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

The European Union (EU)’s new energy dependence risks replacing one geopolitical trap with another. Ursula von der Leyen The European Union (EU) has recently taken the decision to prohibit the import of gas from Russia, with a complete ban expected to come into force by 2027. At the same time, the EU has reached an agreement to revive and sign a long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) deal with the United States - an agreement that had earlier been suspended. This renewed par

As the United States and Israel unleash wide-scale strikes on Iran, India’s tradition of measured force offers an alternative to Western doctrines of overwhelming dominance. The reported killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei marks not merely the end of a man, but the possible unravelling of a system. For more than three decades, Iran’s Supreme Leader fused clerical authority with revolutionary militarism, anchoring a state whose reach extended from Beirut to the Bab el-Mandeb. Hi

As protectionism hardens in the North, India and Brazil are discovering that shared history, democratic instinct and strategic ambition can still make south–south cooperation matter. In an international system increasingly shaped by tariffs, technology controls and geopolitical blocs, the world’s large democracies of the Global South are searching for ballast. Few pairings illustrate this better than India and Brazil – both continental powers born of colonial extraction, now

In a world of brittle alliances, Paris and New Delhi are testing whether middle powers can still build enduring partnerships . The latest reset in India–France relations marked a clear departure from diplomatic routine. President Emmanuel Macron’s visit went beyond diplomatic reassurance, aiming instead to convert shared values into strategic leverage by linking defence production, advanced technology, energy security and Indo-Pacific geopolitics. In an era of fraying global

The Seychelles is rapidly becoming a small but vital hinge in New Delhi’s Indo-Pacific chessboard. In geopolitics, even tiny island nations acquire immense strategic value by merley sitting astride the world’s most consequential sea lanes. Seychelles, an archipelago of 115 islands scattered across the western Indian Ocean, is one such place. Lying northeast of Madagascar and far from the continental clamour of Africa and Asia, it has emerged as a subtle but significant partne

The BNP’s win in Bangladesh masks the deeper peril of radical Islamist consolidation along India’s border. At first glance, the much-awaited Bangladesh elections appeared to have delivered clarity as the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) swept to power with a commanding majority, decisively outpacing the radical Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami. For many, this appeared reassuring as a mainstream nationalist force had prevailed over a hardline religious party. Yet, the results saw a mor

From Malacca to Bangladesh, a Sinic–Islamic alignment forged over centuries now reasserts itself with India squarely in its path. American political scientist Samuel Huntington, in his 1996 book had theorized of a ‘clash of civilizations’ as the root cause of future global conflicts, emerging basically out of three factors - Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance and Sinic/Confusion/Chinese aggression. The history of conflicts unfolded thereafter stands to largely corroborate

The dramatic U.S. intervention in Venezuela has forced New Delhi to reconcile principle with pragmatism. The United States’s dramatic military operation in early January, ordered by President Donald Trump and culminating in the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, sent ripples far beyond Caracas. In one stroke, Washington signalled a return to an assertive interpretation of its centuries-old Monroe Doctrine by asserting dominance in the Western Hemisphere and plu

Gita Gopinath’s remark on pollution at Davos punctured India’s celebratory mood, exposing a far deadlier crisis than tariffs or trade wars. The recent World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos was expected to ruffle the feathers of Indian politicians in the least. Most were making merry there, besides attracting ‘large’ investments into India. They have succeeded in that endeavour, as we were told. Some were there with families and must have enjoyed the beauty of the world-famous

From tariffs abroad to coercive policing at home, the United States is signalling unpredictability—precisely what strategic partnerships cannot afford to ignore. From New Delhi to Mumbai, Indians are watching with unease as the United States descends into chaos. For a country positioning itself as India's strategic partner against China, America's trajectory raises uncomfortable questions about reliable commitments. The most disturbing developments are in Minneapolis, where f

Musk’s vision of a world run by AI and robots promises plenty, but revives unsettling questions about power, purpose and who controls the future. At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Elon Musk laid out a vision for the future that sounded less like a business plan and more like a survival manual for the species. Sitting across from BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Musk spoke of “sustainable abundance,” a world where robots outnumber humans and AI provides for every need. Huma

Shaped by foreign domination and wary of new dependencies, India and Poland are discovering overlapping interests in a fractured world. Separated by geography but joined by experience, India and Poland are slowly recognising in each other the familiar survival habits. They are both states that have endured domination, rebuilt institutions and are now seeking autonomy in an unsettled international order. The recent visit to India by Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and foreign m

While global leaders preach sustainability with near-religious fervour, the green promise risks collapsing into empty ritual without incentives or a moral framework. Few ideas command such effortless global consensus as sustainability. From the annual pilgrimage to Davos to gatherings of the G20, BRICS, ASEAN, SAARC or the SCO, no conclave of world leaders now ends without solemn invocations of climate change and its looming toll on health, biodiversity, agriculture and growt