Courtesy: Körber-Stiftung
The third Emerging Middle Powers Report reveals interesting trends. In every recent year, the five countries surveyed – India, Germany, South Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia – have been tested by events to prove they can prevail over the contested terrain of global politics. A pattern has emerged linking them together: non-alignment is their preferred response to a fragmenting order.
Courtesy: X/@IndiainZimbabwe
Africa is central to India’s foreign policy, a priority expected to be reaffirmed at the upcoming India–Africa Forum Summit. The much-anticipated event will focus on deepening economic partnerships and expanding strategic cooperation. Ahead of the summit, it is necessary to take stock of the current state of the continental engagement, particularly in trade, investment, technology, and capacity-building.
Courtesy: The Hindu
India and Africa together represent nearly a third of humanity, making deeper ties a strategic priority. However, the partnership faces multiple challenges: growing competition in Africa; limited interest within Indian diplomacy, business, and media; instability across parts of the continent; and inadequate financial resources for development co-operation. As the fourth IAFS progresses, both must adopt a holistic and forward-looking approach anchored in both realism and shared historical ties.
Courtesy: REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya
As India readies for the India-Africa Summit, it is worth understanding the realism present at the recent Africa Forward summit in Nairobi with France. Paris acknowledges Africa’s geographic shift beyond Francophone Africa, its economic and technological aspirations, and African agency. However the ambitions of the Summit are still constrained by structural legacies, credibility challenges, and intensifying global competition.
Courtesy: Gateway House
The Fourth India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS-IV) will take place in New Delhi from May 28-31, 2026. It is being held at a time when Africa has actively engaged with several other major partners, placing high expectations on India. Over the last 18 years, the India-Africa partnership has had ambitious goals and some outcomes across diplomacy, trade, education, capacity building, health, and infrastructure development. This will deepen.
Courtesy: PIB
Africa has been increasingly drawn into conflicts and faces difficulty in preventing or managing them. At the Fourth India-Africa Forum Summit to be held on May 28-31, India can announce assistance to the continent in capacity-building in training, logistics, and technology. India-Africa defence industrial cooperation, particularly in affordable equipment and maintenance capabilities tailored to African conditions, will align with its evolving needs.
Courtesy: Gateway House
The Arctic region is at the crossroads of the dramatic environmental shifts and heightened conflict that are shaping global politics today. In the region, major geopolitical events and enduring rivalries necessitate a logic of competition, yet coordination on transboundary issues remains important. This echoes the challenges facing oceans, ecosystems and planetary problems in global governance more broadly, in which political efforts yield frustratingly incremental, yet indispensable, results.
Courtesy: Gateway House
Once central to global strategic discourse, the Indo-Pacific and Africa have been sidelined amid the “Age of Polycrisis,” as attention shifts to crises in Europe and West Asia. While India has long expressed goodwill toward Africa, recent regional tensions have pushed the continent off its strategic radar. Renewed India–Africa cooperation is essential to advancing the agenda of the Global South and strengthening South–South partnerships.
Courtesy: Ingram Pinn
Multipolarity indicates who holds power, while multilateralism is about how states choose to cooperate. In today’s world, power is diffusing and interdependence is deepening simultaneously. A multipolar world creates fluid alignments and strategic competition, but multilateralism manages interdependence through rules and institutions. The world is becoming both, simultaneously, requiring states to manage competition, preserve cooperation, and stabilise an increasingly complex global landscape. That is easier said.
Courtesy: Getty Images
The U.S. demand for Greenland for security purposes, has alarmed Europe enough for talk of Article 5 of NATO’s collective defence agreement to be put on the discussion table. But can NATO survive without Article 5? And can Article 5 survive without the U.S. defence cover for Europe?