Dr. V.L. Dharurkar

The telephonic exchange between Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month reveals the changing architecture of India’s Middle Eastern strategy. The telephone exchange between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of the New Year was the latest signal of a strategic alignment three decades in the making. It came as Israel struggles to turn a fragile Gaza ceasefire into something more durable, and as India steadily increases its...

India’s free-trade pact with New Zealand is less about tariffs than about anchoring New Delhi more firmly in an unsettled Indo-Pacific. India’s recently concluded free-trade agreement (FTA) with New Zealand, negotiated with unusual speed and diplomatic intent, marks another step in India’s quiet but consequential reorientation towards the Indo-Pacific. After deals with Australia and Britain, this pact extends India’s commercial arc deeper into the Pacific’s southern reaches, binding economics...

India’s courtship of Jordan blends history, hard interests and quiet diplomacy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Jordan, the first full bilateral visit by an Indian prime minister in nearly four decades, was stripped of ceremony and sentimentality and marked a careful recalibration of India’s engagement with a pivotal, if understated, West Asian partner at a moment of regional flux. India and Jordan have enjoyed cordial relations since 1950, but for much of that period the...