Make in India lost steam. Prime Minister Narendra Modi escaped success stories from the rampart of Red Fort in Independence Speech in 2019. Several attempts were made to rejuvenate Make in India , invoking major reforms like reduction in corporate taxes, land reforms at state level and downsizing cumbersome procedures by encompassing major labour laws . But, they all failed […]

China has one of the most hide-bound rituals for its political events that overawe its audience with pageantry, but with a definite intention of such proceedings. The November plenary session, in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elite gathered, in the run-up to the 2022 National Congress was no different. The Plenum communique touts that Xi Jinping Thought will be […]

In September this year, while addressing the Eastern Economic Forum virtually, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed optimism that India and Russia together can bring stability in global energy market. Investments and close cooperation in the Russian Far East (RFE) are expected to be a major part of this optimism. The Indian government has emphasised on coordination with Japan and […]

While the United States is adapting to the challenges of a multipolar world and a global geopolitical recalibration, the People’s Republic of China is employing its geo-economic tools to identify power vacuums in the international landscape and to fill the void of American leadership. The combination of former President Donald Trump’s inward-looking foreign policy and President Joseph Biden’s emphasis on […]

In today’s environment of growing US-China competition, America’s allies are increasingly faced with a series of what international relations authority Dr. Victor Cha calls “binary choices” between the two powers. “Open competition in relations between the United States and China has dramatically changed the environment in which the US must operate,” Cha said at a recent East-West Center webinar titled […]

The past year has witnessed a spate of reports about Chinese ‘model villages’ coming up in disputed areas of its Himalayan border with India and Bhutan. In January 2021, NDTV had reported a Chinese village had come up on the banks of the Tsari Chu river in the Longju region, the site of the first Sino-Indian clashes in 1959. A […]

The Biden administration appears disposed to reactivate the existing alliance arrangements as well as to cultivate new allies in the Indo-Pacific. The administration following the American withdrawal from Afghanistan seems poised to divert more resources towards the Indo-Pacific theatre while imposing an unstable border on Beijing to remain embroiled in the Afghan trap. It sought to strengthen Washington’s network of […]

“Are we going to surrender [to TTP] once again?” — Justice Qazi Mohammad Amin Ahmed, Judge, Supreme Court of Pakistan Islamabad has always alleged that Indian consulates in Afghanistan were being used as covert bases by its spy agency Research and Analysis Wing [RAW] for orchestrating subversive activities inside Pakistan. It also maintained that the Ashraf Ghani government and Afghanistan’s […]

Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA) and International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) are concerned that authorities of Uzbekistan harassed and intimidated Khidirnazar Allakulov (Truth and Progress party / Haqiqat va Taraqqiyot), Mahmud Davronov (Free Motherland party / Ozod Vatan) and Jahongir Otajonov (Erk) and other outspoken opposition activists in the run-up of Presidential elections in October 2021 […]

The rapid fall of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) on August 15, 2021 was predictable to those who are familiar with the vast levels of corruption that plagued the country during the last twenty years. Widespread corruption, cronyism, extortion, and theft permeated all aspects of Afghan society, from the presidential […]