Who Is Russia’s New Prime Minister?

When Russians woke up last Wednesday morning, most had likely never heard of Mikhail Mishustin, the head of the country’s tax service. But by the time they went to bed that night, Mishustin had been named as Russia’s new prime minister after a day that included a flurry of proposed changes to the constitution and […]

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Top 10 Foreign Policy Trends In 2020

The coming of 2020 marks not just a new year, but a new decade. This random artefact of an arbitrary calendar system cries out for predictions of the events and trends that will shake the world in the 2020s. But, honestly, even the next year is something of a mystery – never mind the next […]

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India’s Grand Strategy Needs A Second Act

…India is facing a chasm between its global aspirations and the reality of its national power. A confluence of disruptive factors has now made the business-as-usual approach simply unsustainable. A course correction if not undertaken and executed sensibly could imperil India’s rise for the next generation. Read Here – Economic & Political Weekly

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Asia in 2020: Trends, Risks, And Geopolitics

How Asia is changing and what are the challenges for 2020 … a presidential election year in the United States and how it will change the dynamics between Washington and key Asian capitals after a bruising trade war with China that impacted the global economy. Then there are elections in Taiwan, North Korea.. and other […]

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2019 In Review: United States

THE ECONOMIST’S first cover of 2019 compared the presidency of Donald Trump to a television series. That was apt. This year’s instalment of “The Trump Show” churned out more plot twists, sudden departures and cliffhangers than most primetime-drama writers would dare attempt in a single season. The year has culminated in a dramatic impeachment episode, in which […]

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India’s New Security Order

How should observers assess India’s new security order? And what implications, if any, does it have for the United States? There are three characteristics of the new order: an emphasis on risk-taking and assertiveness, the fusing of domestic and international politics, and the use of unrelenting spin to hold critics at bay. This approach carries […]

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Iran’s Imperial History Overshadows Its Future

Just who speaks for Iran? When engaging with the Islamic Republic, the international community has tended to treat the country as a monolith, a consolidated political and ideological entity presided over by an entrenched clerical elite. That, however, is hardly the case. In truth, Iran is a complex and cosmopolitan melting pot made up of […]

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The Jokes Always Saved Us: Humour In The Time Of Stalin

Stalinism. The word conjures dozens of associations, and ‘funny’ isn’t usually one of them. The ‘S-word’ is now synonymous with brutal and all-encompassing state control that left no room for laughter or any form of dissent. And yet, countless diaries, memoirs and even the state’s own archives reveal that people continued to crack jokes about […]

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