14452 results found
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
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 fashio
Pakistan's involvement in CPEC has led to impractical projects heavily reliant on foreign loans, worsening the country's economic difficulties
We could either choose the way that leads to better institutions and global systems, or the other, which compromises on environmental, social and ethi
'Nuclear Security in India' Report, launched recently by former PM Envoy on Non-Proliferation Rakesh Sood, sets out a list of policy recommendations which essentially seeks to address the gaps that still remain in the overall architecture of nuclear security in the country.
Over the past decade, Mumbai’s civil society has raised concerns over the way in which the municipal corporation appears to be prioritising rapid development at the cost of the city’s public space. Indeed, the city has lost significant areas of its open spaces owing to various reasons, among them archaic policies, unrealistic goals, and the labyrinthine division of power and jurisdiction between the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and othe
The Observer Research Foundation organised a roundtable on the "Forthcoming Presidential Election in India" on April 27, 2007 at the ORF Campus, Delhi. The roundtable was attended by several eminent personalities from the media, academia, political parties and think-tanks. The discussion largely focused on the possible contenders, the current electoral strengths of various political formations and possible scenarios that are likely to emerge.
With much fanfare, Indian Prime Minister Modi's trip to the United States came to a close September 30. However, beyond catchy slogans, are current Indo-US space cooperative initiatives living up to their full potential? Will space help India and the U.S. move forward together for a better world?
The COP26 summit will need to work towards four key outcomes: increased finance for climate action; more ambitious emissions reduction commitments; fi
Nearly 20 million people in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen are facing what has been described as the largest food crisis in the world in 70 years. Conflict is the main reason behind these famines, abetted by drought, climate change, poverty, and the existing vulnerability of the people in these countries. Security issues have led to a dramatic decline in agricultural production and have adversely affected the supply and distribution of
Not the best of times for Apple, the issue will be the running theme through 2018.
In all the hype and hyperbole about what to do with coal blocks, the plain fact is that the real danger lies in our coal reserves turning valueless for the country, of no benefit to the owner - the people of the land. They will be value less if we don't extract them before they turn un-burnable by climate action a few decades from now.
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
Joint efforts within the ISA, progress in nuclear energy, and advancements in green hydrogen highlight India and France's mutual commitment to promoti
After sending out confusing signal for months, France may have chosen the worst possible moment for intervention. Because its procrastinations allowed a whole range of potential opponents to mingle and be jointly prepared just in case the French did intervene.
It would be worth France, India, and Japan beginning an institutionalised and wide-ranging dialogue to ensure that the three of them can better coordinate their activities in the Indo-Pacific — not necessarily to counter China, but to encourage it to cooperate.
France will continue to work closely with the new US administration irrespective of uncertainty in President-elect Donald Trump's policies.
Franco-German cooperation can mitigate the rise of the European Right, lead the EU’s post-COVID19 economic recovery, and strengthen the EU’s defen
France is stepping up its strategic role, providing an alternative for countries seeking security guarantees from a powerful, nuclear, Western militar
India pulled out of the planned Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in 2018 after entering negotiations in 2013. India has a trade deficit with 11 out of the 15 RCEP countries and some analysts have theorised that India decided to opt out of the agreement because of such adverse trade balance. Indeed, India has a trade deficit with most of its trade partners in past free trade agreements (FTAs). It is in this context that this br
The COP21 was at the heart of the conversation on July 28 at the French Embassy in India, where the fifth in a monthly series of talks leading up to the Paris conference was held in partnership with Observer Research Foundation.
Should the story of the French in Syrian custody become public in France, the voters will ask: did the government sanction illegal entry of our soldiers into foreign countries? Is the Syrian rebellion an imported rebellion?
Progress will probably require developing small, technical agreements given that big, all-encompassing agreements have proven too difficult under current international circumstances.
Poor choices and domestic turmoil have hindered India’s economic transformation
Although Modi could not make Japan his first foreign destination as PM, he has kept the essence of his promise that he would attach special significance to ties with Tokyo. His trip to Japan is his first bilateral diplomatic engagement outside the subcontinent.
While CPEC will flush billions into the struggling Pakistan economy and rapidly speed up its development infrastructure, it is also one part of China'
The amazingly imbalanced judgement on Binayak Sen handed down by the Chattisgarh court has some lessons for all. Basically, intellectuals are being put on notice. Don't cross the Red Line otherwise this will be your fate.
The Taliban, ably helped by Pakistan, the US’s frontline ally in its global war on terror, has badly dented the notion of US invincibility. Despite President Joe Biden’s efforts in recent months to reassure allies that “America is back”, there is a wariness about both US commitment and its competence.
This year’s theme for the Earth Day, ‘Invest in our planet’, is a pivotal point in history as the need to adapt and mitigate the triple planetar
Better policing, if nothing else, could help eliminate the existing air of permissiveness and re-introduce a sense of security in women - and also in men - inside their homes and outside - than at present.
The 77-paragraph outcomes statement from the Ufa BRICS summit was inevitably going to be a list of ideas that would cater to different expectations and aspirations of each of its members.
The Rohingyas are among the world’s most persecuted communities, who, until a mass exodus in 2017, mainly resided in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. In 2017, about 712,179 Rohingyas made their way to Bangladesh, taking the total number of Rohingya refugees in that country to 855,000.[1]The overcrowding caused by this influx at the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps has led the Bangladesh government to consider temporarily relocating the Rohingya refugees t
The Vice-President of Maldives, in his address to the ORF faculty, recounts the long and bitter-sweet struggle against autocratic rule in his country. With an elected government now at the helm and democracy gradually taking roots in different spheres of society, he outlines the crucial challenges that lie ahead for the island nation.
If there is one thing on which all the ¿Dravidian parties¿ of Tamil Nadu stand united today, it is their criticism of the Union budget, presented by fellow Tamil leader Palaniappan Chidambaram. In doing so the DMK, the PMK and the MDMK, allies of the Congress at the Centre, have restricted their criticism to the proposed tax on the daily withdrawal of money from one¿s own bank account.
China isn’t going away any time soon from South Asia. India will have to work overtime — and in concert with like-minded partners.
By delineating bilateral relations from the larger SAARC format, and at the same time taking them up after the Islamabad summit had addressed major agendas, India and Pakistan have done well for themselves and for the region ¿ without continuing to hold one the hostage of the other.
The BCIM Forum has come a long way, but there are still challenges. Clearing the geopolitical air may prove more beneficial on both domestic as well as international levels, than keeping them in the shadows.
Eighty-eight innocent civilians, about 60 of them Egyptians, and the remaining believed to be foreign tourists, were killed in three well-synchronised explosions by unidentified terrorist elements at the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt on July 23,2005.The city is a popular tourist resort on the Red Sea at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula.
Nomenclature notwithstanding, the evolution of an Indian National Security Industrial Complex (NSIC) must be watched with interest and caution.
Despite sharing a close historical relationship based on the Soviet Union’s support during the 1971 Liberation War, Bangladesh had for long been out of the scope of Russia’s foreign policy priorities. This is best exemplified by the fact that no Soviet/Russian foreign minister had visited the country until September 2023. However, amid Western sanctions due to its war in Ukraine and tensions with the US, Russia is seeking to reinvigorate ties
Tantalising tit-bits of information relating to the links between jihadi terrorists in Pakistan and Egypt and in Egypt and the UK have been given in an editorial on the Sharm el-Sheikh blasts carried by the "Daily Times", the prestigious daily of Lahore, on July 25,2005. The editorial titled "Terrorist Link Between Egypt and Pakistan " makes the following salient points:
Floods are a recurrent phenomenon in many parts of India, and human and economic losses are consistently rising with increased exposure to the hazard. These losses can be significantly reduced by eliminating the encroachment on floodplains and regulating the land use within it through floodplain zoning, a widely accepted and effective non-structural policy measure. Despite its benefits, floodplain zoning has not been widely adopted in India, main
