth reflecting on the growing gap between the Indian railway system and that of China. If the British Raj understood the strategic significance of the railways, the rulers of independent India squandered the advantage and have wrecked the system rather than build on it.

The financial condition of the Indian Railways (IR) is weakening by the day because of mounting losses in the passenger business. This, at a time when it is making efforts to improve its services through new capital intensive initiatives. IR’s freight revenue has traditionally subsidised its passenger revenue, resulting in one of the lowest passenger fares but one of the highest freight rates in the world. Since freight trains and passenger tra

The international community has been engaged in negotiations around climate finance for three decades now, and working definitions continue to assign the role of funder to advanced economies, and that of recipient, to emerging ones. This brief makes a case for expanding such narrow definitions. It calls on countries such as India to re-imagine not only the idea of climate finance but also the mechanisms of raising funds and the channels f

The electric two-wheeler segment represents a unique opportunity for India to become a global leader in the green technology space. The growth of this segment in the country is being driven by strong policy support, combined with homegrown engineering and innovation. However, the industry has yet to fully harness the global electric vehicle (EV) opportunity, and policy uncertainties are impeding innovation and investment. This brief makes a case

This year marks a decade since the announcement of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). This brief analyses Chinese-language literature to understand the country’s current stance on Pakistan and the CPEC. Two trends emerge. First, China appears to be facing a dilemma over Pakistan. While the Chinese government wants the CPEC to be successful, China’s strategic community now shows little optimism on the initiative. Second, contrary to

This brief examines the reciprocal relationship between science fiction and real-world technological, geopolitical, and policy developments throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. Beginning in the 1940s, the analysis explores how the genre has evolved amid historical events such as the World Wars and the Cold War, and the rise of digital technology. The brief gives particular attention to the role of science fiction during periods of criti

Attempts to arrive at a non-Western understanding of International Relations have often been made to counter the “hegemonising” influence of realism in the Indian milieu. This brief examines realist scholarship in India in recent years to understand what variants of realism have been given prominence. It also notes the absence of scholarship of the neoclassical realist variant and how this gap leads critics to arrive at an incomplete understa

Considering India's economic standing, a $2.9 billion loan for the Padma Multipurpose Bridge of Bangladesh would not have been a difficult proposition. If India finds this option too difficult, there are many other alternatives for India to help Bangladesh.

Defence cooperation is the dominant component of the India-US bilateral relationship. India seeks to leverage this aspect in the Indo-Pacific to diversify the scope of nascent plurilaterals, integrate with US frameworks to expand cooperation with regional nations, and consolidate its position as the preeminent partner for extra-regional players. This brief recommends that India take advantage of ongoing development initiatives with the US and ide

The 2024 advisory opinion issued by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), recognising GHG emissions as marine pollution, marks a pivotal intersection in maritime and climate governance. The opinion, while non-binding, establishes legal obligations for states to mitigate climate-induced marine impacts, including acidification, warming, and sea-level rise. It emphasises due diligence, transboundary impact assessments, and adher

For some years now, the trading system based on the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been showing signs of strain. The old binaries that informed the debates and decisions at the WTO are being challenged as the global economic landscape is changing. This brief discusses some of the most persistent issues around the WTO: among them, the ‘developing country’ status that countries self-declare; the dispute resolution system; and the understand

The responsibility for bringing in reforms and change cannot be outsourced to bureaucrats and technocrats as reforms, in essence, is a political enterprise, says former union minister and senior Congress leader Mr. Jairam Ramesh.

The Observer Research Foundation (ORF), India and the Stanley Foundation, USA co-hosted an international workshop on climate change on February 25-27, 2014 in New Delhi. The central objective of the workshop was to unbundle the different policy responses resulting from the multilateral negotiations thus far and their impact upon the evolution of existing and future multilateral frameworks. This Policy Brief aims to capture some of the salient per

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced nation states to shut down borders and to look decidedly inwards. In this newly emerging and highly tenuous global political economic landscape, a question that is being widely debated is what globalisation will look like in a post-pandemic world. This brief ponders the question in the context of India and its neighbourhood. Revisiting theoretical insights from ‘New Regionalism’, this analysis examines whether

This brief examines the education crisis that has affected close to 250 million children in India due to school closures implemented as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It underlines that the switch to remote learning has created a “regression in learning” that, while cutting across the entire socio-economic spectrum, has disproportionately affected the poor, and among them, the girls. This pandemic-induced education divide and learning l

This brief discusses Thailand’s Over-the-Top (OTT) industry, focusing on production, consumption and impact. It analyses the rise of online audio-visual business in the country, and the implications for traditional broadcasters. In the context of existing international practices and Thailand’s domestic situation, the brief discusses the current and future regulatory requirements of the OTT industry. It also makes recommendations for a regulat

In August 2019, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released its final guidelines for a regulatory sandbox for fintech firms.[1] Technology innovations are disrupting the traditional financial sector, and the RBI’s regulatory sandbox exercise is an attempt to be more agile and absorb some of this disruption. ‘Sandboxes’ give regulators a chance to work with fintech innovators, mitigate potential risks and develop evidence-based policy, while fi

This brief outlines a framework for India if it is to play a more proactive role in integrating and reimagining its immediate neighbourhood, in particular with reference to the economic relations with its BIMSTEC partners. The analysis is done in the context of important economic and strategic developments in the Asia-Pacific region in the recent years. It describes how India can navigate between competing economic and geo-strategic imperatives b

Concerns remain in the developing world that about whether the ICANN/IANA transition will create a truly plural process. This issue brief discusses three challenges 'multistakeholderism' must address from the perspective of the developing world: access, equity and sovereignty.

The aim of any surrender and rehabilitation policy for militants is clear: To allow them the opportunity to lay down their arms and rejoin mainstream society, and ensure that recidivism is arrested. This issue brief examines the failures of past rehabilitation policies implemented in Kashmir. The brief gives a historical overview of a succession of surrender and rehabilitation policies attempted by the Indian Government to counter violent extremi

The strategic compact between India and the European Union (EU) is coming up for renewal in 2025. While the Roadmap to 2025, launched in 2020, was an important step in the relationship, the strategic partnership remains largely underwhelming. The unfulfilled potential becomes a matter of even more urgent concern today, amidst the geopolitical turbulence and geoeconomic challenges confronting the world. As negotiators from both India and the EU co

There is no doubt that International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans often come with a set of conditionalities that most countries find unfavourable to implement. With its ongoing economic crisis and complex multilateral debt negotiations between creditor nations, Sri Lanka is no exception.

Traditional development financing is proving insufficient to address overlapping global challenges, such as climate change and fragile contexts. This brief explores new thinking in development finance through two examples. The first is Islamic climate finance, which constitutes less than 2 percent of global Islamic finance. The brief identifies policy priorities and proposes dedicated Islamic climate-finance windows (e.g., in the Green Climate Fu

Waste-to-energy (WtE) projects are often promoted as sustainable solutions for both renewable energy generation and GHG emissions reduction. However, their effectiveness is contingent on the fundamentals of sustainable waste management—including segregation, collection, and transportation—without which WtE plants risk exacerbating environmental and health risks by processing mixed waste, leading to toxic emissions and inefficient energy recov

The Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region is one of the most vibrant, distinct, intricate mountain systems in the world. An estimated 210 million people live within these mountain systems, and some 1.3 billion people who live downstream of the HKH rely on the freshwater obtained directly or indirectly from the rivers and tributaries of the region. Recent data shows that significant areas of glaciers in the HKH region are retreating at an alarming rat

The June 5 hartal, or shut down, brought back fears of the return of hartal politics which had been a bane of Bangladesh politics in the recent. Such shut downs often followed or preceded bouts of violence across the country, bringing the economy, and every thing else, to a grinding halt.

Over the past six decades, China has had an inconsistent policy on Kashmir, changing its position depending on its own interests. While maintaining a fine balance between its rapprochement with both Pakistan and India, China has also used the issue to make inroads to India via Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). Indeed, China’s Kashmir policy has allowed it to steadily find its way to India’s western and northern borders and into the region’s

India’s Northeast has often been described as the region where South Asia and Southeast Asia meet. Indeed, sharing much of its border with neighbouring countries, the northeastern states are economically and culturally integrated with Southeast Asia. This brief examines the role of India’s Northeast in strengthening the country’s relations with its partners in the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC

The early years, particularly the first 1,000 days, are a critical period in a child’s development, with lifelong impacts. Evidence shows that one of the most effective strategies for economic growth is investing in the developmental growth of at-risk young children. However, early childhood development (ECD) programmes are severely challenged by the sheer scale of need in the face of early childhood care and education losses due to COVID-19 me

The multilateral order, built on the debris of the Second World War, is no longer fit to address this situation. Global institutions are missing in action just when they are needed the most