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This brief analyses the impact of the Christchurch Call to Action, issued to gather countries and technology companies to stop the use of the internet for disseminating violent extremist content. The Call was the result of a summit organised shortly after a terrorist attack in New Zealand in March 2019. This brief finds that the Call lacks clear conceptual definitions and is singularly focused on social media platforms. It also raises questions a

The concept of ‘intelligence’ immediately brings to mind a covert world of spies, secrets, and classified documents. That might have been true in the past, but in the current age, Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) is gaining prominence. OSINT is intelligence based on information that is publicly available and processed by any interested party, and complements traditional intelligence while providing greater situational awareness to a range of

Over the last 30 years, digital innovation has been met with vacillating opinions on whether technology is emancipatory or tends to benefit those with political and/or economic power. In the context of innovations in AI in the early 2020s, this brief tackles the question: In a digital age, what is new in who exercises power over whom? It focuses on the power of States in relation to both citizens and territory, and outlines four areas where funda

Immediate policy changes due to public outrage over health and the ill-effects of pollution are seen only because it is the rich who raise these issue

Selective social networks and active social media engagement can minimise the mental health effects of COVID-19-induced isolation

n July 2018, Pakistanis voted in what was the third consecutive transfer of power from one civilian government to another in the country’s 71-year history. The elections may be called a success in that winners had been declared. However, the months leading up to the elections demonstrated the power of the military, and its ability to influence election outcomes and control sections of the media. As Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Imran Khan see

The superciliousness of western media is surpassed only by Pakistan's unabashed statements on CAA and preaching secularism to India.

The outcome of the February 18 elections was predetermined and the situation would only get worse as a consequence, said well-known media personality and commentator Saeed Naqvi at a talk organised by Observer Research Foundation on the Situation in Pakistan on the eve of elections on Saturday (Feb. 16).

The formation of ‘The Resistance Front’ should be seen as an attempt to consolidate strengths, manpower, weaponry, and training of various militan

Calls for immediate ceasefire for a comprehensive political solution have fallen flat. Seemingly because Pakistan has used the Taliban as a lever to k

It is becoming clear even to President Pervez Musharraf, Chief of Army Staff, Pakistan, that he will have to step down sooner than later. This brief discusses three immediate reasons to make such an assumption.

With protests breaking out across Pakistan, it has become clear that the Pakistan Army’s power over the people is eroding

Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani's Independence Day address at Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul, attracted widespread comments, mostly positive. In fact, Gen Kayani's speech eclipsed the standard presidential address on the occasion in the media.

By demonetisation move, PM has enacted strong policy that has removed nearly all currency from circulation, without an immediate recourse to replenishment.

As the election season heats up in the US, the language of fear and name calling is rampant within parties and between parties. Instilling fears of the other candidate into the minds of voters, through campaign rhetoric and negative ads and distributed many times over by the power of new media technologies, has emerged an important feature of the campaigns.

The Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Nara Chandrababu Naidu, announced on November 14, 2003 that the forthcoming mid-term elections to the State Legislature would be fought on the issue of ¿crushing¿ the Naxalites. He declared in Hyderabad, in the presence of the national media, that Naxalite violence was hampering development and progress in the State.

The immediate consequence of the Pulwama carnage is the sense of fear developed in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

The significance of the agreement brought out between rival Afghan presidential candidates, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, should not be overlooked. It has ensured that Afghanistan's democratic transition does not come to a premature halt. A timely resolution of the immediate predicaments could guarantee that it remains a durable one.

Politics is no more news in Maldives. Even media commentaries these days focus on culture and other aspects even as the news columns take time off to report more on crimes like abuse of foreigners by resort employees and the like.

Advances in technology, the shifting sands of the global nuclear energy market, and the extant standards and practices surrounding the monitoring of radioactive materials raise important questions about the future of nuclear security. Technological advancements have enabled the retrieval of radioactive materials from unconventional sources and made fuel fabrication easier. The emergence of new players in the nuclear energy market also flags conce

On 1 January 2020, the Ministry of External Affairs announced the establishment under its wing of the New, Emerging and Strategic Technologies (NEST) division. This marked a welcome addition to the government’s organisational capacities in an era increasingly being characterised by the interplay of technology, trade, security and geopolitics. This brief outlines the global and domestic context that will surround the operations of the NEST divis

Digital financial services have benefits but pose privacy risks that harm consumers, merchants, markets, and nations alike. Some payments systems in India suffer from vulnerabilities because they were not prospectively designed on the basis of the ‘privacy by design’ principle. At the back-end, the centralised storage of data is risky. At the front-end, faulty capture devices enable data misuse. Across the middle mile, data is transmitted wit

The application of emerging technologies in humanitarian assistance has increased in recent years, and they have proven effective in delivering life-saving interventions to populations in need. In a fast-changing technological landscape, the use of such tools is only expected to increase further. At the same time, however, the use of technologies brings certain challenges, such as misuse of data and the spread of misinformation. This brie

The Observer Research Foundation hosted an exciting, in-depth interaction with Nepalese Maoist leaders Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai on November 18, 2006. Addressing their first international audience together from the same platform, the Maoist leaders put before the distinguished gathering, which included political leaders, former diplomats and members of the academia and media, their vision about a new Nepal which they would like to bui

Pakistan must proceed beyond providing immediate relief to its people by investing in programmes that reduce vulnerability and lead to sustained impro

Reports from Nepal indicated that a detained Maoist insurgent had admitted on the state-run television on November 17, 2003-nighht that the Maoists insurgents have received training in handling weapons and explosives from the fraternal People¿s War Group Naxalites of India. This is for the first time that such admittance was made in public on the national media. However, such reports of the nexus between the Nepalese Maoists and the PWG have bee

Why there is more to the Q2 GDP estimates than what is immediately discernable

The credibility of the 'anti-India' sentiments emerging in Bangladesh warrants scrutiny, as reality portrays a different narrative from what is depict

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly proliferating the healthcare landscape and has immense promise for improving health outcomes in a resource-constrained setting like India. With emerging technology still finding its footing in the healthcare industry in the country, there are systemic roadblocks to hurdle before AI can be made transformative up to the last mile of public health. AI also carries immense challenges for India’s mostly t

This brief outlines a framework for India if it is to play a more proactive role in integrating and reimagining its immediate neighbourhood, in particular with reference to the economic relations with its BIMSTEC partners. The analysis is done in the context of important economic and strategic developments in the Asia-Pacific region in the recent years. It describes how India can navigate between competing economic and geo-strategic imperatives b

Concerns remain in the developing world that about whether the ICANN/IANA transition will create a truly plural process. This issue brief discusses three challenges 'multistakeholderism' must address from the perspective of the developing world: access, equity and sovereignty.

Whatever be the end-game in the ¿Karuna rebellion¿ within the monolithic LTTE, the development may have heralded a process of ¿social justice¿ or social re-engineering¿ as is understood in India ¿ and also come to stay, in a way. To the extent, the ¿Karuna factor¿ may have become unstoppable in the socio-political sense of the term, whatever be the immediate consequence of the rebellion, or its impact on the suspended peace process in Sri

The progress of AI has been attributed to three main factors — the availability of Big Data from sources such as social media, e-commerce, governmen

The Afghanistan crisis has given new platforms fuel to push pro-IS propaganda in South Asia

Western media coverage of India’s handling of Covid-19 is yet another example of the West attempting to diminish the East.

While one can sense the positive sentiments across the market, albeit tentative, there is nothing to suggest that the end of the pandemic is near —

India cannot afford to be a mere bystander to developments in its immediate Neighbourhood. A failure to assist Afghanistan at this crucial juncture would not only undermine India's long term security interests but would reflect poorly on New Delhi's reliance as a friendly partner in troubled times.

Despite being the ‘factory of the world,’ many of China’s industrial sectors are energy-intensive and have low value-add. At the same time, global firms are increasingly moving towards sophisticated low-cost manufacturing techniques for higher productivity gains. As a result, the Chinese Communist Party is keen to upgrade the country’s industrial base to compete in the more advanced segments, such as information technology, through the �

The recent face-off between Indian and Chinese patrols in Asaphila area on June 26, 2003 evoked considerable media interest and political debate in the country. It overshadowed and almost neutralised the Prime Minister's visit to China, which took place after a decade long gap and, more significantly,

This issue brief examines what is little known about the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) to underline the threat it continues to pose to India and the world six years after the Mumbai attacks.

In our topsy-turvy, anything-is-possible, adversarial, judicial system, the better argued case inevitably wins.

As India starts moving on its path of making its hundred odd cities 'smart', it could take a few cues from the experience of China, another developing country and India's immediate neighbour. Though in many parameters, the Chinese cities do quite well, they too have shortcomings, when looked from some indicators.

President Pervez Musharraf is doing what he likes to do best: promote himself. The week saw him on a whirl-wind tour of Europe--Belgium, France and Britain-addressing the media and others.

Sri Lanka ordered a senior United Nations official James Elder to leave the country with immediate effect. Elder was the spokesperson of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).

As efforts to develop an ICoC accelerate, states need to come up with constructive ways of debating this issue. We cannot let this issue become a stumbling block that impedes progress on the code as a whole, particularly when the immediate impact of the offending language is arguably neutral.

There is an immediate need to revise the Outer Space Treaty as space is becoming the next frontier of war