About Gateway House

India is poised to play a transformative role in globalisation and world affairs, whilst simultaneously faced with extraordinary problems – terrorism, internal strife, a hostile neighbourhood, poverty and a youthful population with high aspirations. Indian business, with its increasing global footprint, has been leading diplomacy for at least a decade, but neither have business nor government leveraged it to India’s advantage. Mumbai is the home to India’s top businesses but lacks a platform to inform and influence foreign policy in New Delhi and around the world. An institute based in Mumbai, the country’s financial centre, will act as that vital intersection between business and foreign policy.

Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations is a foreign policy think-tank established in 2009, to engage India’s leading corporations and individuals in debate and scholarship on India’s foreign policy and its role in global affairs. Gateway House’s studies programme will be at the heart of the institute’s scholarship, with original research by global and local scholars in geo-economics, geopolitics, foreign policy analysis, bilateral relations, democracy and nation-building, national security, ethnic conflict and terrorism, science, technology and innovation, and energy and environment.

The Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations endeavour began in New York at the Council on Foreign Relations. Manjeet Kripalani, the Council’s 2006-07 Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow there, became inspired by the Council’s quest, and by its scholarly capabilities. India – in particular Mumbai – on the rise economically but caught in a geopolitical mesh, needed a similar institute to help engage citizens and corporations in foreign policy. Indian business had been leading diplomacy for over a decade, but had never leveraged that strength – neither had the Indian government. Upon her return to Mumbai in July 2007, Manjeet, concept paper in hand, called on the city’s businessmen. She targeted companies which had over 40% exports, thinking they would be more interested in foreign policy.

In March 2011, Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations was certified under section 80-G of the Income Tax Act, granting the institution tax-exempt status. Our original certificate can be found here.