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The idea of energy security which was hitherto rooted in the supply and price of oil has now been expanded to include concerns over the availability and trade of coal. The key concern is the demand growth from China and its impact on coal price and availability, given the level of concentration in its sources of supply.

China is touting its vision of linking two Indian projects (Mausam and Spice Route) with its One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative. China's main goal is to coordinate regional policy so that each country's economic development plan becomes part of a larger regional vision.

While West Asia is volatile, the Chinese are beginning to get more active in Afghanistan, retain their pre-eminence in Pakistan and strengthen ties with Iran. In fact, Iran is the third leg of China?s policy in our immediate western neighbourhood. The Chinese are obviously making preparations for the time when peace returns to the Arab world, which might leave a stronger Iran.

The fall in the value of the dollar would be worrying the central bankers in China because the value of their reserves also declines simultaneously. The promotion of the SDR agenda by the Chinese is certainly no coincidence given the position of the dollar today.

Agriculture is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, even as it feeds the 8-billion global population. Around 75 percent of farms, globally, are family-owned and under 2 hectares; together they produce a third of the world’s food. These smallholder farms produce 15-percent lower emissions per hectare than a large farm. Yet, smallholders bear the brunt of climate change, which threatens their livelihood. Big agribusinesses, meanwhile,

Like the LEMOA, there have been heated debates on COMCASA too.

Yemen is the cradle to the Arabs, Iraq their grave. So goes an Arab proverb. Since March 2003 Iraq has certainly been the grave of a great many Arabs ¿ men, women, and children caught in the crossfire of a conflict wantonly unleashed to sustain a misbegotten thesis.

‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ has made a noisy return, especially after the government’s action on Article 370 and Pakistan’s isolation in the international theatre.

Lydia Powell and Akhilesh Sati, The Consumption of Energy by Data Centres: Implications for the Global South, Observer Research Foundation, August 2025.

The Smart Cities Mission in India, launched in 2015, is a unique experiment undertaken with the aim of improving people’s quality of life in cities. It bypasses traditional institutional approaches and employs innovative methods to achieve its targets. This brief provides an overview of the work initiated under the mission since its inception and explores the gains so far. It documents sectoral reforms and conducts a critical appraisal of the m

In the last two decades, the world has witnessed disease outbreaks that have resulted in massive loss of lives and economic disruptions.[1]  The current pandemic of the novel coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, might still not be the last of the pandemics that the world will suffer in the years to come—as long as human activities that use natural resources beyond their capacities, resulting in the spread of viruses, continue unab

The Centre has chipped in by banning the export of beef and cows, thereby minimising the incentive for cow slaughter.

Eleven million people in Afghanistan are experiencing food insecurity, and 97 percent of the country’s population are on the brink of universal poverty by mid-2022. Every year, about 250,000 people suffer the devastating impacts of environmental disasters such as floods, droughts, avalanches, landslides, and earthquakes. The circumstances are climacteric, as agriculture is the biggest livelihood provider in the country and influential in its ec

India and China, the two pillars of the dawning Asian century, are still prisoners to their perceived insecurities and imagined magnificence. They seem condemned to "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity," as one wise man had once remarked. And Mr Manmohan Singh's China visit has added yet another chapter to this narrative.

Beijing’s behavior, while unsurprising, is only likely to further antagonize its neighbors.

India is reshaping the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s priorities on security, counterterrorism and connectivity

The decline has gone unnoticed because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War

The three synchronised Delhi blasts of October 29,2005, have proved¿¿if further proof was needed¿¿that the motivation and the morale of the pan-Islamic jihadi terrorists belonging to the International Islamic Front (IIF) formed by Osama bin Laden in 1998 continue to remain undamaged, despite the successes scored by our security agencies in neutralising many of their sleeper cells.

Modi’s abrupt return from Saudi Arabia only proved the strength of ties

China’s external economic engagement in smart city development under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its digital sub-initiative, Digital Silk Road (DSR), is reshaping the geo-economic and geopolitical landscape of the Indo-Pacific. Between 2017 and 2023, Chinese state and private companies invested, loaned, or contracted over US$22 billion in digital infrastructure under the DSR framework, spanning telecommunications, artificial intellig

Indian designers seem to be gaining in importance both in India and abroad because they are using a lot of embellished textiles in which intricate embroidery, zari, beads and semi precious stones are sown into the fabric. Unlike the western designers who use the cut of the dress or suit as the unique selling point,

In a perceptive essay written some years ago, Joseph Nye had observed that "national interest is a slippery concept used to describe as well as prescribe policy." Decades earlier, the philosopher Gilbert Ryle had cautioned against "systematically misleading expressions" couched in a syntactical form improper to the facts recorded.

Any appearance of weakness in Xi on the world stage could imperil his grip on power within China

The Democratic Party of Japan ( DPJ ) has been in power for about a year and a half. Despite scoring a landslide victory in the House of Representatives election in August 2009, the ruling party has failed to cash in on this great opportunity.

India has indeed sounded the trumpet of defence diplomacy as part of its engagement with the ASEAN over the last two decades. If Delhi does not help promote a stable balance of power in Southeast Asia now, India's own security challenges in the future could get a lot more daunting.

It took a long time for the West to recognize the need for an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and that it has already stolen a march on it in this domain

Ensuring national security is an important attribute of a modern nation-state. But as the erstwhile Soviet Union realised, the threats to the state these days do not come from orthodox sources. And looking at India with its nuclear weapons and huge armies, it is even more difficult to believe that any combination of external and internal threats can actually pose an existential challenge to the nation.

Both — Aatmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India — are great ideas, and are misinterpreted in due to vested interests, or due to lack of communication and lack of understanding among the public.

Fifty-six years after the ceasefire line was drawn between the Indian and Pakistan occupied Kashmir, the underlying seismic fault lines have made a mockery of this line. This map delineation, which was renamed as Line of Control after the 1971 Indo Pak war, has gone out of control, at least temporarily, by the fury of the nature when the earthquake struck this area on 8 October.

The shocking Easter Day terror attacks in Sri Lanka underscore a regional problem.

The situation in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka is getting messier by the moment with twists and turns in the script has made it that much more difficult for all the actors in the ¿peace process¿.

The BRICS' National Development Bank is not trying to replace the IMF-World Bank. It will play a complementary role, catering to the needs of developing countries.

Global models of Generative AI’s impact are insufficient for the United Arab Emirates, where national strategies collide with unique demographic pressures. This study addresses this gap through a novel, task-level analysis of 23,739 job postings, constructing a “Job Automatability Index” for the UAE. We find that AI exposure is invariant to geography, confirming its nature as a structural force. The results reveal sharp occupational polaris

As the EMEs grow and mature, they can no longer rely on export-driven, credit-fuelled growth and must look inward to initiate deep seated structural reforms and modify their path to economic prosperity. There is a need for effective governance and strong leadership to restore the lost pride of emerging markets.

After days of disputing the 2020 election results and claiming widespread fraud in the polls that gave the National League for Democracy a second term, Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, staged a coup on 1 February 2021. The coup supposedly ended a decade of inadequate democratic reforms in Myanmar, which came after almost five decades of oppressive military rule. Ironically enough, the military regime itself had set the course of reforms post-2

First let me say how pleased I am to be here. The Observer Research Foundation has a strong track record of building partnerships between business and policy makers, and generating innovative thinking on how to tackle the major challenges of our times.

What is a security actor and how is it different from being a great or major power? In many ways, this question is central to understanding the lack of appreciation of the European Union as an actor in the security arena in India and certainly in some other parts of Asia.

Like about the Loch Ness Monster, we have only heard that the West has proof of the Assad regime using chemical weapons. But we've seen no credible testimony. For all one knows, it may have been the rebels' doing to instigate a US military response.

As the Indo-Pacific region grows in prominence, all the members of the CSC, which are democracies, will continue to play their cards based on domestic and external benefits.

Fifteen years ago, the USA had promised to sell F-16s to Pakistan. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, the company manufacturing the aircraft, took the necessary advance for it. Then there were sudden changes in the global and regional strategic environment. The Jehadi war in Afghanistan got over and Pakistan started diverting Jehadism into Jammu and Kashmir. The Cold war also was over.

Bangladesh has witnessed a resurgence in terror activities since 2013, indicating regrouping of the Neo-Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh.

With the territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, analysts are pondering the kind of organisational form the group would take next. The influence of the so-called Islamic State in South Asia may be minimal, but India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, have all had the shadow of ISIS’ global footprint land on their doorstep. This brief sheds light on how the influence of ISIS spread across South Asia, specifically after 2014, when pro-I