A Next Step Called Teesta

…the optimism was diluted by the strong sense of disappointment at the failure to make any breakthrough on the proposed Teesta water-sharing agreement. The presence of Mamata Banerjee alongside Modi had encouraged people to believe that, following what many saw as a very successful visit by her to Dhaka earlier in the year, the heart […]

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India-France Relations: Look To The Indian Ocean

Since 1998, the Franco-Indian relationship has become increasingly strategic, even as one could argue that it has yet to realize its full economic potential. The Indo-French strategic dialogue is now broad and wide-ranging, and the annual joint military exercises have each year grown more elaborate. When Modi and French President Francois Hollande met earlier this […]

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Reaching Out To Kiev

The conflict between Russia, Ukraine and the West is at once the world’s most significant geopolitical problem, and its most solvable. What is now needed is energetic engagement from Asia. India is just the country to lead this charge, and such Indian leadership could be the turning point that gives New Delhi the confidence it […]

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Russia And India: A 21st Century Decline

As strategic relations go, few countries can match the enduring partnership that India and Russia have shared since the 1960s. For close to half a century Russia has been New Delhi’s foremost military supplier. In fact, defense trade became the raison d’être for strategic relations between the two nations – particularly in the post-Cold War […]

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It’s Time For Modi To Directly Engage With Pakistan

The appointment of a former Director, Intelligence Bureau as envoy for Af-Pak and West Asia indicates that the Modi government is looking at the entire Islamic world to India’s West through an intelligence-security prism and not a diplomatic-cultural construct. Modi’s Pakistan policy is conditioned by a similar mind-set of talking but not negotiating, while building […]

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What Modi Gains By Taking India’s Politics To Distant Shores

Modi’s meetings have been clearly organised and financed by his local supporters and orchestrated by the BJP/RSS machinery in India, though the embassies have been involved in liaison with the host government for security and logistical support. As these interactions have become political, it is only natural that there will be echoes of domestic Indian […]

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When Narendra Modi Goes To The Holy Land

In my view, viewing national and foreign affairs through a communal prism is one of the most pernicious, destructive and self-defeating features of the Indian scene. It would be far more useful to see the proposed visit to the Holy Land as the commencement of Modi’s engagement with the complex politics, economics and culture of West […]

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The New Authoritarians

Since the end of the Cold War, rising gross domestic product and regular elections have come to mark progress in large parts of the world. Such apparent resemblances to Western-style capitalism and democracy still enthuse many commentators. But do they actually conceal the deteriorating political and moral health of emerging economies until it’s too late? […]

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