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After years of conceiving the idea of Strategic Oil Reserve, the Indian government seems to be moving in the right direction in a resolute manner. Recent statements by both the Prime Minister and the Petroleum Minister about building strategic storage facilities to gear up the country to meet oil emergencies

Can good sense prevail in Washington once again? Military action in Libya will generate anti Americanism, which will swell the ranks of Al Qaeda and cause the "Arab Youth" bulge to find a frightening outlet.

The oil deal could be a fundamental test for the future of Afghanistan-China cooperation

Even today, renewable energy sources definitely cannot replace fossil fuel that is getting scarce over time. Given this theoretical underpinning, why do we have a negative price for crude oil?

This brief analyses the similarities and differences between the weaponisation of oil and that of gas. Discourse around the weaponisation of energy has increased since 1973, after oil-producing Arab countries attempted to use oil to pressure Europe and the United States to abandon their military aid to Israel. The subject has received renewed interest following recent events, such as the energy tensions between the European Union and the Russian

Oil is critical to India as it imports almost two thirds of its need, constituting 37% of its total imports. A $1 drop in oil prices could approximately save 40 billion rupees. The drop in oil prices currently looks like a blessing for India, but there could be some downslides too in the long run.

While India is preparing to give up one of the blocks it has been drilling in, it has no intention of abandoning its search for oil and natural gas in the South China Sea.

With the objective of discussing India's strategy for oil and gas sector development, ORF, the International Energy Agency and the Korea Energy Economics organised a roundtable on "An Overview on India's Oil and Gas Upstream Sectors and Its Overseas Investment".

India will be there at the G-7 to remind the West once again that it is playing an important role in the global oil market.

The 41 km India-Nepal pipeline, designed to supply cost-effective and environment-friendly petroleum products to the landlocked the nation, is the first trans-national pipeline in the SAARC region. This initiative represents a win-win outcome for both the countries which will also enhance regional connectivity and economic development across the region.

is paper formulates an analytical framework to assess the impacts of India's Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) on commodity value chains. Existing academic literature have relied on examining Balance of Payments (BoP) to assess the impact of FTAs. is paper views such methodology as reductionist, and instead oers alternative lenses of the impacts on the commodity value chain. is paper brings into fold the concerns for the wellbeing of various stakehold

Global energy markets have battled continuous uncertainty over the past three years, disrupted first by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. India has been adept at navigating both these disruptions, using economic diplomacy to position itself favourably in the geopolitics of oil. New Delhi’s delicate balancing of its political relationship with both Washington DC and Moscow has been accompanied

Three quick lessons can be drawn from the recent coup attempt in Bangladesh. These are growing unrest among political and military circles against the Awami League government for its policies towards India and fundamentalism;

Khalifa Haftar, a former army chief and the current head of the self-styled Libyan National Army, has launched a grab for power.

With all political options shrinking before the nation's leaders, Nepal has landed in a political mess like never before in its recent history.

As per the OPEC deal, Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter and OPEC’s biggest producer and the de facto leader had to cut output by 4,86,000 barrels per day (bpd) to a ceiling of 1,00,58,000 bpd.

The revival of caste and community-based issues in Tamil Nadu (like in Paramakudi and Koodamkulam), the non-resolution of inter-State river water disputes and Sri Lanka-related concerns could added up to the problems of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

The battle lines in the Indo-Pacific are getting sharply defined

New sanctions target Russia's top oil firms, Rosneft and Lukoil. The US and EU aim to isolate Russia economically and force negotiations on Ukraine. This move impacts China, India, and Turkiye, key energy buyers. India faces a balancing act with its energy imports. The sanctions signal a shift in global energy dynamics and US influence.

¿Unlike in Egypt, Algeria and Yemen, no well¿defined group engaged in sustained terrorism has emerged in Saudi Arabia¿i. A lot has been said and written about Saudi Arabia¿s role in the largely defunct ¿war on terror¿. The ruling family of the House of Saud has been an unabashed US ally in the campaign to hunt out terrorists.

Afghanistan thinks that the Istanbul Process, as a mechanism established in November 2011 for regional cooperation to ensure stability in the country, is still under-utilised, says Afghanistan's Ambassador to India Shaida M Abdali.

The shadow boxing being done by UPA's friends and foes for a rollback of "prices" actually lacks a killer punch because what they are demanding is one of taxes meant to collect revenues for the UPA's flagship social sector schemes

Russia’s move to reject production cuts is driven by its strategy of denying market share to U.S. shale producers

A roundtable discussion on the topic "The Impact of High Crude Oil Prices & Challenges in Pricing of Petroleum Products" was organised by Observer Research Foundation at New Delhi on August 14, 2006.

Since the Telangana Rashtra Samiti is likely to win most of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in the Telangana region on its own, its unwillingness to share the seats with the Congress party is understandable. In such a scenario, the Congress party's prospects in the general elections in the whole of Andhra Pradesh, including Telangana, are indeed bleak.

Trouble was brewing in this Central Asian Republic after the Bakiyev administration hiked the price of water, fuel and electricity late last year

After demonstrating a sharp sense of deeper engagement with the neighbours, from the day of the swearing in, it was widely expected that Modi would exercise a more muscular foreign policy. Surprisingly, our official response to events in Male has been timid and even that has been rebuffed by the Foreign Minister of Maldives.

India must ascertain if the US has a plan for Pak, and what it is

We really do not understand inflation stickiness in India since 2010. However, the silver lining is that oil prices may not rise any further following the shale gas revolution in the US. The Finance Minister can certainly do something about growth and possibly pray for lower inflation.

India must persist as future of South Asia is embedded in a firm Delhi-Dhaka engagement.

Efficiency of delivery by cutting red tape should be the top priority this year.

The presence of foreign fighters in Afghanistan presents a serious challenge in securing counterterrorism gains of the past, while ensuring that the Taliban delivers on the promise of ensuring non-use of Afghan soil to plan attacks against the US or its allies.  

China is luring the region and the world with its ambitions and the US is offering incoherence. This mismatch is at the heart of the present turmoil in the region

Regimes sympathic to the Palestinian plight would, to that extent, be insulted from peoples' wrath in Syria and Libya, for instance. Demonstrations in Iran and Libya are part of the internal turmoil in these countries, unrelated to the Palestinian issue.

With Kashmir on the boil the older debate of autonomy of Kashmir has resurfaced

With India's annual inflation rate rising to a near four-year high on a point-to-point basis on the back of rising food prices, the search for policies to combat the price rise poses unusual challenges. The nature and causes of the current spiraling inflation in India has become a subject of intense debate, primarily because of the ostensible role of `imported inflation' in driving the domestic prices north. Issues like poor performance of the Pu

This special report was written before the 2020 United States presidential elections. Under the incoming Biden administration, the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan is likely to be more gradual and “responsible”, despite the President-elect being in favour of American troops exiting the war-weary country soon. In retrospect, Donald Trump’s insistence on pulling out all US troops from Afghanistan by Christmas 2020 was not misguided, si

Visiting Pakistani journalists informed a select gathering at Observer Research Foundation that the ongoing turmoil in their country was the result of a transition from military dictatorship to coalition politics in the democratic setup.

All that the government has to do is to focus on providing basic goods -- high quality primary education and healthcare, toilets and housing for all. When there is so much money in India in private and public hands, why is it taking so long for the government to do something to change the lives of millions of people?

Though India dreams of replicating the shale gas successes of the US, it cannot enjoy the luxury of easily acquiring land for shale gas operations. In the US, landowners, besides owning surface rights, also own mineral rights. Consequently, they receive huge financial incentives directly from oil and gas companies.

Conflicts in the Middle East have been exacerbated by competition over natural resources. Within the United States, there is growing bipartisan interest in reducing dependence on foreign oil.