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India was among the few governments that did not sign the NETmundial outcome statement. It certainly seems that the weight and development of a billion people sits heavy on the shoulders of the government. The question is: does it need to lead them to the world wide web, or can they find it themselves?

The Indian subcontinent could be hit by water shortages in few years as increasing populations and growing development demands are placing tremendous pressure on the Indus Basin, according a recently released report, on Indus Basin

UK's Deputy High Commissioner in Chennai, Mr Bharat Joshi, has said that Indian investments in the UK have created over 5000 jobs while UK investments in Chennai alone have generated several thousands.

Instead, on Sunday, US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad left Qatar, where the US-Taliban talks were being held, the September 1 deadline having been crossed without any final agreement.

The Gorkhas, a Nepali military community, have long been recruited by the Indian Army into its Gorkha regiments. Gorkha youth are keen to join the Indian Army since its perks and payments are superior to those of the Nepali Army. However, India's new short-term military enlistment scheme, Agnipath, could alter this association. This brief discusses the impacts of the Agnipath scheme on military labour migration from Nepal to India, and on

Anulekha Nandi, Basu Chandola, Anirban Sarma, Eds., India’s AI Imperative Building National Competencies in a New World Order, January 2025, Observer Research Foundation.

This paper examines India’s role, and stakes, in the so-called ‘Arctic Paradox’: As the Arctic region witnesses an unprecedented rate of ice-melt because of global warming, new routes are being opened, paving the way for untapped hydrocarbon and mineral resources to be exploited. While India has been active in the Arctic for over ten years, it has not fully made use of its Observer status, and it must give new energy to its activities in th

In the face of geopolitical turmoil and a Chinese exit, India must negotiate its Indo-Pacific trade ties with caution

The deep-seated contradictions among member states on regional security and terrorism, combined with growing Chinese influence, have compelled New Delhi to perform a strategic balancing act.

While China currently enjoys enormous power in the Indo-Pacific region, a more assertive India could potentially challenge this status quo.

For Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus — targeting India is the best way to ensure their centrality.

With the advent of globalisation and increased interconnectivity, it has become less difficult for offenders in India to escape to foreign jurisdictions and avoid prosecution in the country. The importance of extraditing fugitives and bringing them before Indian courts cannot be stressed enough. Apart from providing timely justice and grievance redressal, it also serves as a deterrent against potential fugitives. However, India’s success rate i

Nuclear cooperation has brought a new dimension to India’s diplomacy in the 21st century. India’s status as a responsible nuclear power is predicated upon the civil relationships in the nuclear domain that it has established with major powers. This, despite not being a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and operating outside the ambit of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. This brief analyses the impact of key agreements with different count

India has a role to play in global climate diplomacy, with its large population, fast-growing economy, and vulnerabilities to the consequences of climate change. Utilising a review of existing literature, this brief evaluates the country’s involvement in international climate forums in the past decade, its negotiation strategies and policy coherence, and their effectiveness. It finds that India’s strategy for climate diplomacy has aimed for a

There are calls for India to declare a net-zero year and offset its carbon emissions by various processes of absorption and removal of greenhouse gases. For India, such calls are irrational; despite international pressure, it has avoided making pledges or setting hard targets beyond its commitments at the Paris climate conference in 2015. This brief argues that “net zero” is not possible with India’s current levels of reliance on coal. Its

Myanmar, which shares a border with four of India’s north-eastern states—Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland—is crucial to the country’s ‘Act East’ policy. India has a number of projects with Myanmar in the pipeline, seeking to improve physical connectivity through transport links, which in turn can assist in both countries’ development goals. Since the military coup in Myanmar on 1 February 2021, the country has been

Budget woes are unlikely to ease. The Chief of Defence Staff and the Army leadership are likely come under pressure to seriously think about downsizing the Army.

In the past decade, India has successfully demonstrated the three pillars of effective deterrence—capability, credibility, and communication—in its strategic posture towards China. It has bolstered its defence diplomacy with key partners in South Asia and Southeast Asia, and across the broader Indo-Pacific region, through regular joint military exercises, military officers exchange programmes, frequent high-level diplomatic visits, and the co

Maldivian President Yameen Abdullah Gayoom’s rejection of the Supreme Court’s decision to release the jailed opposition leaders to ensure a free and fair presidential elections later this year has brought to head the country’s brewing estrangement with its traditional ally, India. India faces a dilemma: How must it deal with the situation in Maldives? This report examines India’s options in the context of China’s expanding power in the

The United States (US)-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally altered global trade patterns, revealing critical supply chain vulnerabilities. US tariffs pushed companies to shift manufacturing to more favourable locations, accelerating “friendshoring” to countries like India and Vietnam. The “China plus one” strategy has bolstered domestic manufacturing and attracted foreign investment through Production Linked Incentive

The virus is only going to make a growth slowdown caused by declining investment even worse.

India’s attempts at strengthening its intelligence infrastructure and capabilities have historically been reactive and incremental, rather than holistic and sustainable. This was seen, for instance, in the aftermath of the Kargil War, and following the terror attacks on Mumbai in November 2008. India has rarely undertaken proactive reforms and done little to implement corrective measures subsequent to these crises. This brief offers recommendat

This brief examines the silent “water war” being waged in India in the form of conflicts over two opposing paradigms in water governance: the reductionist, colonial engineering paradigm, and the emerging, holistic paradigm of integrated water governance. The brief highlights the paradigm debate at the global scale, and outlines the canons of the integrated approach, contrasting it with the reductionist approach using examples in India. It mak

Energy transitions in developing economies like India are complex processes involving substantial financial and technological resources as well as appropriate innovation. These transitions are central to the climate debate, where emphasis is placed on increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change. This paper examines the historical attributes of energy transition and finds various critical

The role of legitimacy in India’s approach to the doctrine of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) and Humanitarian Interventions (HIs) has not received as much attention as it is due. The following paper evaluates India’s evolving views on R2P and HIs through the prism of legitimacy. It also demonstrates why the outcome of an HI, whether through the medium of the R2P or otherwise, matters as much as motives. Most Indian debates about R2

The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 (caused by the novel coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2) has exposed glaring gaps in India’s domestic laws. Absent a rationally structured legislation to fall back on, the Union government in March advised states to invoke the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897 to tackle the pandemic in their jurisdictions. The 123-year-old colonial law, however, does not even define what a disease is, let alone an epidemic or a pandemic. Ind

The moves are to reduce India’s strategic vulnerability, but there are issues that need to be resolved

Many developing countries have transformed themselves from recipients into aid donors. Foreign aid donor tag is no longer exclusive to developed economies.

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

Aspiring to become a US$30-trillion economy by 2047, surrounded by hostile nations, and leading the idea of multipolarity in a bipolar world, India needs to articulate a grand strategy that has been missing in its statecraft. With the necessary conditions for such an endeavour in place, it is time for Bharat, under Narendra Modi’s third term as prime minister, to thread the three core aspects of executing such a grand strategy: articulating the

Over the past few years, there is noticeable amongst India watchers an inescapable feeling of disappointment at what has been seen as a perceptible rolling back of many of the much vaunted reforms that had been the face of the country's efforts to integrate with world energy markets through the turn of the century. With an import dependence of over 70%, and increasing with each passing year, the petroleum sector had been the obvious choice to mov

The Iran sanction waiver issue is just the latest manifestation of New Delhi’s rising challenge in managing ties with Tehran.

Various vaccine trials across the world are showing highly promising efficacy, and multiple vaccines are getting approved across continents. The global vaccine race has now entered its second phase, where countries try and procure as many doses of Covid-19 vaccines as possible. India has put its faith primarily in the vaccines of Oxford-AstraZeneca and Bharat Biotech-ICMR. It has also secured future stockpiles of Gamaleya and Novavax vaccines thr

India’s domestic production of natural gas can only partially fulfil the expected increase in demand in the coming years, and the country will have to increase its imports to fill the gap. Such dependence on external sources makes the country’s energy security vulnerable to regional and global events. As global demand for natural gas is projected to increase, India must ensure a robust natural gas import diversification strategy. This brief o

The integration of Science, Technology and Innovation goals into national policies helps achieve sustained economic and social development. This brief examines the key parameters that govern the global and Indian innovation ecosystems: research investment, education policy, researcher density, publication output, number of patents registered, and the startup environment. It finds that certain elements are crucial in developing a robust strategic

The Integrated Defence Staff released the first-ever public joint doctrine for the Indian armed forces (JDIAF-2017) in April 2017. Absent a publicly articulated national security strategy, the joint doctrine presents important clues about what that strategy might be. This paper examines JDIAF-2017 in conjunction with other Indian military doctrines, public writings of leading Indian strategists, as well as foreign military doctrines and strategie

India introduced its e-tourist visa (eTV) policy in November 2014. Despite initially impressive results in terms of increased arrivals, there is no indication that such modest success will create a significant impact on tourism, or prove to be sustainable in the long run. This paper finds that the policy’s very design-and the various weaknesses in its modalities-make it less attractive to travelers, compared to the ‘traditional’ tourist

Lines of Credit (LOCs) are a widely used instrument in development cooperation, including for India. The projects funded by India’s LOCs attempt to achieve a trinity of objectives: economic benefits; effective project management and completion; and nurturing and enhancing diplomatic relationship and strategic interests with the partner countries. This brief explains how India’s LOCs function, and contextualises the performance of the

Global trends are evolving rapidly and major powers are re-defining their ties with each other to match their contemporary requirements. In light of these trends, New Delhi will also have to be diplomatically nimble as it seeks to engage major powers more substantively.

Speculations are rife about India possibly inviting Australia for the next Malabar naval exercise—which COVID-19 has caused to be moved to 2021.[1] If true, this would represent a break from the past and signal a change in the Asian strategic environment. Over the past few years, India has consistently resisted including Australia in the exercise, despite the latter’s willingness. The only other time that Australia was included in the Malabar

The Western Indian Ocean Region (WIOR) is linked to India in several ways, yet it remains conspicuous in its absence from India’s foreign policy discourse. This lack of attention is now beginning to reverse as external players stake their geopolitical claims in the region. India has responded by reorienting its own nautical outlook towards WIOR and building friendly relationships with African countries that straddle the region. This bri

India seeks to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group with the objective of playing a more proactive role in the nuclear non-proliferation realm. Political issues remain, however, particularly with regard to its status outside the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This brings to fore questions on the relationship between the Treaty and the Group with regard to their scope, mandate and membership. An assessment of prospective benefits

The country continues to face the sober reality of both rising threats and serious resource constraints.

China’s increasing activities in the Indo-Pacific have motivated India to embrace military logistics agreements with a wide variety of partners.

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