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In September 2024, the Second UN High-Level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) marked a critical juncture in global health governance. This report examines the key commitments and implementation challenges emerging from the meeting’s Political Declaration. While the declaration sets ambitious targets—such as reducing AMR-related deaths by 10 percent by 2030 and establishing US$100 million in sustainable funding—massive gaps remain. T

The United States (US) has revoked India’s benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and imposed Section 232 tariffs on Indian steel and aluminium. In response, India announced retaliatory tariffs. This brief probes the ongoing trade tensions between India and the US, despite a reduction in the trade deficit. It discusses the heightened influence of the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) and outlines its apprehensions

The United States (US) has revoked India’s benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and imposed Section 232 tariffs on Indian steel and aluminium. In response, India announced retaliatory tariffs. This brief probes the ongoing trade tensions between India and the US, despite a reduction in the trade deficit. It discusses the heightened influence of the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) and outlines its apprehensions

The premise of this Budget seems to be a market oriented growth strategy - wholly fair given that the government will struggle to fund the growth needs of the country otherwise. One should hope this budget has set the controls for a larger shift in the government's approach towards administration and efficacy.

The Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, which had killed 1133 workers and injured more than 1800, was symbolic of a much deeper crisis, not limited to Bangladesh, according to Prof. Rehman Sobhan, chairman of the Centre of Policy Dialogue, Dhaka.

Sustainable finance emerged as a key issue to tackle climate change at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference and is spurring a global transition to net zero. A peculiar feature of the race to net zero is that it cannot be achieved unless all countries can meet their targets, and any positive step towards it will benefit all countries. The drive to achieve carbon neutrality and net-zero emissions needs to be targeted through a range of

Around the world, the state is losing ground to the individual.

Acknowledging health as a central component of urban planning and governance will help achieve health SDGs and ensure policy coherence.

The limited development of India's maritime capacities is a cause for strategic concern, especially considering the impact on the nation's economy, which is currently dependent on sea-borne trade for its well being.

Even as Washington expects India to be a net security provider in the Indo-Pacific region, the country is offering itself as a key partner in managing the cyber oceans. The US must now reciprocate.

Despite the sanctions, Iran has continued to act as a regional power with huge influence over the internal affairs of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and Yemen. That's what threatens Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf kingdoms, and America's rapproachment with Iran is the beginning of a tectonic shift in the regional balance of power.

The US has subjected Pakistan to a unilateral sanctions regime at several crucial junctures in the history of their bilateral ties. Though the reasons for cutting off economic and military aid to Pakistan have been contingent on strategic exigencies prevalent at different points in time and therefore not singular, countering Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions has been a recurring theme. It is widely believed that these sanctions have not been able to

The drastic and sudden drop in Venezuelan and Iranian oil exports to India in 2019-2020, due to the looming threat of US secondary sanctions, is the latest supply chain disruption to India’s energy security. To avoid similar disruptions in the future, India must act decisively to increase its Strategic Petroleum Reserves to meet at least 90 days of emergency oil stocks, and combine lobbying efforts between India’s private and public oil compa

Sanctions, a mechanism to penalise international legal violations, usually prohibit nationals of the “sanctioning country” from engaging in specified activities with the “targeted country.” Secondary or extraterritorial sanctions, on the other hand, penalise third-country individuals and companies for dealing with sanctioned countries. Recent measures adopted by the US—the enactment of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanc

The strengthening of working relationships with emerging Asian powers like India and Indonesia would form the second element of the United States's rebalancing policy, according to Ms Meera Shankar, former Indian Ambassador to the United States.

The US-Africa Leaders' Summit in Washington D.C from August 4 to 6 attracted considerable international media attention for various reasons. To begin with, for the US, it was a first of its kind.

During the US President's visit to Asian countries, Obama and Abe underscored their commitment to economic and security cooperation with ASEAN countries where Chinese influence has seen a marked surge in recent years.

Statements made by public officials in certain G20 member states as well commentaries by financial analysts suggest that emerging market economies stand on a different footing from developed counterparts in their regulation of virtual digital assets. They attribute these differences to the distinct institutional, demographic, and economic vulnerabilities of developing countries. This paper examines this notion by presenting a quantitative

The economic advantage from a revived financial sector will generate manifold benefits in investment, growth, and jobs. Every 1% of growth generates 1.2% of tax revenues.

This paper highlights the importance of water valuation and pricing for sustainable and efficient water allocation and management in India. An efficient water-pricing mechanism could be a tool to address the impending crisis of water scarcity, which necessitates a robust, objective, and holistic valuation technique. Every unit of water consumed for economic purposes has an ecological footprint, and this opportunity cost or externality factor need

A recent engagement spotlighted the broader strategic collaboration between the two countries in this realm.

India, France and the UAE, which share strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific, met for a ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly last week.

A final draft resolution at the United Nations, passed in July 2014, has focused on the UN General Assembly's review process of World Summit on the Information Society outcomes implementation.

Given Japanese apprehensions, it is not certain whether India and Japan will sign the nuclear deal during Modi’s forthcoming visit to Tokyo.

The Citizens Grievance Redress Bill, despite its impressive provisions, is fraught with certain inadequacies that might not appreciate the grass-root realities of public grievances - like lack of a holistic interpretation of likely grievances.

From geopolitics to space cooperation, Paris has always been supportive of New Delhi’s decisions

India needs to become a strategic maritime power in a bid to check China's rise.

Liberalism has given us this modern world which gives primacy to the individual over his community, caste or gender.

Technology solutions for illiterate people are exclusively designed by the formally educated and that is a fundamental problem

The Alliance, a concoction of tribal leaders and warlords held out in the northern parts of Afghanistan against the Taliban more than 25 years ago. However, the rapid fall of the north brought to the front that many who had previously helped the Northern Alliance, and even the US-led forces later in 2001 to depose the Taliban, were now in cahoots with the same group.

The UN report may not change India’s official position on Myanmar and New Delhi will continue its constructive engagement with the country

Ninety per cent of North Korea’s trade is with China.

New Delhi will be hoping that Congress can continue to rein in Trump’s worst instincts.

In a first of the kind, Observer Research Foundation, Kolkata organised an inter-university debate competition on 'Panchsheel and its Relevance' on January 17 to commemorate completion of 60 years of signing the agreement.

The politics of India is changing. The change will come not just through macro measures like the introduction of large-scale manufacturing or modern agriculture, but in a number of small ways - better schools, safer cities, better urban facilities, mental institutions and jails, fairer purvey of justice and so on.

To expect that an activity which draws on all the ills of the world — fanaticism, crime, bloodshed and illegal trade — will not have a corrosive impact beyond its intended arena is unrealistic.

While Chinese investment and demand in renewables have been critical in the fight against climate change — single-handedly dropping world prices in the solar panel industry by nearly 80 per cent between 2008 and 2013 — there are broader implications of China’s leadership in renewable energy markets.