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The 77-paragraph outcomes statement from the Ufa BRICS summit was inevitably going to be a list of ideas that would cater to different expectations and aspirations of each of its members.

The Rohingyas are among the world’s most persecuted communities, who, until a mass exodus in 2017, mainly resided in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. In 2017, about 712,179 Rohingyas made their way to Bangladesh, taking the total number of Rohingya refugees in that country to 855,000.[1]The overcrowding caused by this influx at the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps has led the Bangladesh government to consider temporarily relocating the Rohingya refugees t

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.

If there is one thing on which all the ¿Dravidian parties¿ of Tamil Nadu stand united today, it is their criticism of the Union budget, presented by fellow Tamil leader Palaniappan Chidambaram. In doing so the DMK, the PMK and the MDMK, allies of the Congress at the Centre, have restricted their criticism to the proposed tax on the daily withdrawal of money from one¿s own bank account.

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

From the Abu Dhabi conference, the urgent call for action should resonate loud and clear throughout COP28 in and create a dynamic and durable pathway

By delineating bilateral relations from the larger SAARC format, and at the same time taking them up after the Islamabad summit had addressed major agendas, India and Pakistan have done well for themselves and for the region ¿ without continuing to hold one the hostage of the other.

Most leading air forces around the world were quick to learn from the experiences of the US Air Force between the Vietnam War in the 1960s and the Gulf War three decades later. This resulted in the widespread adoption by these forces of Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs) beginning in the mid-1990s. Only a few of these air arms, however, have matched the overall effectiveness of US air power, which combines aircraft survivability with weapon range,

The BCIM Forum has come a long way, but there are still challenges. Clearing the geopolitical air may prove more beneficial on both domestic as well as international levels, than keeping them in the shadows.

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.

Nomenclature notwithstanding, the evolution of an Indian National Security Industrial Complex (NSIC) must be watched with interest and caution.

Despite sharing a close historical relationship based on the Soviet Union’s support during the 1971 Liberation War, Bangladesh had for long been out of the scope of Russia’s foreign policy priorities. This is best exemplified by the fact that no Soviet/Russian foreign minister had visited the country until September 2023. However, amid Western sanctions due to its war in Ukraine and tensions with the US, Russia is seeking to reinvigorate ties

Tantalising tit-bits of information relating to the links between jihadi terrorists in Pakistan and Egypt and in Egypt and the UK have been given in an editorial on the Sharm el-Sheikh blasts carried by the "Daily Times", the prestigious daily of Lahore, on July 25,2005. The editorial titled "Terrorist Link Between Egypt and Pakistan " makes the following salient points:

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

Starting this week, ORF brings you the main events that have taken place in the week gone by in India's neighbourhood, from Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka

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.

As global food production faces the negative consequences of climate change, best practices in climate-smart agriculture (CSA) must be promoted to achieve food security. This requires adequate financial and human resources to be channeled to the upscaling of CSA activities in high-impact, priority areas. Considering India and Africa’s complementary sectoral priorities and their similar roles in evolving global food markets, various opportunitie

A year and a half since United States (US) President Joe Biden took the helm, both sides of the country’s political divide continue to debate whether the incumbent’s China policy is distinct from that of the Trump administration. The Republicans claim that Biden’s China policy has not veered away from Trump’s; the Democrats, meanwhile, argue that it is different. This brief weighs in on the debate, and finds that despite the Biden

After President Donald Trump’s 2017 visit to Asia, the Indo-Pacific region assumed greater significance in the United States’ foreign policy calculus, as articulated in the ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy Report’ released by the US Department of Defence. On 31 December 2018, Trump passed the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA), which authorises US$1.5 billion in spending for a range of US programmes in East Asia and Southeast Asia to “develop

FTAs have helped consumer well-being by increasing consumer choices at affordable prices. However, the problem is that for any government to sign an agreement of this character would necessitate a better feasibility study report that is more holistic in nature.

To ensure that the role of "big money" in influencing elections and policies is banished from the Indian polity, state funding, small donations, public subsidies, membership fees along with strict disclosure and reporting requirements must be encouraged and assiduously pursued.

There is an increasing realisation amongst the media community in Pakistan that their State had been actively involved in training India-centric terrorist groups within Pakistani borders, said a delegation of Urdu journalists from Pakistan who visited ORF.

Amb. Hiroshi Hirabayashi, former Japan's Ambassador to India and currently President, The Japan-India Association, was in ORF for an interactive session

This Issue Brief seeks to provide inputs for further discussion to gain from potential windfall opportunities that might arise for India's natural gas industry as well as lay the requisite foundation for a future plan.

Mr L V Krishnan, a Nuclear Scientist who had worked with the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India, gave a presentation on the 'Future of Nuclear Weapons', at an Interaction in the ORF Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation on 29 December 2007.

International jihadi terrorism of the Al Qaeda model will continue to pose the most serious challenge to the intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies and the police forces of the world in the short and medium terms, that is, for another five to 10 years. It shows no signs of any dilution of motivation and determination.

G-20 is an important forum to ensure world economic stability in a world of changing power dynamics and it is imperative that member states use it so, says First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea Ahn Ho-Young.

इस अंतरराष्‍ट्रीय मंच पर चीन के विदेश मंत्री एलएसी की समस्‍या को छोड़ भारत-चीन संबंधों पर ज्‍यादा बोले. चीनी विदेश मंत्री ने कहा कि चीन एवं भारत के संबंधों में सुधार की दिश�

जगभरात जागतिक कर्ज वाढत असताना, G20 अध्यक्षपदाची सूत्रे हाती घेतल्यानंतर भारत जागतिक कर्ज संकटाच्या निराकरणात महत्वाची भूमिका बजावू शकतो.

For India, which is also experiencing declining growth rates in the last couple of years, the priority at the forthcoming G-20 summit at St Petersberg would be issues including the spillover of the global slowdown on emerging economies as well as quota reforms of the International Monetary Fund.

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.

The agenda hosts Turkey has set for the G20 summit is undoubtedly overloaded. But, to achieve good results, it would make sense for global leaders to focus on the most pressing regional issues affecting the global economy in general and Asia in particular, before the next summit in China in 2016.

As part of the G20 Presidency, India will drive positive change for the world

पंतप्रधान नरेंद्र मोदी यांच्यासमोरील कार्य स्पष्ट आहे: विकास परत आणण्यासाठी जगाला सुरक्षित करा. यासाठी ते G20 च्या आत आणि बाहेर आंतरराष्ट्रीय सहमती निर्माण करत आहेत.

जी-20 के मंच पर नेताओं के बीच व्यापार तकनीक और आपूर्ति श्रृंखला को बेहतर बनाने पर चर्चा हुई जिसकी आवश्यकता भी थी. अंतरराष्ट्रीय स्तर पर बिगड़े समीकरणों से व्यापार का ताना बा�

G20 देशों में स्थित छोटे द्वीपों को अलगाव, सीमित संसाधनों के साथ ही साफ तौर पर जलवायु परिवर्तन एवं प्राकृतिक आपदाओं से संबंधित विभिन्न प्रकार की विशिष्ट चुनौतियों का सामना �

सायबर क्षेत्र सुरक्षित करण्यासाठी आणि सायबर सुरक्षेच्या  समस्यांना प्राधान्य देण्यासाठी जागतिक भागीदारीचे नेतृत्व करण्याची भारताकडे आता संधी आहे.

भारत G20 चा अध्यक्ष या नात्याने अधिक न्याय आणि समावेशक अशा G20 साठी प्रयत्नशील राहणार आहे. त्यामुळेच भारताने AU च्या समावेशावर भर दिला आहे.

New Delhi must work with the Rouhani government to ensure that bilateral irritants in fostering economic ties between the two nations are resolved soon.

Gaiko Forum, Japan's prominent think tank sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan, has published a detailed report on the symposium on "Security and Strategic Challenges in Asia: Prospects of Japan-India Cooperation" organised by Observer Research Foundation in association with the Gaiko Forum and the Embassy of Japan in New Delhi, on March 18, 2008.

The Commonwealth Games was planned to showcase a modern India. But it has actually set back India's urban modernisation plans through disproportionate focus.

A plan to clean Ganga needs to shift focus from centralised large capital expenditure projects, to a decentralised process that undertakes cleaning-up from upstream to downwards, progressing through each watershed before entering the major trunk channel.