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Interstate (River) Water Disputes (ISWDs) are a continuing challenge to federal water governance in India. Rooted in constitutional, historico-geographical, and institutional ambiguities, they tend to become prolonged conflicts between the states that share river basins. This paper examines the constitutional complexities, contentious political federalism, and identity-based electoral political dynamics that fuel ISWDs. It discusses the River

Initiated in 1970, the FMR experienced a resurgence in 2016, finding a place within the broader Act East Policy of New Delhi.

Microfinance, which began in India 50 years ago, extends credit, insurance, loans, access to savings accounts, and money transfers to small business owners and entrepreneurs, especially those not served by the conventional banking system, or indeed the rest of the financial sector. This paper traces the history of microfinance in India and evaluates its impact. It finds that although the microfinance sector has emerged as a salient player in Indi

A nation-state—with its numerous institutions, actors, and daily interactions—is a complex system and it is a tall task to predict the future trajectory of any of its sub-systems such as the armed forces. What is certain, though, is that every sovereign state aims to have a military that is of the highest possible calibre. One of two paths may be chosen to achieve this goal: tying-in the military’s capability development with the ec

Climate change has emerged amongst India’s most formidable challenges to sustained GDP growth. To accelerate the implementation of the country’s commitments under the Paris Agreement and advance its progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, finance is key. India needs to develop a comprehensive strategy and an integrated policy approach that aligns the country’s financial systems with the long-term needs of the economy while incor

India’s target of achieving 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022 might appear ambitious, but it is crucial as it will have a positive impact on the country’s economic growth, energy security and the fight against climate change. Financing is emerging as the key challenge to this vision, slowing down the pace of growth; as of December 2019, over 50 percent of the 2022 target is yet to be achieved. This brief outlines India’s existing

The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have all declared their commitment to climate action and the implementation of the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. This brief makes a case for BRICS, as a forum, to build a strategy for financing regenerative agriculture; key should be the creation of a joint fund. If implemented correctly, the brief argues, such a strategy of giving back to the land, instead of merel

Accumulated non-performing assets (NPAs) in the Indian banking system, specifically in the public sector banks (PSBs), have adverse effects on credit disbursement. An increasing amount of bad loans have prompted the banks to be extra cautious, which has dried the credit channel. Two components are key in resolving the NPA problem: the immediate task of resolving the current accumulation in the PSBs, and the more important long-term task of ensuri

Aiming to secure their marine resources in the Bay of Bengal, India and Bangladesh settled their maritime boundary in 2014. Despite the delimitation, however, fishers from both countries continue to commit unlawful forays into each other's sovereign waters, leading to the enforcement of punitive measures against those accused or convicted. Such incidents not only jeopardise the fishers’ livelihoods, but repeated occurrences also nettle relation

This paper analyses the patterns of virtual water trade (VWT) in agricultural products across the globe—VWT is the flow of water embedded in goods and services when they are traded—and the implications for alleviating water scarcity. Virtual water trade has been crucial in ameliorating water scarcity in virtual water-importing nations. At the same time, it has led to per capita water availability declining at a more rapid rate among the net v

Climate change has now evolved into a systemic risk that is reshaping economic systems, governance structures, and the landscape within which India’s fiscal federalism operates. As climate impacts intensify, the existing foundation of inter-governmental fiscal transfers is being tested. As the 16th Finance Commission embarks on releasing its recommendations this year, it faces a critical opportunity to strengthen the alignment between India’s

Govt will need to spend more, but should credibly commit through institutional reform to future transparency and prudence

All these issues will be in play in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which explains whether this was a preview of the general elections.

For Bangladesh and India, the imminent expiry of the deal presents opportunities for exploring the appropriate mechanisms for governing flows in river basins

The traditional urban narrative does not conceive of the relationship between food and city in direct terms. In this narrative, urbanity can be industrial, technological, cultural and innovative—and by extension, its spaces can host factories, institutions of all kinds, governments and corporations, and entrepreneurs. But urbanity cannot be agricultural—and by extension, its spaces cannot host fields, seed banks, poultries, dairies and anythi

Conflict resolution and political problem-solving in other countries are not traits that Chinese diplomats excel at. It remains to be seen how China walks this tightrope in Afghanistan, which remains a fractured crucible of contradictory ethnic and political interests

The luxury bus leaves downtown Cam hotel to Qassion mountains for a panoramic view of the world's oldest, continuously inhabited city, Damascus. The picture has to be sketched because outside Syria everyone is counting on the level of chaos we did not see.

In not agreeing to have a parliamentary resolution against Sri Lanka, the Parliament has demonstrated where politics ends and policy-making on a sensitive area as external affairs and neighbourhood relations begin.

In May 2023, India’s University Grants Commission announced draft guidelines to allow foreign universities to establish operations in the country. This paper explores the potential outcomes of the decision by assessing the experiences of foreign institutions in China, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, and Malaysia. The case studies highlight that only a few world-class universities are keen to establish campuses in foreign countries. As su

The Hangzhou G20 summit was about taking stock of the economic situation in a world where global recovery from the 2008 crisis remains sluggish.

China’s approach to trade has stood impervious to change. It is time for a new geoeconomic approach to counter China. Like-minded nations can fashion rapid arrangements to grow the supply chains that matter most, such as for electric vehicles (EV). The US and India, plus Australia, Canada, Japan, Britain, Taiwan, Korea, and Mexico can form an EV supply chain compact to create a level playing field within the group and incentivise their

As India and Taiwan complete 30 years of informal relations this year, there is scope to deepen cooperation in the domains of trade, technology, digitalisation, and security. This paper offers a framework for India’s engagement with Taiwan, identifies the pillars of their current relationship and areas for future collaboration, and explores the limitations and challenges. The dual-track engagement—proactive engagement and soft balancing with

Over the past decade, Mumbai’s civil society has raised concerns over the way in which the municipal corporation appears to be prioritising rapid development at the cost of the city’s public space. Indeed, the city has lost significant areas of its open spaces owing to various reasons, among them archaic policies, unrealistic goals, and the labyrinthine division of power and jurisdiction between the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and othe

It would be worth France, India, and Japan beginning an institutionalised and wide-ranging dialogue to ensure that the three of them can better coordinate their activities in the Indo-Pacific — not necessarily to counter China, but to encourage it to cooperate.

China remains a superpower in the making but its journey has now become profoundly more difficult

Better policing, if nothing else, could help eliminate the existing air of permissiveness and re-introduce a sense of security in women - and also in men - inside their homes and outside - than at present.

The Vice-President of Maldives, in his address to the ORF faculty, recounts the long and bitter-sweet struggle against autocratic rule in his country. With an elected government now at the helm and democracy gradually taking roots in different spheres of society, he outlines the crucial challenges that lie ahead for the island nation.

Beginning in 2017, the first Trump Administration steered United States (US)-China relations from engagement to competition. Thereafter, Biden largely built on this policy, while giving indications of moving towards a phase of “competitive co-existence”. Under Biden, the US sought to reassure China that it was adopting a strategy of “de-risking” and not “de-coupling,” and its goal was to adopt a technology export regime that would als

Eighty-eight innocent civilians, about 60 of them Egyptians, and the remaining believed to be foreign tourists, were killed in three well-synchronised explosions by unidentified terrorist elements at the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt on July 23,2005.The city is a popular tourist resort on the Red Sea at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula.

The launch of Japan’s Official Security Assistance (OSA) framework in 2023 signalled a step further in the departure from a strictly pacifist aid model toward a more proactive approach to security diplomacy. Rooted in the 2022 revision of Japan’s National Security Strategy, the OSA institutionalises Tokyo’s gradual reinterpretation of constitutional and normative restraints on military assistance, while maintaining an emphasis on transparen

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

In the 21st century, ideas and thoughts travel across the globe with considerable speed. And, areas inhabited by those whose ancestors belonged to ancient civilisations like our own are engaged in battles that are ideological and sectarian. Essentially, these are about dominance and reversion to a way of life pitted against those who want the systems changed.

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

Defence reforms have become a national urgency

As the German G20 presidency aims to put in place a stable environment for investment in Africa, the spectre of famine is haunting millions of people in Africa and the Arab peninsula.

आने वाले वर्षों में जलवायु परिवर्तन के चलते होने वाली विनाशकारी घटनाओं से व्यापक रूप से बड़े पैमाने पर जनसंख्या का विस्थापन होगा. इस समस्या का विस्तार देशों की सरहदों के आ�

जिन मुद्दों पर बात हुई, वे काफी हद तक वही थे जिन्हें भारत ने अपनी लीडरशिप में आगे बढ़ाया था. चाहे ग्लोबल गवर्नेंस रिफॉर्म्स की बात हो, जलवायु परिवर्तन की बात हो या टिकाऊ विका�

As the GCC pursues a joint defence shield, this requires coordination with the US to solidify, but perhaps the Trump administration is not as keen as its Democrat counterparts to become the region’s ‘security integrator’

Gender-sensitive disaster management can be best aided by gender inclusive efforts. There is a lot that women could do to aid the process of relief and rehabilitation. For instance, traditional knowledge and skills of women can be used to manage natural resources, aid the injured and sick, prepare community meals.

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-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

Gender equality is a fundamental human right. This principle is also found in the SDG 2030 Agenda where its signatories, including India, reaffirmed their commitment to mainstreaming gender development and ensuring equal representation of women in political and economic decision-making. This paper outlines gender-budgeting norms for resource allocations as an essential prerequisite for India to achieve progress towards the SDG-5 on gender equalit

Lashkar, with its vast network of trained jihadis, commanders and training infrastructure, is Pakistan Army's key strategic instrument in keeping terrorism active in Kashmir and other parts of India

There are developments taking place in the quake affected Pakistan occupied Kashmir that need to be closely watched by both the Indian authorities and the Western world. The first is the failure of the Pakistan army and its associated institutions to provide relief to the millions of quake affected people in Kashmir under its occupation.