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As India completes 50 days of lockdown, this report presents the findings of a data-driven enquiry into the extent to which the lockdown has achieved its health objectives and arrested the spread of COVID-19. The success is measured on four parameters: flattening the curve, reducing the growth rate of new cases, containing the spread, and improving healthcare capacity. The findings show that while the lockdown has flattened the curve to an extent

This paper evaluates the importance of a space military strategy for India against China. It argues that in light of China’s advances in space weapons, New Delhi needs to seriously consider developing at least a limited menu of space weapons and integrate them into India’s defence posture. It draws on conceptual literature on nuclear deterrence, air power and sea power to show that space weapons, at least some variants, are usable military in

A comprehensive strategy needs to be adopted to uphold health as an essential human right in conflict zones

China's renewed engagement with the Southeast Asian neighbours seems to be a policy of the new leadership. However, it must follow up on these successful visits by its efforts and actions. For now, maintaining good relations with ASEAN members seems to be Beijing's new strategy to ease tensions in the SCS.

The Central Asian states are looking for a larger and more independent Indian role in the region. In responding to Central Asia's quest to diversify its strategic partnerships, Modi must signal an important departure from the UPA government's approach to the region. He needs to have a long term strategy and plan.

US President Barack Obama's latest strategy will seek to responsibly end the longest foreign war that the US has ever fought. At the same time, the strategy calls for building an enduring partnership with a sovereign Afghanistan. Obama's message to the Afghan people is a simple one: "as you stand up, you will not stand alone."

Eliminating hepatitis calls for a comprehensive strategy at the global level, with compound and multisectoral coordination among society, healthcare p

There is no question that Pakistan's Afghan strategy is evolving. If the Taliban seemed inflexible about negotiations in the past, Pakistan is promising to make it more reasonable. Many in the West and China are ready to accept, at least for now, Pakistan's claim that a new and moderate Taliban is at hand.

ndia was facing a massive balance of payment crisis when the Observer Research Foundation released a document, ‘Agenda for Economic Reform’, on 1 July 1991. The Agenda outlined the reasons for the crisis and recommended a broad strategy to enable the country to overcome it. As India marks 30 years since the start of widespread reforms that opened up the economy, ORF revisits the recommendations outlined in the document.

The GPAI and G20 can play a paramount role in the non-weaponisation of AI and related technologies, and in ensuring that developing countries get equa

The government should immediately stop this aviation pricing strategy if it wants to remain being seen as serious about raising investor confidence. One wonders, if the move by Air India has the prior approval and blessing from the Civil Aviation Ministry.

The strategic location of these islands demands New Delhi’s full attention as it can open new vistas for India’s maritime strategy

Türkiye current outreach and aspirations in the Indian Ocean are largely opportunistic rather than part of a grand strategy

While ASEAN is an essential player in Indo-Pacific affairs, its influence over the emerging security shifts in the region is being questioned due to i

Trump’s recent letters are unmistakable signs of his administration’s growing embrace of Azerbaijan as a centerpiece of its strategy — from Euro

India’s multi-pronged strategy of using various instrumentalities of power — legal, diplomatic, economic and military — seems to have had some effect in shaping Pakistan’s behaviour.

Delhi's economic decision-makers, with their inward orientation, appear to have no capacity to think of a strategy for regional integration in partnership with China, or any other great power. The best it can come up with is to establish an official study group that can spin out the Chinese proposals for a few more years.

There are two streams of debate on India’s current nuclear doctrine: one on its current interpretation and deducing its form and what such form means for India’s overall nuclear strategy; and another, more internal to India, on what should be the Indian nuclear doctrine with respect to the evolving nature of threats. The two debates are not mutually exclusive. However, neither of them have contended with all conventional contingencies, in par

The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has served as a laboratory test to assess the effectiveness of Cyber Warfare (CW) capabilities. It would be misleading, however, to extrapolate sweeping conclusions from this conflict about the relative ineffectiveness of CW. Rather, diligence should be exercised by Indian strategic and military planners in assessing the CW capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) and enhancing

India must deliberate on and integrate the modern form of warfare while developing its national security strategy, not just in a cyber context — but

China has twice broached the matter of expanding the membership of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa): first, at the 2017 Xiamen Summit, and again, more recently, at the 14th BRICS Leaders’ Meeting in June 2022 convened virtually under the chairmanship of Beijing. With China and India locked in a stalemate along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the Chinese proposal has raised concerns in New Delhi. This brief examine

The BRICS leaders have accepted the report titled "Towards a Long Term Strategy for BRICS", the recommendations made by the BRICS Think Tanks Council (BTTC). Observer Research Foundation is the Indian representative at the BTTC.

The digital divide is a manifestation of exclusion, poverty and inequality and continues to be exacerbated due to the effects of unemployment, poorly functioning digital skilling programmes and socio-cultural norms in some economies, depriving women equal access to digital services. Digital skills provide the poor a catalyst to break out of the cycle of poverty and empower themselves. A three-pronged digital skills strategy is required for develo

To counter Islamabad’s determined push to stir up trouble in the Kashmir Valley, India will have to formulate a new counter-terrorism strategy that

As the gap between its power and that of China grows, India needs the US to balance China in the South Asia-Indian Ocean Region. The Indian contribution, military or economic, towards a strong American Indo-Pacific strategy appears more nebulous. This is an asymmetry which cannot but have real-life consequences. India should not assume that antipathy to China alone will be the over-riding factor in the US global policy.

The ever-increasing list of 'core interests' involving land and maritime territories indicates an open-ended expansionist drive on the part of China.

India’s inability to develop interdependencies with neighbouring countries, both economically and strategically, has left a void that China has dutifully filled. There still remains a window for India to correct its past mistakes and develop a concerted strategy to regain influence in the region.

If New Delhi lets domestic political passions overwhelm the need for a carefully crafted strategy towards Pakistan, it will find the Afghan dynamic will soon make matters a lot more difficult for India.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is central to the country’s ambitious policy reorientation. The energy sector accounts for nearly 40 percent of all investments under the BRI, with significant geostrategic and geoeconomic implications. In recent years, China has adopted a “greening the BRI” strategy, emphasising green energy projects. This brief analyses China’s BRI investments in the energy sector to establish the potential trend

Relentless lawfare strategy makes way for social-economic agenda

Naval power lies at the centre of Chinese aspirations and coalesces energy security, maritime strategy, territorial integrity, naval nationalism, fore

China’s evolving security dynamics with the United States have compelled it to rethink its nuclear strategy to achieve effective deterrence. It is aiming to modernise its nuclear arsenal and increase its nuclear ambiguity through conventional-nuclear entanglement. Ambiguity will increase the risks of mischaracterisation and can have a destabilising impact on the Indo-Pacific region. This paper highlights two areas where India ought to be most c

China’s policy narratives against the COVID-19 in the initial stages adopted a denial crisis strategy to deal with the reputational damage.

Sharp power—a state's attempt to alter the behaviour of other countries through the manipulation of culture, education systems, and the media to further its interests—is a key tool of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Issues related to regime legitimacy and the CCP's development priorities have shaped China's sharp power approach. In the Xi Jinping era, there is some anxiety in the party ranks that external conditions are turning aga

To ride the next wave of innovation, India needs its own strategy. Its agenda for 2018 should be to leverage the hundreds of millions it brought onlin

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal should take a leaf from the Republic Day chief guest, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, and profer the much-awaited #AAPnomics of job creation, a strategy on wealth distribution, and, a vision on efficiency. His genius will lie in these making sense to the poorest and the weakest - without forgetting global investors and our diaspora.

It is difficult to predict which party’s political strategy will succeed.

This paper highlights the increasing importance of Community Driven Development (CDD) in the delivery of public services to the poorest sections and enhancing access, voice and accountability in developing countries. Community participation in the delivery of ‘public services’ to the poorest sections of the population in developing countries has often been regarded as an effective mechanism to enhance access, voice and accountability.

दुनियाभर में लगातार बढ़ती और प्रबल होती तीव्र जलवायु संब

If massive retaliation is retained in the nuclear doctrine, it will be not because of its efficacy as a strategy of deterrence.

The spread of coronavirus in camp areas is equivalent to spread of forest fires which only leads to more destruction — and questions the government�

Having an urban welfare strategy in place would have allowed the government to act immediately to support workers affected by the coronavirus shock. U

The former Governor of Chhattisgarh, Lt Gen (Retd) K M Seth, called for a national strategy and national level coordinated action plan to successfully deal with Naxalites of the CPI (Maoist). He was making a presentation on Naxalism in India, at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, on April 13, 2007.

If one looks at China's actions in the South China Sea over the past five years, the picture that emerges is of a rising China attempting to change the ground realities and destabilise the status quo. If the international community wait to see the end game of the Chinese strategy, it may be too late to de-escalate a military confrontation.

The India Conference on Cyber Governance and Cyber Security, organised recently by ORF and FICCI, is the beginning of a strong forum that can debate India's policies, help mould its strategy and simultaneously address global challenges.

Pakistan’s maritime strategy in the Indian Ocean pivots around engagement with China. But the strategy also has a diplomatic dimension that should n

The Biden administration is seeking to establish a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy as part of its national security. This issue brief analyses the US’s cyber threat landscape and examines the Biden administration’s cybersecurity strategy. It explores the strategy’s ideological, geopolitical, technological, and diplomatic significance in a rapidly shifting domain.

The Ministry of Defence released the Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020 (DAP 2020) in September last year, in a move to further streamline the procurement process and provide a boost to indigenous arms manufacturing. This brief argues that measures articulated in the DAP—highly anticipated as it was—need to be complemented by additional reforms to create a robust procurement machinery that supports faster and cheaper acquisition as well as hi