Declining Trump’s invitation would not signal hostility toward the United States. It would signal coherence in India’s own diplomacy. It would affirm that New Delhi will not lend its name to a project that concentrates authority in a single capital at a time when global cooperation demands broader legitimacy and shared accountability.
Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state, offers an even starker illustration of how symbolic minority marginalisation is being normalised. This year, the BJP government of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath directed schools to remain open on December 25 and mandated programmes commemorating former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s…
This twin strategy -- institutionalised engagement with Europe and practical leadership of the Global South -- would broaden India’s repertoire. A strengthened European partnership would sharpen India’s industrial and technological edge; robust South-South initiatives would deepen its diplomatic capital and soft power. Together they would blunt…
The choice of the next SG will determine whether the UN regains relevance or slides further into insignificance. A woman leader would not only break a glass ceiling; it would show the UN retains the capacity for renewal. A male candidate seen as a P5 compromise would confirm fears that global leadership remains a private club for the powerful…
New Delhi should not view cricket ties as appeasement but as investment in peace. By embracing cricket diplomacy, India can show moral leadership, protect its strategic interests and give millions of fans across South Asia a reason to dream of friendship rather than enmity. The ongoing Asia Cup is a good start in that direction. A few…
As Beijing midwives a multipolar world as an alternative to the world order dominated by the US, there are many issues that stand in the way. They include simmering border disputes with India and its aggressive behaviour along the Line of Actual Control, its claims on the Japanese islands of Senkaku, and the dispute over the Spratly Islands…
For a country that embraces the principle of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (“The World is One Family”), and is often referred to by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Vishwaguru (“Teacher of the World”), the discriminatory and hostile treatment meted out to the Rohingya is not only against its ethos but also makes for bad optics on the world stage.
It will be for the first time that the Pentagon is getting involved in a high-altitude exercise with Indian troops, a fact that will not go unnoticed in Beijing. Is staging these combat drills so close to the disputed region indicative of a strategic shift on the part of New Delhi?
India's much weaker economic clout in comparison to China's, its controversial and polarising domestic policies, and the lack of dependability have all prompted the rest of its neighbours to embrace the Dragon, helping strengthen its "string of pearls" strategy, writes E D Mathew for South Asia Monitor
India has a pool of talented diplomats but their skills will be expended on putting lipstick on a pig if the government at home promotes narrow, sectarian ideologies that are at variance with accepted international norms, writes E. D. Mathew for South Asia Monitor
