Trump’s Beijing summit revealed less a thaw in Sino-American rivalry than a quiet acknowledgement that the balance of power is shifting eastward. When Donald Trump recently left Beijing calling his summit with Xi Jinping “fantastic,” the pageantry suggested a diplomatic breakthrough. Yet, the summit produced few major agreements, while exposing how sharply the balance between the world’s two largest powers has changed. For decades America approached China as the stronger powe

From Majapahit to Pancasila, Java has repeatedly defended Indonesia’s plural ethos The last article discussed the conditions, apparently threatening the survival of the Indic thread of Indonesia’s culture, responding to many triggers including a penchant for Arabization of the hitherto localized ‘Indonesian Islam’. Given the size of this wide-spread archipelago called Indonesia, along with the more or less equally well-spread Islamist outlook within the society as well as the

As China grows more assertive in Asia, India and Vietnam are discovering that shared anxieties make for a durable strategic partnership. In Asia’s crowded geopolitical theatre, few relationships have evolved as consequentially as that between India and Vietnam. Bound by ancient cultural ties and united by modern strategic anxieties, the two countries are steadily crafting a partnership that stretches from Buddhist monasteries to missile systems, from maritime security to semi

Caught in the crosshairs of global nativism, Indians abroad must confront both prejudice from without and pitfalls within. Over the past few years, tensions over immigration are intensifying, and today we Indians find ourselves at the very center of this storm- primarily across major English-speaking democracies. Last September—some of the largest anti-immigration rallies were organized in Indian immigrant heavy countries like United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia. Under the

India and Italy are rediscovering each other as partners in a more fractured, multipolar world Diplomacy often advances through the steady accumulation of modest alignments. The recent warming of relations between Narendra Modi’s India and Giorgia Meloni’s Italy suggests just such an incremental and pragmatic shift, one that is shaped by the pressures of a changing geopolitical order. An unremarkable bilateral relationship is now being recast as a partnership spanning defence

While India’s gamble has yet to choke Pakistan’s flows a year after the suspension of the Indus Water Treaty, the move has redrawn the rules and weaponised water diplomacy. One year has passed since the Pahalgam terror attack, an event that triggered a wave of fierce anti-Pakistan sentiment across the nation. In its immediate aftermath, India suspended the Indus Water Treaty (IWT), long regarded as one of the most successful examples of international cooperation, despite deca

From steel to submarines, Indo-German ties are moving from pure commerce to defence. Rajnath Singh’s recent visit to Germany signals a shift that has been long in the making between the two countries. From a relationship once defined by trade, the ties between India and Germany are finally moving towards defence. India wants German technology and co-production while the latter, newly alert to hard security after Russia’s war in Ukraine, is more willing to provide both. The tw

Austria’s chancellor visits India, signalling a pragmatic European pivot towards a rising Asian partner For a country often described as the quiet heart of Europe, Austria has chosen a moment of global flux to step outward. Its outreach to India, in form of Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker’s recent visit this month, is marked by shifting alliances, economic anxieties and a search for reliable partners beyond the Atlantic. Austria’s geography has always endowed it with an

When sections of India’s self-anointed ‘liberal’ media cheer Pakistan’s fleeting diplomatic theatre, they reveal less about geopolitics than about their own reflexes. There is a peculiar reflex that grips a section of India’s self-styled ‘liberal’ media whenever the world tilts even slightly against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government. It is not analysis, not even contrarianism in the noble sense, but a barely concealed thrill - an instinct to diminish India’s

After a period of drift, India and Bangladesh rediscover the logic of cooperation. In history and diplomacy, geography is destiny but memory often intervenes. For India and Bangladesh, two neighbours bound by history, culture and an unruly border, the past has a habit of intruding upon the present. Yet recent developments suggest that the bilateral relationship, strained by political transitions and mutual suspicion, may be entering a phase of pragmatic recalibration. The vis

Under China’s expanding shadow, the once-dominant Indosphere faces slow erosion born as much of external pressure as of India’s own long neglect. The term Indosphere, post its coinage around eight decades ago, was broadly understood to include the whole of Southeast Asia, except the northern or one third of Vietnam. It, by definition as well as by factual development, excludes the later born (2002) and newly admitted (2026) ASEAN member state of Timor Leste. A lot can be said

In the world’s most vital oil chokepoint, the elegant certainties of maritime law dissolve into a murky contest of power, risk and coercion. The Strait of Hormuz is, in the dry language of international law, a “strait used for international navigation.” In the less sterile vocabulary of geopolitics, it is a loaded gun pointed at the global economy. Barely 21 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point, this corridor connects the oil-rich Persian Gulf to the wider Arabian Sea.

It was seen in the last article as to how the Southeast Asian region or its parts were perceived as ‘further’ or ‘farther’ or ‘greater’ India by various European scholars and travelers, based on their observations of those territories’ cultural congruence with India. The most significant coinage in that journey of insights and nomenclatures was ‘Indosphere’, which not only did away with the possibility of allegations of Indians harbouring expansionist or revisionist ideas of

The ongoing tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran are more than a routine geopolitical crisis; they offer a clear view of how power operates in the international system. For India, this moment provides a sobering perspective. While the country increasingly speaks of its role as a “Vishwaguru” (global guide), the reality is more measured-India continues to function as a middle power, adapting to global shifts rather than directing them. A key reason lies in Ind

With the war in West Asia choking the Strait of Hormuz, India’s economic resilience is tested by energy, its deepest structural dependency. The dawn of 2026 brought optimism for India’s economy, with the EU trade deal finalized, a stable Union Budget, and U.S. tariffs cut from 50 percent to 18 percent, easing fiscal pressures and allowing the RBI to hold rates steady. This momentum was abruptly derailed as tensions between the U.S., Israel, and Iran escalated into direct mili

Control over who passes through a vital strait has turned what ought to be a regional war into a global economic shock. Globalisation’s greatest illusion is that distance no longer matters. Yet the modern economy still hinges on a handful of narrow maritime corridors where geography exerts an unforgiving grip. Today, 80 percent of global trade by volume and 70 percent by value moves by sea, funneled through chokepoints that double as geopolitical fault lines. The 2021 blockad

While India’s civilisational ideals of restraint and magnanimity are admirable, they must be tempered by strategic realism in a harsher world. Humanity may have emerged from the trauma of the pandemic, but peace has proved far more elusive. The early 2020s, rather than ushering in a calmer international order, have been marked by a steady accumulation of wars and geopolitical tensions. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 set the tone. Tensions between Chi

New Delhi: West Asia has transformed into a battlefield rained by fireballs. Seas or land, everywhere echoes the roar of cataclysmic explosions, flickering flames, and swirling smoke clouds. et amid such adversity, Indian ships boldly waving the Tricolour navigate the strait undeterred, entering the Arabian Sea. More remarkably, Iran has sealed its airspace to global flights but opened it for the safe evacuation of Indians. This scene evokes Prime Minister Narendra Modi's m

After years of diplomatic chill, India and Canada have attempted a strategic reset driven as much by geopolitics and trade anxieties as by a desire to repair a damaged partnership. For nearly three years relations between India and Canada resembled a prolonged winter. Yet, the visit of Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney to India at the start of the Month suggests that the thaw may finally have begun. If the past few years were marked by recrimination and mistrust, the prese

From the Khilafat years to Khamenei’s funeral prayers, foreign grief on Indian streets revives old questions about loyalty, identity and selective outrage. The death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in joint Israel-US strikes in Tehran has unleashed a wave of grief across India, from the valleys of Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh to the heartlands of Uttar Pradesh. Streets filled with protesters, mosques and imambaras resonated with prayers and Fateha recitations. Thi