Search

While India has instituted pretty stringent measures, some of which are lacking in even other key nuclear players, India has done a bad job of advertising to the global community of what it has done. This has meant poor appreciation of India's efforts in the area of Nuclear Security.

Unstable political systems, ineffectual international organisations, and unprecedented technological advancements have created a global environment that can enable the development and deployment of bioweapons. New-age bioweapons could be used for more than just as weapons of mass destruction. This necessitates a new approach to mitigate risks by staying apace with technological development. India must take a leadership position at the Biological

The government has been successful in maintaining harmony with the military and preventing it from reacting violently in the aftermath of Bangladesh Rifle's mutiny.

The silo-driven, ad hoc approach has meant that issues like threat perception and force structure are not managed via a centralized and authoritative overview

More than a year ago, the Vice President of India, Mr. M. Hamid Ansari, pointed out in a speech the lack of good governance that plagued intelligence agencies in India, and a subsequent need for a parliamentary oversight committee to provide democratic accountability to these agencies.

The report is based on the key recommendations that emerged out of the deliberations at National Conclave on India's Energy Security: Major Challenges held in New Delhi on 14-15 February 2006. The recommendations emerging out of the Conclave have been compiled in this Report for consideration by the Government

The Observer Research Foundation (ORF), India and the Stanley Foundation, USA co-hosted an international workshop on climate change on February 25-27, 2014 in New Delhi. The central objective of the workshop was to unbundle the different policy responses resulting from the multilateral negotiations thus far and their impact upon the evolution of existing and future multilateral frameworks. This Policy Brief aims to capture some of the salient per

As the conversations around internet governance become trapped in confrontational language, it is time to move the emphasis back to decision making that works for all

The threat to regional security is mainly from pan-Islamic jihadi terrorist organisations and not from ideological or ethnic terrorist groups.

India will have to carefully navigate the emerging regional geopolitics in BIMSTEC

As economic growth continues to slump around the world, it has become imperative for developing nations such as India to seek to strengthen partnerships with African nations. There is a growing consensus that Africa is the last remaining capitalist playground. With an abundance of natural resources and the lack of an institutionalised capacity to harness them, Africa's statesmen have sought to move beyond their dependence on foreign (mainly West

The paradox of the African continent is that it is resource-rich but remains poor in many parts. Has regional integration improved economic performance and does it pave the way to a better future? This paper examines West African integration--its evolution, the successes it has scored and the challenges that remain.

The need for regional integration is now BIMSTEC countries to make up for the deficit created by a crippled SAARC in South Asia

The ever increasing importance of States in foreign policy - which is traditionally a preserve of the Centre - is not restricted to India, but in fact has become an important matter of debate in international relations.

Former Pakistan Ambassador to the United States, Mr. Hussain Haqqani, has urged regional powers to begin dialogue to prevent Afghanistan from slipping into a civil war situation after the US pullout later this year.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced nation states to shut down borders and to look decidedly inwards. In this newly emerging and highly tenuous global political economic landscape, a question that is being widely debated is what globalisation will look like in a post-pandemic world. This brief ponders the question in the context of India and its neighbourhood. Revisiting theoretical insights from ‘New Regionalism’, this analysis examines whether

One of the key issues debated today in assessing India’s rise is its role in global and regional governance. This paper attempts to assess India’s changing approach towards regionalism and argues that unlike the Nehruvian approach that overlooked South Asia in region building efforts, the new regional approach gives equal emphasis to South Asia regionalism and the wider Indo-Pacific regionalism. The paper asserts that India’s new leadership

This brief examines the education crisis that has affected close to 250 million children in India due to school closures implemented as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It underlines that the switch to remote learning has created a “regression in learning” that, while cutting across the entire socio-economic spectrum, has disproportionately affected the poor, and among them, the girls. This pandemic-induced education divide and learning l

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly proliferating the healthcare landscape and has immense promise for improving health outcomes in a resource-constrained setting like India. With emerging technology still finding its footing in the healthcare industry in the country, there are systemic roadblocks to hurdle before AI can be made transformative up to the last mile of public health. AI also carries immense challenges for India’s mostly t

This brief discusses Thailand’s Over-the-Top (OTT) industry, focusing on production, consumption and impact. It analyses the rise of online audio-visual business in the country, and the implications for traditional broadcasters. In the context of existing international practices and Thailand’s domestic situation, the brief discusses the current and future regulatory requirements of the OTT industry. It also makes recommendations for a regulat

This report tracks the changes to India’s business regulatory framework in the first 40 days of the nationwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 virus. The Union and state governments have been highly proactive in creating spaces for doing business while managing the ongoing health crisis. The governments have attempted to modify the business-related legal infrastructure within the confines imposed through the lockdown. While under normal circumstan

In August 2019, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released its final guidelines for a regulatory sandbox for fintech firms.[1] Technology innovations are disrupting the traditional financial sector, and the RBI’s regulatory sandbox exercise is an attempt to be more agile and absorb some of this disruption. ‘Sandboxes’ give regulators a chance to work with fintech innovators, mitigate potential risks and develop evidence-based policy, while fi

With the inauguration of a railway track in the Northern Province, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his two-day visit to Sri Lanka from March 13 to 14, has managed to hit the right string amidst the people of Sri Lanka. The trip has marked the beginning of a renewed India-Sri Lanka ties.

Central business districts (CBDs) dominate economic activity in large cities. In India’s capital, New Delhi, for example, Connaught Place is a CBD. Firms relocate to CBDs due to the ease of doing business in such areas owing to retail agglomeration, functional grouping, labour pooling, and the ability to attract talent. However, recent phenomenon such as an increase in remote working, the rise in real estate costs, and the expansion of city lim

As the current government in India completes its second stint in power, the timing is opportune to reflect on the trajectory that the bilateral relationship has taken up in the past decade

The Narendra Modi government is going to close down the Planning Commission as it existed. But, any new organization of Indian economic leadership must learn from the failures and successes of the erstwhile Planning Commission, continuing its best aspects while reforming all that is irrelevant.

Concerns remain in the developing world that about whether the ICANN/IANA transition will create a truly plural process. This issue brief discusses three challenges 'multistakeholderism' must address from the perspective of the developing world: access, equity and sovereignty.

Despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, India–UK ties remain unfettered to harness new strategic convergences in sync with contemporary realities