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The US constitution builds a wall of separation between the church and the state, interpreted as prohibiting the state from meddling into the affairs of the church and vice versa. However, this constitutional provision cannot negate the church's influence in impacting who gets elected as President.

Greece's problems, which started in 2009, are casting a deep shadow on world stock markets. India is also feeling the impact. The BSE Sensex took a deep plunge though it has recovered recently. The rupee has been falling in terms of the dollar during the last few weeks.

Incorporating environmental economic accounting can go a long way in achieving net-zero emission targets.

Ways to attain growth, create jobs, and meet developmental targets with minimal carbon emissions are priorities for both India and the EU.

While the common man or woman has to save for hard times and cut corners on everything, the same is not happening to the budgets of the Central and state governments.

Forests help mitigate the impacts of climate change, provide economic benefits for the country, and meet specific facets of India’s sustainable development goals. It is essential, therefore, to revisit India’s forest governance and evaluate the country’s efforts at forest restoration and conservation. This brief examines the current state of India’s forests, explores the effectiveness of forest restoration and conservation measures, and r

Household savings have merely moved from financial to physical assets, with an increase over time

In the last few years, the administration in Dhaka has brought a number of cases against poets, journalists and activists who have taken to social med

The stakes — who gets to construct the legal, economic, and military architecture of an integrated Indo-Pacific region — are enormous.

More than the inaction of the Iranian government, questions have been raised regarding the role of US sanctions in crippling Iran’s economy, infrast

Time and again, leaders from the global South have reaffirmed that people comes first and they should actively participate in the formulation and impl

Acquisition of air assets by the most successful guerilla outfit and a declared Terrorist organization, LTTE, has alarmed observers around the world.

India's increasing use of imported coal undermines the country's strategy of being "self-reliant" in the energy security sector.

India’s agrarian crisis has deepened in the past several years, contributing to the slowdown of the economy. Amongst the most crucial factors affecting the country’s agricultural sector is financial inclusion. Over the years, India has attempted various measures to narrow the gap in financial inclusion for its farmers, yet the goal continues to elude the country. This paper presents a discussion of these measures, outlining the current state

While the civic agencies responsible for daily cleaning of streets and removal of garbage are not demonstrating the desired level of efficiency, many urban residents do not follow any of the waste disposal rules, making waste management increasingly difficult.

Within the span of a week last month, China has successfully carried out maiden launches of two of its next generation launch vehicles. Besides validating the rockets for future manned and unmanned space missions, they have also demonstrated China?s strategic capabilities pertaining to outer space.

The new policies ensure that smaller vendors, businesses, and local artisans can access international markets, thus, making them a part of India’s e

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

Anti-Satellite (ASAT) technology continues to proliferate in terms of both weapons and dual-use technologies. The three major powers-the US, Russia and China-have proven ASAT capabilities while several other space-faring nations are working on securing such assets. This Paper assesses the implications for India. It argues that ASAT technology will give the country significant asymmetric capabilities and prove to be an effective deterrent against

An actively traded spot market for natural gas supplemented with progressive regulation can integrate the domestic and global gas markets.

Standing on the foundations of growth and its future potential, some economies are more vulnerable — and some more valuable — than others. India stands on the valuable stack.

As Beijing sets its sights on dominance of the seas, it is also working to enhance its deep sea capabilities through “intelligentised” (智能) mi

Indian interests in the Persian Gulf region are paramount. That is from where India gets 70% of its oil, and where seven million of Indian citizens labour and send back remittances of around USD 35 billion per annum.

India still struggles to understand the alchemy by which access to new technologies, processes and markets is converted into increase in productivity.

Advani's most memorable quote: "You were asked only to bend, but you crawled" holds good today, as much as it did in 1975. Through the UPA regime, it was manifested in the absence of criticism of Sonia Gandhi, and now it is in the free ride that Narendra Modi gets.

India and most of Latin America view the Russia-Ukraine conflict as a ‘regional’ war limited to Europe, but one that has a massive impact on globa

India and China will need each other's markets and labour in the future. With rising wages, India can become an important outsourcing partner for China and more Indian finished goods can be sent to China. It could mean faster poverty reduction in India if growth with equity is the chosen path.

India and Africa’s complementary sectoral priorities and similar roles in the evolving global food markets present numerous opportunities for collaboration in the agricultural sector. This paper analyses the potential for India-Africa cooperation towards food security and capacity building. It makes an assessment of Indian partnership with African countries in the areas of agriculture and food security, outlines current initiatives in both regi

With both the goods FTA and services FTA in place, India is well set on the path of a comprehensive economic partnership with ASEAN. India, whose services sector contributes about 55% to the country's GDP, has been keen to sign the services FTA with ASEAN as it will help the Indian companies tap the ASEAN markets easily.

There have been several changes in the political landscape in the geography of Central Asia — with the entry of China as a major player in funding infrastructure projects in the region, and the weakening influence of USA in the markets, along with the independence from Soviet Union.

This paper argues that even when the India-Japan-Australia minilateral is inspired by a need to ensure their interests against the current global power transition, it remains limited in its aim: to restrain China from achieving regional hegemony as it may threaten the liberal security order in the region. In the face of China’s rise and the US’ retrenchment, Asia’s regional powers are hedging their bets on a regional security order that is

Despite the deep divisions within the Maldivian polity, which often gets reflected in Parliament, Maldives offered a near-full House when Singh became the first visiting Head of Government to address the People's Majlis (Parliament).

Economic ties were the cornerstone of Indo-Soviet relations. Even the 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, which was essentially of a political-security nature, stressed upon “economic, scientific and technological cooperation”.[1] Although the India-Russia ties in general survived the upheavals of the early 1990s, economic relations began to cool in the post-Soviet period. Despite many ambitious targets set during various

As political India wakes up to a more complex security environment enveloping it, Delhi needs to demonstrate greater pragmatism in enhancing cooperation with Washington.

In spite of some benefits, the TFA is embroiled in controversy. Trade facilitation, according to some scholars, will enhance the developed countries' access to Indian markets and may impact manufacturing growth. Studies have shown India is losing out in competitiveness in all product lines and there has been a 'hollowing out' of industries.

Carbon-intensive assets are a financial time bomb.

India has accumulated valuable expertise in navigating complex markets, which can be shared to help startups in SCO countries.

There are calls for India to declare a net-zero year and offset its carbon emissions by various processes of absorption and removal of greenhouse gases. For India, such calls are irrational; despite international pressure, it has avoided making pledges or setting hard targets beyond its commitments at the Paris climate conference in 2015. This brief argues that “net zero” is not possible with India’s current levels of reliance on coal. Its

The year 2021 began with hope that the development, manufacture, and deployment of vaccines will soon bring the COVID-19 pandemic to an end. Halfway through the year, vaccination is underway across the world, albeit at a much slower pace for the mostly poorer nations. There is promising news from countries like the United States and Israel – where the vaccination drive has proven to be successful, and where health experts are considerin

There is no doubt in the merits of moving away from fossil-based mobility, but all the efforts must match up to the targets that have been set forth.

This study explores the spatial politics of Othering and whether women aremarginalized in political conversations online in India. It's methodology consists of an analysis of23,350 tweets over an eight-day period. It shows a significant underrepresentation of women inTwitter's political conversations, which mirrors a real-world marginalization of women in India'spolitical processes.

Over the past few years, there is noticeable amongst India watchers an inescapable feeling of disappointment at what has been seen as a perceptible rolling back of many of the much vaunted reforms that had been the face of the country's efforts to integrate with world energy markets through the turn of the century. With an import dependence of over 70%, and increasing with each passing year, the petroleum sector had been the obvious choice to mov

Lines of Credit (LOCs) are a widely used instrument in development cooperation, including for India. The projects funded by India’s LOCs attempt to achieve a trinity of objectives: economic benefits; effective project management and completion; and nurturing and enhancing diplomatic relationship and strategic interests with the partner countries. This brief explains how India’s LOCs function, and contextualises the performance of the

Global energy markets have battled continuous uncertainty over the past three years, disrupted first by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. India has been adept at navigating both these disruptions, using economic diplomacy to position itself favourably in the geopolitics of oil. New Delhi’s delicate balancing of its political relationship with both Washington DC and Moscow has been accompanied

This paper projects the nationwide and state-wise size of India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) market under various GDP growth scenarios. The market sizes under these scenarios are expressed in monetary values at the scale of both sub-national units and the Indian economy as a whole. With the help of transactions and market share data from Phonepe, a UPI company, the paper estimates the national and state-wise base case scenario market volu

The government has announced an ambitious target of providing piped clean drinking water to all rural households by 2024. Although a worthy goal, it i

This paper explains Russian co-option of India into the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) at a high level of participation in September 2019 and the range of agreements involved. It argues that the co-option was the result of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dissatisfaction with the economic outcomes so far for the Russian Far East of “northeast Asian regional cooperation.” Moscow related this behaviour to skewed priorities of East Asia’s �

India’s GIFT City aspires to integrate its economy into the global financial system, ensure capital flow and connectivity with global financial mark