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India requires a “consensus” — a new proposition that will not only guide its own trajectory for the better part of the 21st century, but one that appeals to communities around the world.

Given the Indian government's taste for pushing unilateral mechanisms for governing the internet at an international level, and Indian civil society, which for the most part seems to vocally support a multistakeholder approach, the Indian elections might bring about a new opportunity for both sides to find clarity.

India being the closest neighbour with high stakes in the stability of Maldives, President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom's India visit from January 1 to 4 would be keenly watched, nearer home in the two countries, and afar.

Whichever way the conflict ends, one outcome is clear: Nuclear weapons are here to stay and any prospects for nuclear arms control and nuclear disarmament have receded further.

India has been at the forefront of helping its neighbors in times of crises

When it comes to Asean, the challenge for India is to scale up trade and investment. While ease of doing business is improving and projections by the IMF are all positive, there is long way to go to tackle corruption, energise the bureaucracy and cut through bureaucratic red tape that deters business and trade

The annual gatherings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - at the ministerial level in July and summit level in November at the East Asia Summit - have become good indicators of Asia's volatile geopolitical temperature.

This report explores strategies to strengthen the relationships among Global South countries, with a focus on enhancing regional synergy between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation BIMSTEC. The report provides an overview of BIMSTEC’s rising significance as a link between South Asia and Southeast Asia, provides insights into the growing need fo

Asian concerns regarding a Space Code are important because future challenges to space cooperation may well come from Asia, not least because so many of the new space powers are emerging from this region. The EU was late in bringing India into the process.

India, which contributed a big part in shaping the outcomes of the two world wars, seems blissfully unaware of the importance of the two anniversaries. Turning a deaf ear to the nationalist passions in East Asia is not going to save India from the consequences of new Asian wars that now seem increasingly probable.

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Wednesday (June 27) released the new ORF publication, titled The New Asian Power Dynamic, edited by Mr. Maharajakrishna Rasgotra, Adviser to ORF Chairman and convenor of National Security Advisory Board (NSAB).

While the simultaneous rise of powers need not always result in a clash, the four major powers in Asia - established powers Russia and Japan, and newly rising China and India - have had troubled historical relations.

Considering India's immense infrastructural needs, the AIIB has opened a fresh window for financing in which there will hopefully be fewer conditions and hassles. All other less developing countries will also be able to access loans easily.

India and China should focus on maritime commonalities and challenges rather than incongruence. After all, the sea unites while the land divides.

Asia has been the fountain of the greatest and some of the most ancient civilizations and religions of the world and possesses enormous human and natural resources. However, in modern history, the continent has seldom been at the centre-stage of world politics. Indeed, unlike Africans, for example, Asian citizens have never really had a feeling of oneness.

Observer Research Foundation and Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung recently organised the Asian-European Policy Dialogue 2013. The theme of the dialogue was local level politics, related policy areas and the role of the state.

The 'old boys' network has given Asim Umar an extensive reach among the jihadi groups active in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He can tap into the Taliban network with as much ease as he could work with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.

A feature of the Syrian crisis which must please those ostensibly seeking the regime's ouster is that it is turning out to be a long drawn one. So long drawn, in fact, that the world is beginning to develop an amnesia about the Palestinian issue.

As extreme events are becoming the ‘new normal’ in an increasingly climate-constrained world, India’s critical infrastructure must be built to withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from the disruptions they cause

Legend has it that the nursery rhyme, 'Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush...on a cold and frosty morning', was first, sung by women incarcerated at the Wakefield Prison in England while they were doing their daily exercise around the mulberry tree in the prison compound.

Assembly Elections 2023: There is justice in the poll promises that political parties are making to women voters, whose assertion at the polling booth in terms of turnout and independent choices is only too evident to these parties.

In the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the picture remains unclear, with no party or no combination of parties being assured of forming the next government in March.

The Biden administration’s climate agenda is a crucial plank to restore American commitments to climate actions and reinstate US leadership globally. However, the agenda has been slow on results. Although the climate fight has been linked to most other federal goals, such as economy, jobs, infrastructure, and procurements, the Biden administration faces both domestic and external challenges that continue to limit how much it can achieve

While it cannot match the Indian Navy’s strength, the Pakistan Navy’s focus on asymmetric capabilities & growing synergy with the PLAN pose a significant challenge for New Delhi.

The European Union’s (EU) and India’s paths towards becoming “cyber powers” could hardly be more different. The EU has a long tradition of protecting personal privacy rights and patents, while urging to enhance multilateral norms on cyberspace. India’s thinking on cybersecurity has continuously been boosted by the cyber threats emerging from China and Pakistan. It has further been shaped by India’s domestic Information Technology indu

The U.K. proposal emphasizes a bottom-up approach and stresses trust-building. It’s a critical first step.

Climate change poses a significant risk to global food security. Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, and shifting precipitation patterns impact food production, disrupting food supply chains, increasing food prices, and diminishing food safety. These effects are particularly apparent in developing countries, where vulnerable populations struggle to access nutritious foods and small farmers face financial challenges. Tackling the impacts

Prior to the meteor hit in Russia and Asteroid 2012 DA 14's close miss, the Indian public and its policy makers likely could just not comprehend such a distant, seemingly un-real threat. Perhaps now, this will not be the case.

As he packs his bags for the first foreign policy venture in the new year ¿ the annual summit of the South Asian nations in Dhaka ¿ Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has two options. The default one would be to let the foreign office bureaucracy work out an anodyne declaration of good intentions on future cooperation.

Russia and China have been concerned about the US’s growing technological lead particularly in missile defence and conventional global precision-strike capabilities.

Curiosity drew me to the Yasukuni shrine during a recent trip to Tokyo. When I lived in Beijing in the Nineties, I had been struck by the close attention paid by the Chinese authorities to every visit by a Japanese minister to this Shinto place of worship.

We don’t need bans but an industrial ecosystem within which a defence sub-system can flourish

The ATT has finally been adopted. But it remains to be seen if the treaty could really be implemented as major players like China, India, Russia have not favoured it. Even the US could find it difficult to ratify ATT back home despite voting in its favour.

The ORF Report on "Attitudes towards water in India" is a culmination of 165 qualitative interviews of key stakeholders of the water scene in India under a collaborative research project between ORF and Chatham House.

If the government wants to reduce poverty through FDI, then some fine-tuning in policies will have to be undertaken. FDI will have to be directed to labour-intensive sectors, especially from the unorganised sector. In Bangladesh, much of the FDI has gone to the garment sector which has enriched workers and reduced poverty.

Stakeholder groups have produced various guidelines on ethical Artificial Intelligence (AI) in recent years. However, translating principles into practice continues to be a massive challenge, as AI markets expand and AI risks are heightened. AI audits—or the process of investigating an algorithm against existing regulations and known harms—are emerging as a way of bridging the gap between principle and practice. This paper scans the landscape

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

India need to do more to speed up its own financial sector reforms and make it stronger because the percentage of NPAs has reached a dangerous level of 4.45 per cent and could reach 6 per cent soon. Unless the banking system is strong, India cannot be on a higher trajectory of growth.

Approximately 73 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world finds itself in similar straightened circumstances as the US once again puts into motion steps to curb the rise of another Asian power — China.

When the rest of the nation is looking up to a brighter day in the New Year, Andhra Pradesh, faced with the revived Telangana issue, may be knotting itself in very many complicated ways, and the unknotting could become even more complicated with each such unknotting.

 India at 75:  भारत के विकास (Development of India) की राह परंपरागत रूप से इस सोच के अनुरूप नहीं रही है. हालांकि, अब यह सोच बदल रही है. सरकार ने महामारी (Coronavirus Pandemic) की वजह से लगाई गई तालाबंदी (Lockdown in India) के �

The synchronised protest marches undertaken by Imran Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and cleric Tahir-ul Qadri, chairman of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), culminated in a combined sit-in outside the Parliament building in Islamabad.