Carnegie India
India’s problem is not about competing with China in South Asia, but managing its messy interdependence with the neighbours with some strategic vision and a lot of tactical finesse.
Two new ideas about the physical space around us – the Indo-Pacific and Eurasia – are beginning to compel India to replace the old signposts in India’s strategic cartography
If past protests called for a reformation of the Islamic Republic established in 1979, some of the current slogans are calling for its overthrow. While few expect the protests to succeed, the legitimacy of the Islamic revolution is being challenged for the first time.
New Delhi needs to turn its attention in 2018 to creating significant domestic capabilities for information operations against threats at home and abroad.
Understanding the internal debate in the United States about its approach to the world is as important for India as parsing the administration’s latest thinking on China and Pakistan.
As the weakest of the major powers, New Delhi should stay engaged with both continental as well as maritime powers in order to improve its own place in the world order.
Without a return to genuine bilateralism that takes into account the interests of both parties, Beijing will find that the chasm with New Delhi continues to deepen.
If cultural, digital, and physical connectivity have become important themes in Indian diplomacy these days, so has the idea of minilateralism with multiple partners.
It is important that start-ups start thinking about cybersecurity from the time they begin developing a structural design for their company, and not in later stages.
Leveraging Japanese expertise in robotic manufacturing and channelling local software talent would allow India to come to terms with a fast changing global economic scenario, where automation will rule the roost.
The Indian political and policy establishment, long brought up on the notion that Europe and Asia are different, must adapt to their slow but certain integration into a single geopolitical theatre.
As Nepal concludes its first parliamentary election since 1999, New Delhi faces a window of opportunity to deepen the bilateral relationship.
While the Indian media’s obsession with China tends to be over the top, there is no denying that Beijing looms large over New Delhi’s worldview these days.
In the absence of digital literacy, broadband penetration, and access to smart phones and computers by a majority of the population of the country, the entire process for land registry cannot only be performed on a blockchain platform.
The ideas of religious moderation and social modernization have been steadily pushed on the defensive in the four decades since 1979. Any effort to reverse 1979, therefore, must be welcomed in the Subcontinent.
Looking beyond the traditional areas of high-technology and defence cooperation, and the more recent focus on global mitigation of climate change, New Delhi and Paris appear ready to lend a strong regional dimension to their strategic partnership.
Given the importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in the coming years, India must keep a wary eye on Chinese developments in this field, and develop its own strategic vision of how AI technologies can be harnessed to advance its interests.
As he seeks a say in defining the agenda of the quadrilateral security dialogue with Japan, the United States, and Australia, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is heralding his country’s self-confident pursuit of enlightened self-interest with all the major powers.
The proposition that India must tilt to one side, toward Russia and China, and keep its distance from the United States is a legacy from the 1970s. It does not square with contemporary reality.
The issues raised by Microsoft deserve serious and critical attention in India. The outcomes from this debate could have a lasting impact on India’s own digital future in both commercial and national security realms.