Dr. V.L. Dharurkar

In an India-US relationship increasingly tested by geopolitics, a direct line between leaders may do more than a round of public diplomacy. While diplomacy is often imagined in the grand settings of summit tables and choreographed handshakes, some of its most consequential work happens without any of them. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent conversation with US Vice-President JD Vance is in this less glamorous sense. Amid the chill pervading India-US relations, the significance of the call...

As unrest engulfs Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, economic hardship, political alienation and a forceful state response are exposing the widening cracks in Islamabad’s governance of the region. Pakistan today finds itself confronting multiple internal crises at once. While the world focuses on its troubled ties with Afghanistan and the long-running insurgency in Balochistan, another front has opened within Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Weeks of sustained protests have exposed a reservoir of...

The Quad is evolving from a strategic conversation into a practical partnership aimed at preserving a free, open and secure Indo-Pacific without becoming a formal military alliance. The Indo-Pacific has become the centre of gravity of global geopolitics. Its vast maritime routes carry a significant share of world trade, its waters connect major economies, and its stability determines whether Asia can continue its remarkable economic rise. In this contested space, the Quad - the grouping of...