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Given that Pakistan has close ties with North Korea, it may not be difficult to visualise that the North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile technology may well find its way into Pakistan. Such an introduction would seriously affect the delicate strategic balance of South Asia and start another round of arms/ missile race.

The need for India-US trade to grow in bid to combat the recessionary tendency of the economy for a mutually engaging relationship

Trump phenomenon will play out in the world with uncertaintyonly going to grow in years to come as democracies take recourse to rising tides of nationalism

Past debates on waiving certain sections of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) have centred on issues such as development and technology transfers. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought more urgency to such discussions, prompting India and South Africa to table a waiver proposal in October 2020. This brief discusses the evolution of the TRIPS Agreement and the link between the a

China has been making massive investments to create a huge pool of AI experts. The Chinese government wants to overtake the United States and be the global leader in the field by 2030.

The Narendra Modi government has shown signs that it doesn’t mean to let Trump’s stance on Iran derail the oil trade with it

Trump has from the outset indicated that he would seek a sharp hike in defence spending as part of his America First vision.

Is the R&AW or any other intelligence service infallible? The answer is no. Is the R&AW competent? The answer is yes. Does it need continuous reform and upgrading? Of course, yes.

Turkey has been consistently supporting Pakistan’s position on Kashmir even as Islamabad has reciprocated by backing Ankara’s claims on Cyprus

In order to achieve the SDGs, it is time to re-evaluate the global patents regime. India and other developing countries need to explore policies and practices for creating a culture and system that encourages innovation.

Global geopolitics is in a state of intense flux. China’s rise has led to greater competition in the international system, with the United States and the post-War global order coming under increasing challenge. China’s high economic growth rate in the past several decades has meant bigger military budgets. In turn, its military rise threatens security in the Indo-Pacific region where China seeks to dominate, from the Himalayas to South China

Realpolitik may have trumped the Biden administration’s rather vocal positions on principles in the region

Washington and New Delhi must overcome some key differences for the group to succeed.

The UAE-Jordan CEPA marks a geoeconomic shift—leveraging trade, investment, and labour ties to stabilise Jordan and anchor regional security.

When the United Kingdom (UK) releases the highly anticipated integrated review of its foreign, defence, security and development policy in March, it will mark the first formal iteration of the UK’s Indo-Pacific strategy. This brief explores the dynamics that are driving the UK’s tilt to the Indo-Pacific. It identifies three key drivers that are prompting the shift: a reappraisal of China, the economic fallout of Brexit, and the UK’s close t

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to be complimented for her candour. Her press conference in Moscow with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov unavoidably focussed on Iran's nuclear plans and Mr. Lavrov said Iran had the right under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) to the nuclear fuel cycle. Dr. Rice said, "this is not a question of rights but whether or not the fuel cycle can be trusted in Iran."

India’s desire to play a more significant role in global governance should not cause anxiety in the United States. While India won’t promote every U.S. priority, it won’t jeopardize U.S. core interests.

Afghanistan has eroded US power and credibility. A transactional America will now encounter transactional friends

Speaking recently in New Delhi, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said the Government was committed to modernise the armed forces, but "that there is a need to exercise financial prudence and optimise all available resources".

Urbanists are divided on whether high urban density is a boon or a curse. Its champions maintain that it promotes greater productivity, fosters innovation, and enables economical space utilisation. The other side argues that excessive compactness destroys a city’s permeability, heightens the ‘urban heat island’ effect, increases congestion, eliminates green spaces, reduces inclusivity, and increases vulnerability to climate change and disas

On the surface, the two-day summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama seems to be yet another step signalling that the world is headed towards a bipolar polity dominated by the US and China. But a deeper analysis will show that it is part of a more subtle effort by the US to protect its global dominance, which from the Indian point of view may not be such a bad thing.

This essay considers the implications of the new cyber-security agreement betweenChina and the United States in terms of the evolution of an international legal regime governingthe use of cyberspace. This agreement lays down the foundations for norm emergence in thearena, which could also carry implications for India by shaping the country's response andcarving its path towards becoming a crucial international stakeholder in the cyberspace regime

The US slipped from producing nearly 40% of the world's chips to just over 10% in the last three decades. By allocating $53 billion towards the enhancement of US semiconductor manufacturing, R&D and the augmentation of its skilled workforce in the domain, the Act sought to change China's comparative advantage

While India would be hoping that the reported secret talks between the US and Iran succeeds, avoiding a conflict, New Delhi could take a leaf out of the Chinese and Japanese strategy of reducing its exposure to Iranian oil in return for a waiver from US sanctions.

If the stalemated war produced a truce, the stalemated peace ever since the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers Tamil Elam signed a ceasefire agreement (CFA) in February 2002 has contributed to the revival of violence in the island-nation. The deteriorating ground situation has been accompanied by repeated calls from the Sri Lankan parties for greater Indian involvement in the peace-making efforts. This report is a summary of an inter

As liberal democracies struggle to deal with their domestic crises, China is finding it opportune to fill the gap in global leadership. China’s economic growth in four decades—called by many analysts as a “miracle”—has made its “state-controlled capitalism” model attractive especially to countries facing massive development challenges. More importantly, President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have their ey

Russia’s war on Ukraine, interrupted value chains, and increased regionalisation are putting pressures on the already-strained multilateral trading system. Though a strong World Trade Organization (WTO) is needed to navigate these challenges, the organisation risks becoming irrelevant if far-reaching reforms are not implemented as soon as possible. In the short- and medium-term, WTO members must agree on limiting export barriers, especi

Speaking at a meeting of the Foreign Correspondents' Association of Sri Lanka at Colombo on May 26,2005, Hagrup Haukland, the chief of the Norwegian-led military mission, which monitors the three-year-old ceasefire between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), confirmed the allegation of the Sri Lankan Government that the LTTE had constructed an airstrip near Iranamadu in the Wanni area under its control in

In our dealings with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue, we have often appeared defensive, occasionally apologetic, leading to a bleeding heart syndrome among some of us. This approach ignores that Pakistan has cynically used violence, and the world has allowed it to do so, as an instrument of foreign policy. This attitude also mixes sympathy and concern for the innocent with that for the terrorist.

Calls for fiscal stimulus and monetary overreach will not help deal with the pandemic's economic consequences

The ‘crown jewel’ of the World Trade Organization (WTO) — the dispute resolution mechanism — is facing a crisis. The US obstruction to new appointments in the WTO’s Appellate Body (AB) has frozen the appeals process and brought the mechanism to a halt. Until such crisis is resolved, New Delhi will need to explore other means for resolving its current and future trade disputes. This paper outlines interim solutions that India can emplo

The recent Wuhan summit between India and China has been called many things: from a “game changer” to a much needed “reset” in Indian-China relations. It has generated expectations in the two countries that they will avoid any clash due to miscalculation and error. This has strengthened the tradition that India and China have maintained since the Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement of 1993, of resolving problems bilaterally through dia

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is seeking to promote a political model with centralisation and one-party rule at the core to achieve economic growth and stability. This brief assesses the extent to which the CCP’s policymaking mechanisms and internal politics have influenced China’s strategy to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

2014 by far has been the most chaotic year in international politics, since the end of the Cold War. The Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East threaten to upturn borders settled for close to a century. Europe is in the throes of an unexpected tussle with Moscow. In the South and East China seas, China's aggressiveness is too clear now to be ignored.

It may still be too early to write the group off despite some challenges it faced last year

This year reinforced, with unmistakable clarity, the fact that the use of force remains a crucial mechanism through which states renegotiate the terms of their engagement with one another

Xi seems to have overplayed his hand, leading to a significant realignment, resulting in a pushback at a time when his governance style has come under scrutiny

Much needs to be done and our destination is still several countries away — the 73 million Indians living in extreme poverty today add up to more than the populations of Thailand, France and the UK.

Libya’s headline growth hides a zombie economy—propped up by oil, crippled by fake currency, and stalled by deep political fractures

The narrative of the world being divided into power blocs like those during the Cold War era has been punctured

With increasing awareness of the role that a healthy and clean environment plays in the well-being of societies, governments are adopting environment-friendly approaches in the conduct of development activities. This brief examines the environment planning proposals contained in the draft Master Plan for Delhi (MPD) for the period 2021-41. Although the MPD proposes many new ideas to improve prevailing conditions as well as a framework to monitor

Before the rise of Xi Jinping—before the Beijing Olympics and the South China Sea tensions and the China-India border crisis—the late former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had already sensed that a rising China would pose daunting challenges to its neighbours and the regional order. This brief argues that without Abe, there would likely have been no ‘Quad’ grouping joining Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. His re

Despite advancements in legislation and representation over the last decades, women continue to face barriers in accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare, legal protection against violence, and leadership roles. In the economic sphere, gender disparities persist in labour force participation, job sectors, wages, and unpaid care work. Women are constrained in participating in the labour market as their social role remains attached to domestic

While the supreme leader is there for life (or till he chooses to retire), the president is limited to two four-year terms, defining where the balance of power rests between them