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Elderly women in India are disadvantaged by both gender and age. Currently, their population is estimated at 71 million, more than the total population of countries the size of the United Kingdom. A majority of them are illiterate and have no source of income. Awareness, coverage, and allocation for social pension schemes are low. Elderly women also have more morbidities than men and have higher unmet health needs. Though often regarded as a burd

Pakistan, over the past six decades, has been the recipient of repeated bailout packages from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The 2024 IMF programme is the country’s 24th. While the loan provided temporary financial relief, Pakistan failed to use the opportunity to implement structural reforms, such as expanding the tax base and addressing chronic political instability. Austerity measures, as required in the IMF bailout plan, have only e

In September 2025, Saudi Arabia signed a comprehensive defence pact with Pakistan not long after an Israeli missile attack on Qatar. While driven by broader geopolitical shifts, this was not an isolated gesture of goodwill. Since 2024, Saudi Arabia has concluded 34 bilateral agreements with Pakistan, amounting to over US$2.8 billion in commitments across various sectors. This renewed financial engagement marks a steady recovery from the setback i

The Pahalgam terror attack of 22 April 2025 raised the spectre of cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir yet again. Initially claimed and then denied by The Resistance Front (TRF), a Lashkar-e-Taiba affiliate, the attack triggered nationwide condemnation and protests, including among the local population in the Union Territory. After the 2019 revocation of Articles 370 and 35A, the Indian government intensified efforts to integrate Kashmir p

India’s recent economic growth has been closely intertwined with the movement of workers, students, and professionals, most of them to countries of the Global North and West Asia. This paper makes a case for strategic domestic interventions, at least in the short to medium term, to ease the barriers to the global mobility of Indian citizens. These can include effective migration management and the creation of a comprehensive emigration and over

Kazim Rizvi and Shravishtha Ajaykumar, Eds., Privacy in Practice: Strategies for Data Management in India, January 2025, Observer Research Foundation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that any future act of terror from Pakistan will find an apt response from India. This signalling has laid out the new template reflecting a resolve to impose both material as well as psychological costs on terror groups and their sponsor-state, Pakistan

This brief examines the transformative impact of India's ‘Startup India’ initiative, launched in 2016, on the country’s entrepreneurial landscape. Driven by the presence of digital infrastructure and government support, India's startup ecosystem has seen exponential growth in the recent years. Today, the country has some 159,000 startups and a notable number of unicorns, positioning India in third place in the global startup ecosystem. Star

The United States’ (US) November 2025 articulation of the country’s national security strategy locates New Delhi in its ambitions. Raisina Hill is countering this by opening doors wider with defining economic engagements that potentially number 50. This paper argues that locating India in the US grand strategy map is a risky venture given the apparent disconnect between what the US says and how it behaves. A new equilibrium requires Trump and

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

Russia now controls about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory (as of April 2025) following its invasion of the country in February 2022, having made major advances since mid-2023 after being initially pushed back by Ukrainian forces. This paper analyses Russia’s wartime adaptations—at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels—that have influenced battlefield outcomes in its favour. It argues that while Russia has suffered severe troop

हाल के सम्मेलन से जो सकारात्मक संकेत मिले हैं, उन्हें वास्तविकता के धरातल पर उतारने के लिए चीन को सुनिश्चित करना होगा कि उसकी कथनी एवं करनी में कोई भेद नहीं. तभी एससीओ प्रती�

SCO बैठकीत भारत-चीन संबंधांचं नाजूक संतुलन स्पष्ट दिसलं. जिथे शक्य आहे तिथं सहकार्य, आणि जिथं गरज आहे तिथं सावधगिरी.

South Africa openly acknowledged that it had ‘learnt a lot’ from India’s experience hosting the F20. New Delhi provided best-practice guidance on managing working groups, digital coordination, logistics, sherpa processes, and public diplomacy

Despite a seemingly endless supply of and demand for private credit, the rapid expansion of the market has been a cause of concern for some regulators and executives. Should investors be worried? This brief explores certain aspects of private credit that warrant a close look—including the retailisation of the market and the current interest rate environment. It highlights the implications for financial stability, including the potential for fin

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

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

On 19 March 2025, the European Commission issued a Joint White Paper for European Defence Readiness 2030 amidst a historic shift in the US position on European security. The US endeavour to end the war in Ukraine and its reluctance to underwrite European security have put the European Union (EU) in a quandary, bringing to the fore key issues of inadequate defence expenditure and the weakening of defence preparedness due to decades of underinvestm

As the global economy moves towards ubiquitous digitisation, the demand for and generation of data is experiencing exponential growth, as are computational requirements and user adoption of AI products and services. This growth is forcing big-tech incumbents to expand capital expenditure. Undergirding this dynamic is the confluence of increasing frontier model training costs and plummeting inference costs. Revenue streams of AI companies are furt

The Government of Karnataka, in May 2025, decreed the Karnataka Act No. 36 of 2025, The Greater Bengaluru Governance Act (GBGA), 2024 for the Greater Bengaluru Area. This was in view of urban governance issues arising in the megacity of Bengaluru, for which the existing urban governance structure had become obsolete. Having replaced the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Act of 2020, the GBGA, it is hoped, will introduce greater coordinati

The Canadian Prime Minister’s visit has strengthened India-Canada ties, with a focus on India’s needs 

On 14 February 2025, Kathmandu was informed of the freeze on all payments related to the US$500-million Nepal Compact of the US government's Millennium Challenge Corporation. This followed the executive order passed by the Trump 2.0 administration in January, putting a 90-day pause on all foreign assistance programmes of the United States. During the years prior, the MCC Nepal Compact had been mired in political controversy since its signing in S

This brief examines India’s foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) landscape in the context of SDG 4 and the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. It focuses on the findings of the 2024 report of the national assessment regulatory body, PARAKH, released in July 2025. The results highlight three conclusions: (a) despite some post-pandemic recovery, FLN levels have not improved beyond the 2017 scores; (b) PARAKH records share intra- and interst

NSS 2025 signals a shift away from universal commitments towards transactional alignments and an assertion of national interest

MEA budget reflects geoeconomic shift, but institutional challenges persist.

New Delhi and Washington need to be mindful of the larger Asian strategic issues that have brought the two closer in the first place.

While there has been no perceptible effect of tariffs on the economy of either the US or China so far, additional tariffs which could eventually cover the entire $500 billion of US imports from China will most certainly have a negative effect on both countries and the world.

Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy, Young Bhutan and the World: A Preliminary Survey of Perceptions on Foreign Policy, February 2025, Observer Research Foundation.

चीन क्यों मानता है कि अमेरिका का बढ़ता सैन्य दबाव ईरान संकट को युद्ध की ओर धकेल रहा है. और कैसे असफल वार्ता की स्थिति में सीमित अमेरिकी हमला मध्य पूर्व व वैश्विक अर्थव्यवस्

 कार्नी ने जीत के बाद कहा है कि अमेरिका कनाडा को भूमि और संसाधनों पर कब्जा करना चाहता है. 

हाल ही में अमेरिका ने वेनेज़ुएला में साहसिक सैन्य कार्रवाई कर मादुरो को हिरासत में लिया जिससे ट्रंप के इस कदम पर काफी चर्चा हुई. अब कयास लगाए जा रहे हैं कि क्या लंबे समय से ट�

वैश्विक राजनीति पर असर डालने वाले दूसरे नेता रहे चीन के राष्ट्रपति शी चिनफिंग. माओ के बाद वह चीन के सबसे शक्तिशाली नेता के रूप में उभरे हैं।

विकसित देश जेव्हा आत्मकेंद्री आणि अंतर्मुख होत आहेत आणि चीनचा इतर देशांबद्दलचा आक्रमक दृष्टिकोन स्पष्ट होत आहे, तेव्हा जागतिक नेतृत्वाच्या आघाडीवर एक पोकळी निर्माण हो�

ट्रंप के दूसरे कार्यकाल के दौरान निवेश बढ़ाने के लिए डाले जा रहे राजनीतिक और कूटनीतिक दबावों को देखते हुए खतरा यह भी है कि भारत-अमेरिका रिश्तों का स्वरूप बायर - सेलर मॉडल मे�

प्रधानमंत्री की इस यात्रा से पता चलता है कि पूरे क्षेत्र में भारत की भूमिका बढ़ाने की बड़ी जरूरत है.

कोल्बी की भारत यात्रा बताती है कि अब भारत-अमेरिका के रिश्ते बातों से आगे बढ़कर ठोस रणनीतिक सहयोग और साझा हितों पर टिक रहे हैं. पढ़िए कैसे भारत की सोच और ट्रंप की नीति के बीच �

मार्क रुट्टे का हालिया बयान यूरोप की रक्षा आत्मनिर्भरता और नाटो के भीतर उसकी भूमिका को लेकर नई बहस छेड़ रहा है. जानें कैसे यह टिप्पणी नाटो के भविष्य और अमेरिका-यूरोप सुरक्�

नेपाल में सुशीला कार्की के नेतृत्व में बनी अंतरिम सरकार और हालिया जन आंदोलनों ने देश की आंतरिक राजनीति और विदेश नीति, विशेष रूप से भारत और चीन के साथ संबंधों को नई दिशा की दह

दुनिया में जब युद्ध और अस्थिरता बढ़ी तब पश्चिम एशिया के देशों को अपनी सुरक्षा को लेकर नई चिंता हुई.उन्हें ऐसे साझेदार चाहिए थे जिनके पास मज़बूत सेना हो. पाकिस्तान ने यह मौक�

रशियाचे अध्यक्ष व्लादिमीर पुतिन डिसेंबर 2025 मध्ये भारताला भेट देणार आहेत. वार्षिक नेत्यांच्या शिखर परिषदेतील (annual leaders’ summit) निष्कर्ष मोठ्या प्रमाणावर यावर अवलंबून राहील की भ

अमेरिकी वर्चस्व का युग खत्म हो रहा है और यह बड़ी ताकतों के बीच जबर्दस्त मुकाबले व बढ़ती बहु-ध्रुवीयता के कारण संभव हो सका है.