silk road Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
14 February 2017

Interweaving the old Cotton and Silk Routes

China’s resurrection of the ancient Silk Road is ambitious, sprawling, hegemonic. Its pre-European origins, though, lay in a criss-crossing of nameless caravan routes on which Indian cotton was traded as vigorously as Chinese silk, tangible proof of the interdependence of two ancient civilisations over two millennia

3W7A1100 Courtesy: Gateway House
14 February 2017

GOIGD 2017: Valedictory Address by Gen. (Retd) Dr. V.K. Singh

Hon'ble Gen. (Retd) Dr. V.K. Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs, Government of India delivered the Valedictory Address on Aligning Foreign Policy with Domestic Interests at India’s second Gateway of India Geoeconomic Dialogue conference in Mumbai, organised in association with the Ministry of External Affairs. Singh speech discussed the importance of the implementation of foreign and domestic policies to further domestic economic interests.

28912263963_0b75893744_h Courtesy: MEA/ Flickr
14 February 2017

Indo-Pacific: a scenario of possibilities

The Indo-Pacific region is home to some of the largest and most rapidly growing economies as also powerful military forces. Nuclear threats, international terrorism and climate change are some of the issues that define the region. Uncertainty dogs relations among the four nations in the top league—U.S., China, India and Japan—but what is emerging is a hawkish, policy stance from the U.S. as opposed to an isolationist outlook apprehended earlier

1200px-Malabar_07-2_exercise Courtesy: Wikipedia
14 February 2017

A democratic quadrilateral in Asia?

A strategic coming together of the U.S., Japan, Australia, and India was close to fruition some years ago, impelled initially by the tsunami of 2004. The spirit of the enterprise remains alive even now, and there are many merits in India joining the quad, but such an arrangement can skew existing Asian equations, jeopardising the Act East policy

3W7A0452 Courtesy: Gateway House
14 February 2017

Russia’s financial resiliency and capabilities

In this interview Anastasia Likhacheva discusses the impact and a few of the positive externalities of the oil price drop, sanctions and counter sanctions on the Russian economy. Despite Trump’s obvious warmth towards Russia, she doesn’t foresee any major agreements signed between the two countries due to the roadblocks that can be placed by the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate. She further describes the role she sees Russia undertaking in Asian financial institutions like the NDB and the AIIB in the future.

Neelam 1 Courtesy: Gateway House
25 January 2017

How Trump will reconfigure geopolitics

Ambassador Neelam Deo delivered this speech at the grand finale of ‘The Mind Games’ – a platform for talent development & idea generation at Mahindra Partners on January 18, 2017. Ambassador Deo’s speech focuses on the disruption of the post-Cold War global framework to be caused by Trump’s foreign policy changes

uae prince india Courtesy: MEA/Flickr
25 January 2017

India-UAE: time to foster mutual interests

The West Asian monarchies are being forced to ‘look East’ due to a range of factors: the rise of the Islamic State, their need to boost falling oil revenues and doubts about the United States continuing to remain a guarantor of regional stability. Quite coterminously, India is looking towards the Gulf for energy security besides fulfilling other geostrategic goals: this is an ‘East’ and ‘West’ where the ‘twain will meet

31668713074_d6ee271be8_k Courtesy: MEA flickr
25 January 2017

Revisiting India’s ‘Link West’ policy

The choice of the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to be the chief guest at India’s 2017 Republic Day celebrations is an indication of the enhanced attention that the Indian government is according the Gulf countries. Many trade interests ally India to the UAE, but a deeper engagement is called for even as instability grows in the region