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Opening up retail trade should not have happened at a time when inflation is high, GDP growth rate is falling, industrial growth and exports are declining. Unfortunately, it would take a long time for the multi-brand retailers to establish their own supply chains and hence inflation is unlikely to come down in the near future.

China’s approach to trade has stood impervious to change. It is time for a new geoeconomic approach to counter China. Like-minded nations can fashion rapid arrangements to grow the supply chains that matter most, such as for electric vehicles (EV). The US and India, plus Australia, Canada, Japan, Britain, Taiwan, Korea, and Mexico can form an EV supply chain compact to create a level playing field within the group and incentivise their

Beginning in 2017, the first Trump Administration steered United States (US)-China relations from engagement to competition. Thereafter, Biden largely built on this policy, while giving indications of moving towards a phase of “competitive co-existence”. Under Biden, the US sought to reassure China that it was adopting a strategy of “de-risking” and not “de-coupling,” and its goal was to adopt a technology export regime that would als

Emissions from fossil fuel-powered motor vehicles adversely affect air quality and contribute to global warming. The manufacture and use of electric vehicles (EVs) is among the ways by which this challenge can be mitigated. This brief evaluates the best practices adopted by countries in the forefront of EV adoption, and outlines the lessons India can draw from them to inform its own EVs strategy. It finds that in addition to strengthening

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive economic and social fallout for India, as it has across the globe. In India, large numbers of people lost their jobs, and supply chains across industries and agriculture have been disrupted. At the same time, environmental indicators—notably air and freshwater quality—showed improvements following the long period of a nationwide lockdown. This brief outlines why India must make a focused decision to mov

States are no longer insulated from distant geopolitical realities. As India has witnessed, trade and supply chain linkages can extend conflicts to uninvolved states

The fourth Quad Leaders’ Summit will be an opportunity to assess its progress in ensuring a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific

The year 2022 saw the global economic outlook deteriorate amidst high inflation, fiscal tightening, and supply chain uncertainties arising from both the Russia-Ukraine war and the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. Global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), after expanding by some 5 percent in 2021, contracted in the first half of 2022. This brief makes a case for gender lens investing (GLI) as a means to boost women’s participation in economic act

A strategic partnership of two great democracies will counter the rising influence of techno-authoritarians.

PM Narendra Modi has an opportunity to play peacemaker at the most important peace summit since World War II. India’s well-established relationship with Russia is the key.

The global shortage in semiconductors that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic, resulted in heavy losses for many economic sectors. The fragility of the supply chain and the innate dependencies within, have made semiconductor collaboration essential to maintain the industry’s efficiency. This brief examines how semiconductors have become a fulcrum for building potential technology alliances. It outlines ongoing diplomatic initiatives

India is a sovereign nation; is it digitally sovereign, too? This paper examines the degree to which India is self-reliant in electronic hardware. After all, for a country to be self-reliant in the information age, it has to either attain indigenous capability in electronic manufacturing and services or be equipped to protect data and mitigate the threats associated with supply chain vulnerabilities. This paper refers to self-reliance in electron

This report presents an initial stocktaking of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) announced in 2023 following a meeting in New Delhi between the leaders of India, the US, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Italy, France, Germany, and the European Commission. Given that the participating economies contribute to almost half of the global GDP, there are many opportunities and challenges associated with the economic corridor.

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 uncertainty and possible further disruptions in the defense supply chain out of Russia could accelerate India’s diversification and indigenization efforts.

While India’s diplomatic and political outreach with West Asia has been a success story over the past decade, the geopolitics of technology has the potential to offer a challenge.

The global macroeconomy has undergone unprecedented change in recent years, particularly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the G20 had an effective coordinating role in steering the global economy through the 2008 global financial crisis, its role in engineering an inclusive and sustainable recovery from the pandemic has been more mixed. Incomes in the advanced G20 economies are on track to return to pre-pandemic levels by end-2022 but have

Export orientation is a quality and time conscious eco-system which hinges on becoming part of global supply chains.

It makes more sense to enable domestic multi-brand retailers to become strong and see how they develop the village infrastructure and supply chains. It would be risky to usher in oligopolistic global retailers without any strings attached and allowing them to take a big slice of India's huge retail market.

चीनच्या दृष्टीने युरोपीय गटाचे राजकारण यावेळी इंडो-पॅसिफिकपर्यंत विस्तारू शकणार आहे.

Recent years have highlighted the global headwinds against China's increasingly aggressive moves in the Indo-Pacific region. Vulnerabilities associated with an overdependence on the country for several critical goods, including electronics, have exacerbated prevailing anti-China sentiments. This has provided the impetus for diversifying electronics supply chains, an opportunity India is well positioned to leverage. This brief assesses Ind

India’s robust economy has tremendous potential. But for sustained economic growth, it needs direct access to the Eurasian markets, backed by reliable, resilient, and diversified supply chains. Indeed, enhanced connectivity with Central Asia and the wider Eurasia is essential to promote regional stability and unlock economic opportunities for all countries in the region. This paper analyses the status of the key connectivity projects in the reg

Critical minerals have emerged as a vital resource for a state’s national security and strategic calculations. Consequently, like-minded states have attempted to establish alliances for mineral security to mitigate their vulnerability arising from overreliance on a single country, notably China. In the Indo-Pacific, the Quad has taken the initiative to work together on critical minerals. The Quad’s strategy aims to combine available resources

Recent geopolitical disruptions and India’s geoeconomic and geopolitical ambitions necessitate the building of new, more reliable multimodal trade corridors. This report examines the strategic importance for New Delhi of the ten-year agreement on Chabahar Port in Iran, and how it aligns with India’s ‘Connect Central Asia Policy’ and historical ties with the region. The Chabahar Port, along with the International North-South Trade Corridor

Economic Dependence Will Make New Delhi Forever Vulnerable to Beijing

AI can be a force for good. It has emerged as one technology of particular importance because of its role as an accelerator, its versatility, and its wide applicability. But challenges include standards-setting, supply chain resilience, talent retention, and data policy

It has overcome sceptics to widen its ambit of partnership and also set a focused strategic agenda

Energy storage is key to both effective integration of renewable energy systems with the electricity grid, and accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). This brief discusses the technological trends in lithium-ion (Li-Ion) batteries, and assesses the energy storage needs of the Indian power and transportation sectors. It looks at the geographic distribution of lithium and cobalt in onshore and offshore locations across

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

Trusted connectivity, diversified sources of materials, and resilient financial and trading arrangements have become a strategic imperative for India

The ICT supply chain in India is only as strong as its weakest link: the end user. If the user is from rural India, with a limited understanding of the devices and transactions she accesses, her device is a point of vulnerability.

Questions about the utility of globalisation are not new. Could the COVID-19 outbreak be the final nail on the coffin for an idea that drove the world economy in the past three decades?  In theory, countries would produce what they specialised in, leaving it to the market to ensure everyone got a better price for it. As 2020 began, the pandemic spread from one province of China and soon disrupted production across the world. Countries banned the

The drastic and sudden drop in Venezuelan and Iranian oil exports to India in 2019-2020, due to the looming threat of US secondary sanctions, is the latest supply chain disruption to India’s energy security. To avoid similar disruptions in the future, India must act decisively to increase its Strategic Petroleum Reserves to meet at least 90 days of emergency oil stocks, and combine lobbying efforts between India’s private and public oil compa

As of now, the Quad’s formal agenda is modest. It remains a platform for leaders of the four countries to meet each other collectively and bilaterally. Meetings have so far taken up the issue of providing vaccines, building supply chains, mitigating climate change and providing humanitarian relief. An unstated aspect of the Quad grouping is supply-chain resilience and the need to have a chain which is not linked to China.

China may soon find it difficult to source semiconductors specific to the development of artificial intelligence, expanding on US export control measures announced in October 2022. The US is preparing to constrain access of Chinese companies to US cloud-computing services.

Hasina’s victory will likely put Delhi-Dhaka relations under more scrutiny -with the West expecting India to be vocal about the state of democracy in Bangladesh

The Russian attack on Ukraine’s agricultural industry has largely destroyed the agricultural supply chain. The impact has been felt on the Indian economy as well.