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The AU is trying to hold its own with the reforms. It is trying to be more efficient and transparent. However, the reforms are more technocratic than

If this is a moment that will change the Internet, how will that process proceed from here? And for whom will it change?

Governments are now required to adapt regulation in an agile fashion to ensure the protection of public goods throughout endeavours of economic growth

Governments and political actors must be liable for their performance and the virtual realm is not a playground anymore.

The pandemic has worsened the problems that Latin America and the Caribbean were already facing. 2021 will surely be challenging in terms of political

Like Abe, Suga believes that the concept of Free and Open Indo-Pacific would foster peace, transparency and inclusiveness in the vast region by recogn

This crisis will be etched in our memories long after we have found its cure but what we will remember the most is how we felt, what we did and who we

Given the complexities and the possible excess of making the Internet (more) fragmented, should we consider doing more than just demanding liability f

Bad corporate governance impacts negatively on a company's integrity and transparency — and directly hurts customer trust and subsequently the compa

For the US, the OST is not particularly useful as an intelligence gathering tool, but the reality is that it was always intended as a confidence build

The success of the application is reliant on two factors — its own technical implementation, along with the uptake among the population at large.

Financial Inclusion can help formalise the economy, increase transparency and efficiency, and provide financial stability for India and Africa.

In an age of extremism, terror, global information flows and communication manipulation, subversive international forces seek subtle ways to undermine

India is asserting its rights as a Nuclear Weapons Power, and France is helping us do this at great risk to itself, and the Indian public discourse se

People are going to ask government for answers, and the solutions will lie in getting transparency through new-age systems.

The FRDI Bill creates a process, with early-warning systems in place to alert regulators and the government about the risk on financial institutions,

While it would cost the public exchequer a bomb, still, time is ripe for India to have a national election fund. Given that India’s current politica

Healthcare in India could use the help of better data and analysis from both public health systems and private sector interventions.

For a government committed to 'minimum government, maximum governance' it is time that policy making in key economic ministries become far more open and consultative, its acts and actions predictable. In the long run, that is the only way to ensure that policies for the auctions of licenses, processes of tendering and award, and actions to ensure their implementation -- are not subject to capture by select coteries.

As the curtains come down of one of the best Republic Day ceremonials in 65 years, focus shifts to the way forwards. Modi's promises of large scale reforms to make 'doing business' in India simple have been welcomed by Obama and the America Inc.

Political parties are the only entities which are not subject to any regulation or regulator. The phrase political parties has not been mentioned in India's constitution and post independence, the legislatures have not enacted any regulation or law governing the functioning of political parties.

Ensuring contestability and fairness in India’s digital market—one of the world’s most prominent—is critical to ensuring consumer welfare. This paper outlines a legal and regulatory framework that can ensure contestability and fairness in the Indian digital market.  The paper identifies the following elements of this toolkit: (i) competition law; (ii) ex-ante regulation for digital gatekeepers; (iii) laws for increased transparen

Saeed Naqvi, Distinguished Fellow at ORF, recently journeyed across Afghanistan where he met scores of political leaders, Taleban, US officials, filmmakers, journalists, NGOs, religious leaders and ordinary Afghans. The result is an insightful document on Afghanistan at the crossroads. Do Americans have an Endgame planned? Or, more important, can a superpower in a theatre of strategic importance, have a linear exit plan when multiple strategic op

Stakeholder groups have produced various guidelines on ethical Artificial Intelligence (AI) in recent years. However, translating principles into practice continues to be a massive challenge, as AI markets expand and AI risks are heightened. AI audits—or the process of investigating an algorithm against existing regulations and known harms—are emerging as a way of bridging the gap between principle and practice. This paper scans the landscape

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, JVP, Sri Lanka, India, China, foreign policy, economic crisis, governance, SAGAR, Indo-Lanka accord, Indian investments, transparency, SOEs, Chinese loans

A constitutional court must not outsource its judgement on freedom of expression online to an industry association even if it convenes others to help make this decision. It must also avoid allowing the executive to take over this role, determining without any transparency what content is blocked.

There is need for greater transparency in the Free Trade Agreement negotiations. There could be more information sharing with civil society groups and the general public so that the content of the negotiations would get public approval faster, making it easier to conclude the FTA.

Over the last two decades, China has established a significant economic presence in most African countries. Its lucrative economic investment package, flexible political approach, and focused big-ticket development projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) provide an ostensibly massive opportunity to African countries. However, the unilateral nature of the initiative, the lack of transparency and accountability to African countries, and t

China’s nuclear expansion could lead to a spiraling arms race.

This brief traces the history of the development and deployment of conventional submarines. It analyses their shortcomings and examines how these have been progressively addressed over the years, particularly in the realm of battlefield transparency. Greater stealth, long-range weapons and large weapon loads, when coupled with accurate positional information of targets, have improved the combat capability of modern conventional submarines, narrow

The Indian Ocean is important to China because Chinese trade and energy resources transit this route.

The new land acquisition bill has brought transparency in land acquisition. But by incorporating too many instruments and agencies to ensure the same, it instead risks making the process bureaucratic. Thus, the bill ends up replacing a coercive colonial law with a cumbersome one.

The international aid system is in need of reform. Despite rhetoric about localisation, a meagre 1.2 percent of international humanitarian aid directly reaches local actors. Overall, there is a lack of transparency and awareness in international policy circles on how funds flow from the donor level to the field. This brief argues that the issue is not just about a lack of capacity on the part of local actors—a sweeping statement often used by W

Flexibility and transparency critical for a gas-based economy; last mile pipelines get a boost in India — and other news and analyses from the energy sector.

The increasing demand for mobility and the rising rates of motorisation in India have substantially increased energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from the road transport sector. As of 2021, road transport was responsible for 14 percent of the nation’s total energy consumption, 92 percent of transport-related energy demand, and 94 percent of transport-related CO₂ emissions. In 2021, India committed to net-zero carbon emissi

The new draft of the EU-initiated International Code of Conduct for Outer Space is a significant step forward. The language has been tightened to make it more precise. The document is particularly mindful of the interests of emerging Space actors and instituting measures for greater international cooperation. There have also been several practical measures suggested for more transparency.

Govt will need to spend more, but should credibly commit through institutional reform to future transparency and prudence

On August 12, 2016 the Observer Research Foundation convened the first in a series of multistakeholder roundtables on encryption. This report is the outcome of the discussion of issues and proposal of solutions conducted at the roundtable. Being a complex, technical-legal question around access to data for law enforcement, encryption has long been a contested issue. Creating best-in-class regulation on encryption will require targeted interventio

The IMF estimates that State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) assets totalled US$45 trillion in 2018, close to 50% of the global GDP, and calculated the debt of the largest SOEs to be US$7.4 trillion. Clearly, SOEs have a direct bearing on the global economy. The most systemically important SOEs are the State-Owned Multinational Enterprises (SOMNEs) since they are focused on cross-border financing and business. A global framework for regula