Geopolitics, defence and external affairs — through a public-policy lens.
The 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi was not a routine gathering. The moment that mattered was a sidelines meeting between Iran and the UAE, weeks after they had been striking each other's infrastructure.
India is hosting the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on September 12 and 13, its fourth time chairing the group and the biggest yet, with 11 full members and 10 partner countries attending. The event puts Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a delicate position: leading a bloc built partly around resistance to Western dominance, while trying not to damage India's
Russia now supplies a record share of India's crude oil imports, even as the United States keeps tying that relationship to ongoing tariff disputes with New Delhi. The numbers explain why India is reluctant to change course, and why Washington is unlikely to stop pushing back anytime soon.
The African continent is on track to add a record amount of solar power in 2026, growing 45 percent over the previous year for the third straight record year in a row. Behind the numbers is a continent-wide shift, with companies like Ghana's Genser Energy raising major funding to expand, showing that Africa's energy story is changing faster than most people
The Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola have signed a US-backed railway agreement to move minerals to the Atlantic coast, a deal that could cut a journey that currently takes up to a month down to about a week. Backed by up to $1 billion in proposed US funding, the project shows how mineral supply chains, not just diplomacy, are becoming a central part o
Germany's 2026 labour reforms mix incentives with new flexibility, offering pension-age workers up to €2,000 a month tax-free to stay employed, while separately making it easier for companies to dismiss high-earning employees starting in 2027. The changes reflect a country trying to manage a shrinking workforce without abandoning its reputation for strong wo
Vietnam has proposed extending mandatory social insurance coverage to online sellers and construction workers, two large groups that have historically operated outside formal labour protections. The move reflects a broader global pattern of governments trying to catch up with informal and platform-based work that has grown far faster than the laws meant to r
A new judicial interpretation in China has voided any agreement between an employer and a worker to skip or reduce social insurance contributions, closing a long-standing loophole used by both sides to save money in the short term. The rule reflects growing concern in China over long-term retirement and healthcare gaps building up beneath the country's job m
Nineteen US states raised their minimum wage in 2026, with some now exceeding $17 an hour, while other states haven't moved at all, widening an already large gap in what American workers earn depending purely on where they live. The divergence is reshaping how businesses plan hiring and how millions of workers experience the same national economy in very dif
UN Women and UN DESA's 2026 Gender Snapshot, released on September 17, focuses on leadership and shows that global progress toward equal political representation for women has lost momentum rather than continued advancing. The findings arrive at a moment when several other UN reviews are also warning that many countries are falling behind on broader social d
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin held bilateral talks in New Delhi on September 11, their second meeting in under two weeks, just ahead of the BRICS summit. The discussion centred on trade, energy, and defence, and comes at a moment when India is trying to protect its long standing partnership with Moscow while managing press
Six months into war with the US, Iran's own president has confirmed foreign trade has fallen nearly 35% and inflation has hit 66%, as sanctions and a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz squeeze an economy already among the world's most distressed.
The 26th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek brought together all 10 member-state leaders, produced a 28-document package including a formal declaration condemning US-Israeli strikes on Iran, and offered a visible — if cautious — signal of thawing China-India relations.
Germany formally accused Russia of orchestrating an explosive-laden drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport and responded by closing a Russian consulate and cultural center, raising its national threat level, and drawing NATO and EU solidarity — marking Berlin's first public attribution of a hybrid attack to Moscow.
The US launched a fresh wave of strikes on Iranian military targets on September 1–2, prompting Iranian retaliation against US bases in Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq and Kuwait — the heaviest exchange between the two sides in over a month, with no resolution in sight after six months of intermittent war.
More people need humanitarian help in Sudan than anywhere else on Earth — over 30 million — yet the war that created that need barely registers globally, even as UN officials this week called it the site of "brutal mass killings, abductions and rape."
In the space of seven months, Washington quintupled tariffs on Indian goods over Russian oil purchases, then cut them nearly two-thirds after a single phone call — a whiplash episode that exposed how personal, and how fragile, US-India trade policy has become.
New York's first Indian-American mayor is publicly opposing a Madison Square Garden gathering headlined by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat — a clash that has turned a diaspora cultural event into a proxy fight over what "Indian identity" means abroad.
A glacial collapse on the Nepal-Tibet border unleashed a wall of water that has killed more than 300 people and left over 1,400 missing — the deadliest disaster in the Himalayas in years, and a stark preview of what a warming mountain range can do without warning.
The UN says the planet has entered an era of "water bankruptcy." With nearly 40% of the world's shared river basins projected to face scarcity-driven conflict risk by mid-century, water is quietly shifting from an environmental issue to a geopolitical one.
While wars and elections dominate headlines, a slower and far larger crisis is unfolding away from the front page: 3.4 billion people now live in countries that spend more on debt interest than on health or education combined.
The SAVE America Act promises to protect elections. Critics say it will destroy the voters it claims to defend.
Weapons, drones and theatre commands are not enough. India's armed forces need an intellectual revolution — and nobody is talking about it.
India buys Russian oil to survive. Now America wants to punish it for that. The bill that could reshape India's economy — and its place in the world.
China's Long March 7A rocket failed shortly after launch from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on August 10, destroying the ChinaSat-4B communications satellite. Chinese state media confirmed that the rocket experienced an anomaly and that an investigation is underway. The incident is important not because one failed launch can derail China's space programme,
The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve has fallen below 300 million barrels for the first time since 1983, as prolonged disruption in the Middle East continues to strain global energy markets. The decline is forcing Washington to confront a difficult question: how much emergency oil can the world’s largest economy afford to release before its own strategic safet
What began as a long-standing Saudi-Pakistani security relationship has now evolved into a trilateral defence framework involving Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye. The three countries signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement on August 7, 2026, declaring that an armed attack against one would be regarded as an attack against all three. The pact emerged afte
India and the United States are still negotiating the terms of their long-pending interim trade agreement, with the Ministry of External Affairs confirming on Tuesday that substantial progress has been made but that key issues remain unresolved.
For more than seven decades, NATO's strength rested on a simple bargain: the United States guaranteed Europe's security, while European allies provided political solidarity and growing military capability. That bargain is now being fundamentally recalibrated. As Washington shifts its strategic priorities and Europe expands its defence responsibilities, NATO
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Indian and Arab business chambers have agreed to deepen economic cooperation by promoting trade, investment, business partnerships, and sectoral collaboration, reflecting growing commercial engagement between India and the Arab world.
India is increasingly balancing geopolitical priorities with economic objectives, easing select investment restrictions while recalibrating trade policies to attract capital from both the United States and China without compromising domestic interests.
Tens of thousands of migrants entered Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta within three days before most returned to Morocco, reigniting debate over European border management and regional migration policies.
“We'll be hitting them very hard,” Mr. Trump said in an exchange with reporters during a meeting with members of his Cabinet at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland
India’s Ambassador to the United States, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, met senior U.S. official Allison Hooker to review key areas of bilateral cooperation, reaffirming both countries’ commitment to strengthening their strategic partnership across defence, technology, trade, and regional security.
A new Amnesty International report has alleged that defence equipment and ammunition exported from India may have been used by Israel during its military operations in Gaza, raising concerns over arms exports and international humanitarian law.
India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh held a meeting with the U.S. Ambassador in Dhaka, marking the first known engagement of its kind and highlighting growing diplomatic coordination on regional and bilateral issues.
