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Europe needs to set aside talk of populism because it becomes an obstacle in evaluating what’s at stake. For Europe’s competitiveness in the world, it requires states that are fashioned or refashioned as sovereign states in individual countries as economic actors. A big problem these states will be facing is the unemployment issue, with technological transformation displacing large numbers of jobs in industry and the service sector. In the case of Europe, this would also mean a loss of its status as the prime market for goods, a destination for global connections.

Manjeet Kripalani (MK): Good afternoon, we are very pleased to have Dr Huricihan Islamoglu, who is Professor of Economic History at Bogaziçi University, Istanbul. Dr. Islamoglu has studied and taught on both sides of the Atlantic and has been analysing the European and Atlantic project for decades.

Dr Islamoglu was also a Gateway House visiting fellow during 2016 – an interesting time in Turkey’s security when there was an attempted coup against President Erdogan and a moment in India’s political and economic journey when the country conducted the experiment with demonetisation.

MK: The world is going through so much turmoil, and maybe when you came 10 years ago, that was the beginning of the change that manifested itself and is now visible as a full-blown transformation. The year 2016 was the hinge year in world affairs, when Donald Trump was elected President of the U.S. and when the accepted politics, economics, and security scenario began to change.

MK: The dramatic transformation that is playing out before us is that of the Europe project, which is on fire. What is your view? Is it happening in Europe, and what will be its likely fate?

In the Americas – North and South – how do you see their political trajectory, and what can we expect from the dramatic shifts taking place? Finally, there is Eurasia, which is shaping up as the new centre of connectivity for trade, energy, and human services. How is that formation being cast?

Huricihan Islamoglu (HI): Europe started as a market project. It was essentially an American project. In the post-World War period, America needed an outlet for its surplus consumer goods.

The American economy, during the war, was geared towards the production of weapons. When the war ended, the high productive capacity of the industry was diverted to the production of consumer goods, resulting in overproduction. Europe was the most appropriate channel for the surplus, really, with compatible human capital and compatible tastes and values.

American corporations also favoured Europe as a venue for investments. Contrary to the common understanding that American corporations preferred underdeveloped markets, in reality, during the post-war period, they really preferred Europe with its skilled labour and common cultural premises. Therefore, Europe had to be constructed as a market project, as a single market.

The Marshall Plan was important in this as it provided funds for Europe’s economic recovery. And Europe started to come back. Especially in Germany, industries destroyed by the war started to come back. The 1951 European Coal and Steel Community declared the common market for the two inputs essential for industrial development.

Germany in the seventies and eighties was developing into a major industrial power. The Bretton Woods agreement, signed in 1944, enabled fixed exchange rates and pegged the dollar to gold.^[1] It also provided the financial infrastructure for America’s trade with Europe in consumer goods and for investments by American corporations.

It should be remembered that the post-war era until the end of the USSR in 1989 was also the period of the Cold War. The fact that Germany, following its defeat in the Second World War, was not allowed to build an army meant that its security was underwritten by the U.S., a factor that contributed to the exclusive channelling of incoming funds toward economic development. In this period, Germany was also building its welfare state with high levels of social spending (in competition with socialist East Germany), sustained by high taxation levels, a development which has now become a liability when the economy is contracting.

This happy state of affairs in the post-war period was disrupted. The financial infrastructure provided by Bretton Woods collapsed in 1971, when President Nixon went off the gold standard. The American economy began to go into debt in the seventies. The Great Society projects of President Lyndon Johnson, the Vietnam War, etc., took a toll, and America could no longer have a stable dollar. At that time, U.S. President Richard Nixon’s Treasury Secretary John Connely  said to his European counterparts at the G-10 meeting in Rome in 1971, “The dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem.”

So, it became a European problem. Subsequently, it became a world problem.

Today, we’re facing that issue. The dominant economy in the world is no longer a surplus economy; it is heavily in debt. The American dollar as a universal currency is no longer a stable means of exchange in the global economy. For Europe, a stable currency was a precondition for the post-war trading environment among different countries as well as for trade with the U.S.

This was the eighties and nineties. Led by big corporations, the global economy grew, and Europe affected its own unification in 1993 following the adoption of a single currency at Maastricht. Instead of relying on the financial architecture provided by Bretton Woods, Europe, now the European Union, had a single currency, which stabilised exchange relations among its different states.

Now, this European financial architecture proved to be problematic in a number of ways. But how problematic was not visible when the global economy was growing in the nineties.

Between 1997 and 2007, until the financial crisis, was the golden age of Europe. This was the peak of European industrial development, especially in Germany. German cars, small and economical, were on American highways until that dominance was first challenged by the Japanese and subsequently by the production of smaller American cars. Nevertheless, this period was really a golden age for Europe until the financial crisis of 2007-08.

That crisis led to the questioning of the financial architecture introduced by the Maastricht Treaty. It also needs to be underlined that this was a crisis of the developed world, of developed economies, the sort where the Global South was not really affected, or only indirectly affected, by suffering its aftershocks.

With the crisis, the unsustainability of the financial architecture provided by Maastricht became evident. This is how it worked. Under the Maastricht Treaty, there was a separation of monetary policy from the fiscal policies of individual states.

Monetary policy became the domain of the European Central Bank (ECB). Fiscality, of course, is the domain of individual states. But this separation literally crippled the states because states could no longer control their money.

When, for instance, Britain left the union, the primary argument was, We want to control our money. What does it mean, controlling the money? For instance, if there are high levels of debt, as European countries have now, they want to increase their exports. In order to increase exports, they have to devalue their currency so cheaper goods can find customers in the global markets. But under the Maastricht architecture, it is not possible to do this because European countries have no control over their money.

Their money is controlled by the ECB and through networks of global central banks. I remember at one point in Turkey, talking to central bankers, I was told that they saw more people from other central banks than they did their own bureaucrats in Turkey. So, there was a camaraderie, so to speak, among the central bankers worldwide.

This was true not only for Europe but throughout the world through the adoption of the Washington Consensus or, simply, market reform packages introduced by the IMF and the World Bank. The issue was policy packages of trade liberalisation and privatisation worldwide. The single currency in Europe, made possible by Maastricht, and the global network of autonomous central banks were part of the liberation of money – removing it from the domination of individual states and making it part of the economy or joining it with the world of commodities. Following the financial crisis and a decade later, in 2020, the COVID crisis, states in developed Western economies went further into debt, and the financial architecture of Maastricht and that of the global economy under the domination of the U.S. were questioned. This was happening in a context of slow economic growth and escalating societal unrest.

Such questioning was due to institutional fault lines in Western economies as much as to developments in the global economy at large, especially to unprecedented growth rates elsewhere, most notably in China and India. Often leading to the use of multiple currencies in global trade.

Back to the present state of affairs, actors in the global economy, states, and corporations are looking for institutional solutions to ease financial transactions beyond those provided by the Washington Consensus and the EU. In this context, as individual states are taking charge of their trade policy and fashioning industrial policy that is in tune with trade policy, they are willing to try out multiple currencies, including their domestic currencies as well as new currencies in global trade, often bypassing the dollar.

Because as much as the American economy has been in debt, the dollar continued to be the dominant means of exchange and was weaponised in the struggle to maintain its dominance in different parts of the world, as was the case in Afghanistan, where the U.S. withheld the country’s dollar reserves in the U.S. banks at a time when the country was in the grip of a famine following the Taliban takeover in 2021.^[2] Similarly, the U.S. refuses to let go of Russian dollar reserves as punishment for the Russian invasion of Crimea. These actions did not stop individual countries from conducting their trade in alternative currencies, as we know, and from competition from the Chinese yuan.

MK: What role did China play in contributing to this? Because it has hastened this moment, especially where the European project is struggling.

HI: When the Western developed economies were struggling with these issues, we had the unprecedented growth of the Chinese economy. Simply put, European economies are unable to compete with China in global markets. The reason, according to some economists, is that European industries and corporation, during its golden age between 1997 and 2007, did not really invest in innovations, in innovating their production systems, or in the development of new products.

The corporate profits of European companies were largely channelled into Wall Street, London, into the stock market, and into financial markets. This is especially true in the case of the German automotive sector, which in the nineties and in the 2000s turned to cheap labour markets in China and invested there for the production of parts.

This was the period of boom for the German industry. On the Chinese side, this was a time of building capacity, absorbing the know-how of European enterprises, and enjoying government subsidies. Afterwards, Chinese exports came into the global markets, threatening European exports. There is this new model of Asian industrial development, subsequently formalised by the Korean economist Keun Lee of Seoul National University. The model presupposed an initial period of exposure to the global market at the lowest level of value chains, to be followed by a period of withdrawal and consolidation of the learning acquired in the first phase, as well as of infusion of government assistance. In the third phase, the enterprise has acquired innovative production capacity to make it competitive in global markets.

And when we look at the Chinese economy and its actors, we shouldn’t just look at the major corporations and the state-owned and the private companies but also at the millions and millions of small enterprises which are linked to the big corporations, constituting extensive and highly complex networks of production. These smaller enterprises, individually or jointly, could also venture into global trade, especially investing in regional or domestic trade. It was very difficult, really, for Europe, as well as for America, to compete with Chinese networks of production, both linked to big corporate bodies or acting independently of them.

The absence of an extensive and competitive production network is one factor which largely figures in the inability of European economies to compete in global markets.

Returning to the institutional fault lines of Europe, rather than the EU. We identify two such fault lines: One is about the institutional separation of monetary policy from state fiscal policy, which we already talked about; it led to crippling states from intervening in the economy to increase their export competitiveness in the face of Chinese competition. Such a separation prevented individual states from developing an industrial policy – which is becoming a major concern in individual countries if they are to compete in the global economy.

This focus on industrial policy is a departure from the globalisation era of the eighties and nineties, until 2007, when trade policy and global integration through trade were priorities. It assumed production to be the prerogative of developed Western economies and the rest of the world was to be integrated into the Western production centres, providing those centres with markets for their manufactured goods and for their capital investments, and supplying Western industries with cheap labour as well as with food and raw materials. Indeed, there was a flavour of the Western empires of the late 19^th century!

Globalisation had the unintended consequence of a diffusion of industrial capacity, with industrial economies from the North and South competing in the global markets.

When we are talking about the current crisis of Europe, we are talking about the state of the European economy in the post-globalisation context of the global economy. This is a context in which industrial policy, and the ability of individual economies to compete in global export markets, are defining features, and states are, in this new context, in the process of transforming (albeit painfully) into actors – both political and economic- in support of industrial, export-oriented economies.

MK: What are the other fault lines in today’s Europe?

HI: The second fault line is the democracy deficit, the lack of representation on the part of societal actors (especially those other than global corporate actors and their domestic linkages) in the decision-making processes.

EU governance, as well as the governance of the global economy within the framework of the Washington Consensus, primarily relied on experts or non-elected officials. This was ruled by non-representative experts, such as the European Commission, which is a body of experts. The European Parliament is not a decision-making body but a consultative institution. Instead, what people or different groups, workers, peasants, and students want is to have a say, really, in the making of rules, which determine the conditions of their social and economic existence.

EU governance, as well as the governance of the global economy within the framework of the Washington Consensus, primarily relied on experts or non-elected officials… like the European Commission, which is a body of experts. The European Parliament is not a decision-making body but a consultative institution.

The issue is the social unaccountability of the expert bodies which make up the EU governance. Existing rules of the Union, a prime example being the Common Agricultural Policy, largely address the concerns of big corporations, agribusiness, and marginalising small producers. The Common Agricultural Policy absorbs nearly half of the EU budget, with the biggest share of subsidies going to big agricultural corporations.

There is also the issue of law and its unaccountability. Decisions of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) are binding in the individual societies that make up the Union, and these decisions have priority ( principle of primacy or principle of supremacy) over national laws of individual states or the decisions of national courts or judges with respect to cases where the law of the Union coincides with the national law. This is true in the case of human rights laws. That is, EU law takes precedence over national law, including legislation and national constitutions. The tension between the EU and national laws is demonstrated in the ongoing crisis in Poland triggered by the attempt of the prime minister (representing the EU camp) to remove from the Constitutional Tribunal two judges defending the sovereignty of national law.

So, there’s the governance issue (referring both to the regulations of the Commission and the decisions of the ECJ) and the deficiency of representation in both institutions, a democratic deficiency, which translates into inequalities in income and wealth within the eurozone, with EU elites facing populations in individual states which are excluded from the enchanted sphere of the EU and for whom the states in debt and/or paralysed otherwise can do little.

These fault lines were first revealed following the financial crisis of 2007-08 and the COVID crisis, leading to the debt crisis of individual states, an EU economy unable to compete in the global economy. Neither the EU nor the individual states are able to effect any change, as EU governance separates the economy from the political will of individual societies; the individual states, though, may be possessed of political will, are shut off from the economy to respond to the demands of different social groups.

The daily problems of European governance stare us from TV screens, on the streets in the cities in France now, and elsewhere in Italy, Germany, and the protests on the streets by different groups – farmers, students, workers. There is overall dissatisfaction; there is unemployment resulting from factory closures due to inability to compete in export markets as well as from technological transformation; there’s the question of insufficient government funding in secondary and higher education; reaction to immigration from the Global South. Immigrants are viewed as competition for state funding in social services, and in the labour markets as pulling wages down. Government debt in major European states (except for Germany) has skyrocketed, with consequences for inflation. Total government debt for the entire Euro region has reached 88.7%  of GDP.

Extreme right parties in individual countries are gaining ground and moving to the centre: they demand distancing from the EU; express dissatisfaction with big corporations; advocate an end to government spending, to immigration, for lower gas prices, and to end the war with Russia. What we see is a Europe, politically and socially, on the brink of radical transformations. One could say that in the highly competitive global economic context, the project for a united Europe as an actor in the present global market context does not seem to be sustainable economically and politically. The EU, as it is, is not able to make effective economic policy, compete in global markets, and ensure social and political stability in the individual countries of the euro zone.

What we are seeing is, sort of, the bare outlines of individual economies increasingly freeing themselves from the EU’s financial and governance architecture but with close ties in economic cooperation, in trade and industrial production.

MK: Across the Atlantic, over to the Americas, is also seeing dramatic changes. In both North and South America, the political trajectory is changing. What can we expect from those shifts?

HI: We need to evaluate the present state of affairs in South America in the post-globalisation context of the global economy. This context is one of intensified competition in export markets alongside the transformation of states as active facilitators of this process, involving the role of investors in enterprises, funding infant industries, and facilitating access of enterprises to export markets. In the era of globalisation, the South American economies formed a regional economic union, Mercosur (in 1991), responding to the introduction of market reforms dictated by the Washington Consensus, providing unbounded opening of individual economies to the activities and exploitation of multinational corporations. This had dire consequences in the form of unsustainable inequalities and impoverishment of large segments of the population.

Alongside Mercosur, in the nineties into 2000, South America witnessed the coming to power of a series of social democratic governments responding to the devastation caused by the opening of individual economies to the free exploitation by multinational corporations. ‘Chavismo,’ named after Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, was part of that reaction to the unbounded free-tradeism of the eighties and nineties in South America. Chavez, from 1998 until his death in 2013, diverted revenues from the country’s rich oil resources to education and health services and to development projects in Venezuela and elsewhere in South America.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Donroe Doctrine, after the Monroe Doctrine of the 1820s towards the region, especially the dramatic capture and removal from office of Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and appropriation of oil wells in that country, can be seen in the context of his challenge to the left-leaning ‘populist’ regimes in South America. The Venezuela affair was also about demonstrating the technological and military prowess of the U.S. and telling the world, especially to the Chinese (with a significant stake in Venezuela’s oil), that the U.S. was still interested in South America.

On the other hand, Lula da Silva’s win in the recent elections in Brazil – notwithstanding the significant support given to Lula’s opposition by the Trump administration – shows that in South America the U.S. no longer has the final say. Lula is one of the left-wing populist leaders Trump is targeting, and Trump’s high tariffs did not deter large segments of the Brazilian population from voting for Lula, who reacted by reaching out to BRİCS (established in 2006), a power centre in the global economy. In so doing, Lula confirmed Brazil’s position in the global economy and not just as an actor in South America and therefore subject to Trump’s Donroe Doctrine. His appeal was part of a broader demand for a multipolar world, where the dollar will not be dominant, and where the Global South will have a say in the governance of the global economy.

Mercosur, the South American trade and customs bloc, since the early 2000s, has become a major target of the competition in global trade, with China surpassing the U.S. as the region’s biggest trading partner ($518 billion). China buys raw materials and minerals, including lithium, soybeans, and crude oil, primarily from Brazil, Venezuela, and Peru; it sells to these countries and others high-technology industrial goods and electric vehicles. Notwithstanding the discontents of globalisation, in the nineties into the 2000s, the Mercosur economies grew, also providing a big market for imports for a variety of products from different world regions, including India and Turkey.

The Donroe Doctrine also sought to respond to the other ways China entrenched itself in the Mercosur region through the extension of state-to-state loans, through the building of infrastructure for the Belt and Road İnitiative especially through the building of communication networks of roads and ports. In other words, despite pronouncements that China is there only for economic relations, the Chinese government is deeply involved with individual states and in their politics.

Trump’s response to such involvement has taken the form of supporting so-called right-wing ‘populist’ regimes, making sure they come to power in individual countries. More precisely,

Trump’s favoured regimes in South America and elsewhere a- are those of strongmen compliant with his dictates (and to those U.S. companies and investments) and ideologically leaning to the right. Most notable among these are Javier Milei in Argentina and Daniel Noboa in Ecuador, and recently conservative populist strongmen are also running in Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. In contrast to the former military regime of the sixties and seventies, which had the backing of the U.S. government and multinational companies, the present strongmen represent elected governments and operate within constitutional frameworks, though they are often criticised for violations of democratic principles.

MK: How is populism a description of present state regimes in South America?

HI: Populism is a difficult term. It does not necessarily identify an ideological orientation, though it is increasingly associated with right–wing ideologies with nationalism, laden with implicit and explicit references to the rise of the Nazi Party in 1930s Germany through democratic elections. It also refers to the dominance of a strongman rhetorically appealing to masses of the population while having the backing of capitalist corporations. In the free-trade environment of the early 21^st century,  populism as a term was embraced by the mainstream media, speaking to corporate concerns, to describe interventions in markets by states in favour of certain groups in society – for instance, introducing a minimum wage for workers or state spending for social services.

To my mind, ‘populism’ is not very useful terminology to describe the transformations in the government of the global economy or to describe the emerging sovereign governments of the post-globalisation era. Here we are talking about decision-making bodies in the global economy consisting of big corporations and other similar governments ensuring the development of industrial economies competitive in global markets while speaking to the concerns of groups in national or domestic societies (workers, peasants, the retired, students and others).

Seeing to all this has not been easy; the new sovereign bodies are in the process of finding their institutional bearings (rules are made and unmade continually). Social disruptions and numerous regional wars witnessed worldwide indicate that we are far from the making of sustainable order in the global economy nor in individual societies to put an end to inequalities and the resulting class wars. In the global economy, multiple regional wars are instigated by big corporate interests for access to valuable resources, such as the ongoing conflicts in the Congo, West Africa, as well as Sudan.

The terminology of populism tends to obscure what is actually taking place in the global economy or what is emerging as new ways of governing that economy and the individual societies, the new politics, and its new actors, including domestic ones.

It is also erroneous to identify the new sovereign governments with the current Asian central party states in Asia and to turn them into ideal types in what government should be like in the post-globalisation era. This is especially true in the case of the Chinese state formation, which itself is also undergoing significant transformations, responding to the turmoil in the global economy and domestically.

Worldwide, we seem to be at a juncture where all actors are looking for institutional solutions. Among such solutions is the emergence of individual industrial economies in competition with each other and the making of regional and trans-regional units in the global economy, including the Mercosur and the BRICS as islands of cooperation in global competition. It needs to be underlined that the development of sovereign governments, not at the bidding of powerful corporations, with grounding in domestic societies, is part of the history of the global economy. Each government, as well as the individual industrial economies they steer, will be shaped by the politics of the regions they are in, by the challenges they face, and by the struggles among them in the global economy and in the domestic societies.

Latin America, as elsewhere in Asia and the Middle East, is experiencing the unravelling of the global economy which, in the nineties until the 2007-8 financial crisis, was held together by the dominance of the American dollar, by sheer power of the American military opening new markets for corporate investment and trade. This notwithstanding the fact that Bretton Woods was undermined and the U.S. government is in serious debt. As long as the U.S. was strong militarily, the dollar could serve as a unifying factor.

Growth trends of the nineties and 2000s worldwide also led those actors in areas previously outside of the orbit of developed economies to explore possibilities of industrial development and to move up the ladder of global value chains previously occupied by big multinational corporations. The new industrial economies (including those belonging to BRICS and outside of it) entered into bilateral trading relations using domestic currencies (yuan, rupees), opening the door for the use of multiple currencies in global transactions, by-passing the dollar.

Criticism of the governance model which gave us the free-trade ‘globalisation’ and favoured big corporations and big banks – is now giving way to understandings of sovereign governments of individual industrial economies that are competitive in the global market while addressing domestic interests. Such conceptions of the government of industrial economies competing in global markets while, at the same time, rooted domestically, have been met with allegations of populism by the corporate world, and especially by their media outlets.

But the corporations that ruled the world, which we saw at Davos, no longer do. Davos has sort of unravelled. The idea of Davos was superseded, as these other development islands emerged. It’s multiple development islands, as opposed to a single island of development located in the West, and emanating from the West, through investments, through the circulation of goods and services, from the West.

The Global South had emerged to challenge the domination of global corporations, global banks, and financial institutions. (The challenge to the latter takes the form of multiple currencies). The challenge to corporate domination also took the form of new ways of governing the global economy. Will this give us the rise of sovereign, representative governments with strong ties to the global economy and to individual societies? That challenge presupposes a priority of industrial policy, of creating an industrial economy competitive in global markets and setting the terms of trade in those markets rather than being subjected to the terms of that trade. That also gives us a world in which boundaries between North and South are increasingly being erased.

MK: This brings us to exactly where you are, sitting, on the Bosphorus River, in Eurasia. Given how Europe is getting disconnected, and West Asia is now going to be in the process of remaking itself, is Eurasia the new centre of connectivity for trade, energy, and human services? How is that mapping itself out?

HI: Connectivity is a concept we need to problematize. Yes, as you suggested, thinking about connectivity in relation to what’s happening in this part of the world, which I would call Middle Eurasia, the world from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean-we need to look at the processes through which the region is remaking itself.

First, some clarification about terminology. Middle East or West Asia are generally used to designate this region. Both terminologies hark back to the time of Western interests in the area. The Middle East is a term for oil, which was first used in 1900 by an American captain, Alfred Thayer Mahan, who first wrote about it in London’s National Review, at a time when the new resource – oil – had been discovered in Iraq at the end of the 19th century. And he used this term, “the rich oil resources of the Middle East,” he said in his article.^[3] So the Middle East is a very tricky term.^[4]

Regarding connectivity in Middle Eurasia: In the 1990s, at the peak of the globalization era, with the Belt and Road Initiative of China, connectivity was about connecting China to Europe. That is changing now. Americans are interfering in the region heavily. They are competing for connectivity with the Chinese, so thethe region is becoming an arena of competition over connectivity between China and Trump’s U.S.  You can view the Iranian war in this context.

The connectivity issue in both cases is an outside project. Just as Europe was an American project, the connectivity project was first introduced by China to reach European markets, and is now being taken over by the Americans to block China’s reach to export markets, to throttle Iran, to undermine Russian influence in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, and finally, to facilitate Israel‘s access to this area rich in resources and a potential market for weapons.

But what does connectivity imposed from outside mean for the powers on the ground? When we look at their economies, like China and India, in this geography, India has found its own trajectory of industrial development. Turkey is more problematic because in the global markets, its products are increasingly wiped out by Chinese competition.

Also, as Turkey is closely linked to European economies through value chains, the weakness of the European economy is reflected in Turkey, its competitiveness, etc. The only way Turkey has tried to bypass the non-competitiveness of the European economies is through arms production, which forms the field in which Turkey has certain autonomy in taking the initiative in introducing new technologies, freeing itself from the dictates of European value chains.

The concentration in Turkey in war industries is good and bad. Good in the sense that it is a sort of independent, autonomous domain of development, which allows the Turkish economy to distance itself from the European decay. At the same time, it requires markets. So far, the region has provided ample markets for Turkish arms, Turkish drones, and other weaponry in wars in Sudan, in Yemen, in Iran, and until recently in Syria.

What are all these wars for? This region is a battlefield. The area between the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, and the Indian Ocean. There’s conflict on the border between India and China, India and Pakistan. There’s a war in Iran. There’s a war in Yemen, Oman, and Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. It goes on and on.

These, mostly proxy wars, are fights over control of strategically important territory or passageways for global trade, as has been the case in Yemen and the Persian Gulf. They, for the most part, represent struggles for dominance of regional states e.g., Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Israel, and India, in the region.

The issue here is whether or not intra-regional connectivity could be the wave of the future. Most economies in the region, like in Iraq and Syria, have been wiped out by earlier wars. They’re trying to emerge from the destruction of the previous wars of the nineties, which were wars initiated by the demands of big corporations in the region. In Iraq, oil companies wanted access to Iraqi oil, and it resulted in the invasion by the American army and its allies in 2003 Syrian war (2013) was part of the American attempt to root out Russian presence in the region as well as the Iranian proxies.

That was the story of the 1990s and early 2000s. Now Iraq and Syria are barely coming to their own. The three major economies -India, Turkey, and Israel- are distancing themselves from the Western economies and are competing for dominance over the region. Israel is , of course, which is in a unique position; it is both a sort of foothold of the West but increasingly trying to establish itself as a regional power, distancing itself from the U.S., given the fickle nature of the U.S. and Europe and the fickle nature of those economies in crisis. Turkey, similarly, is trying, as is India, to build a regional power base. The attempt by the Turkish and Iraqi governments to connect the Indian Ocean economies to the eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia via the Development Corridor has been a casualty of the war waged by Israelis and Americans against Iran. Turkey, having assisted in installing the present Syrian government following a ten-year-long civil war with millions of people displaced or dead, is an important actor in the rebuilding of the Syrian economy.

Also, since the 1990s into the  2000s, Turkey has become an energy hub with pipelines from Russia and from Azerbaijan connecting to European markets and supplying Turkey with cheaper oil. Turkey is also accessing some of its oil reserves in the Black Sea as well as competing with Israel and with Greece and Egypt for reserves in the eastern Mediterranean.

The issue here is whether or not the intra-regional connectivities could be the wave of the future. We have attempts towards economies of connectivity ( BRI, Trump Corridor), seemingly outside projects. Will the regional powers be able to appropriate these projects for their own purposes,  for the construction of new economies, led by sovereign governments?

A new model is emerging worldwide, over the model of economic development we have known under globalisation, ruled by big corporations and states in assistance of big corporate bodies. We’re moving away from that. It’s not that big corporations have disappeared from the scene; they’re very much there, but they’re there now with a host of other enterprises, an entire sector of enterprises engaging with new technologies. These enable the entry of new enterprises into global markets, especially in arms production.

MK: That is a vast sweep of what is going on in the world and how the European project has reached its current impasse. We wind up by going back to Europe. Are we going to see the EU break up into the old parts of Europe again? And what will be the lessons learned?

HI: Not so many lessons learned, but it was a sort of phase. It appears as if we won’t have that kind of free rein of corporate power again. Because, first of all, it’s socially and politically unsustainable. We can’t ignore that anymore. That free rein of corporate power was sort of brutally blind to what was happening in society. To human beings and human elements outside of this economy, the boundaries of which were defined by corporations themselves. It was a sort of definition of the economy, which includes the corporations themselves and the service sector, which facilitated their existence worldwide. That was a unique moment.

At the same time, that moment coincided with unprecedented levels of growth with the outcome of these new development islands. We talk about the negative side a lot, but the positive side is the rise of China; it’s the rise of India, even Turkey and Brazil, etc. They were not there before. They were just the Global South, which meant subservience to developed Western economies. So there’s no going back. History never goes back. We have to live with the consequences of that, good and bad. Now we are in a new era. And in this new era, the governance of both the global and individual economies is important, as are sovereign governments which are not entirely subservient to big corporations.

The European states are not a sort of revival of the old states. They have been changing. We’re not going to see a revival of the welfare states. Though the intellectual reflex seems to be likely going back to the old Keynesian states with their ample social policy measures.

Even the Chinese themselves are presently considering Keynesian social policy measures responding to the emerging crisis of unemployment among university graduates and to the exigencies of an ageing population. It is not clear whether or not such policies can be sustainable in the long term. Can the states, including the Chinese state, afford such spending?

States are in debt now. For the French state, 119% of GDP is debt. For Germany, it’s a little less, around 60%. But in Italy, it’s 114%, and for the overall Eurozone, that level is something like 88.8% of GDP. These are high debt levels.

We’re not talking about spending states anymore. We’re talking about states which are economic actors. They buy equities in companies. Trump has been doing this. He bought equity for the American government in Intel.  And this is not only to encourage corporations and increase their profits. With the rich so powerful and possessed of diverse ways and means of avoiding taxes, the states have to be earners.

The economy and state as economic partners – that dimension is becoming important. A new kind of state is in the making: the state as managers of the economy, as economic actors. This is a new configuration. But the question is: will the state, in its role as manager, as governor of the economy, reach out to different sectors in society- workers, peasants, the poor, students and how?

What will happen to Europe? Europe needs to set aside talk of populism because it becomes an obstacle in evaluating what’s at stake; it blocks out a serious discussion about the new state.

For Europe’s competitiveness in the world, it requires states that are fashioned or refashioned as sovereign states in individual countries as economic actors. For instance, one big problem these states will be facing is the unemployment issue with technological transformation, recently AI, displacing large numbers of jobs in industry and in the service sector. In the case of Europe, this would also mean a loss of its status as the prime market for goods and a destination for global connections.

Europe has a lot to overcome.

Huricihan Islamoglu is a Professor of Economic History, Bogazici University, Istanbul, and a former visiting fellow at Gateway House.

Manjeet Kripalani is Executive Director, Gateway House.

This interview was conducted exclusively for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations, and has been edited and abridged for clarity and brevity. You can read more exclusive content here.

For permission to republish, please contact outreach@gatewayhouse.in

©Copyright 2026 Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. All rights reserved. Any unauthorised copying or reproduction is strictly prohibited.

References

[1] At $35 to an ounce of gold

[2] Deposited by central banks of different countries for purposes of exchange rate stabilisation, for international trade and debt regulation, among other ways of stabilizing the world economy under Bretton Woods agreements in the post-war period. Such practices were to be affected by the IMF.

[3] Koppes, Clayton R. ‘Captain Mahan, General Gordon, and the Origins of the Term ‘Middle East’.’ Middle Eastern Studies. Vol 12 (1). Jan 1976, Page no 95-98. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4282584

[4] Farrokh, Kaveh. ‘The term “Middle East”-Geopolitical invention?.’ Transanatolie. Accessed 5 November, 2026. https://www.transanatolie.com/english/turkey/In%20Brief/middle_east.htm.

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The state visit to Pakistan by the President of the Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, from October 20 to 22, 2026, has drawn considerable attention in India and elsewhere. ‘What is the Maldives up to?’ deserves an objective answer, set in the larger context of its role in the region’s evolving power dynamics.

A tiny country, with barely 300 km of land area,^[1] a population of half a million,^[2] and a nominal GDP of $8.5 billion,^[3] the Maldives is a cluster of 1,200 islands situated in the Indian Ocean.^[4] Governing it is a challenge, given the physical difficulty of connecting and delivering services to people living on far-flung islands. But the country has much going for it: a fiercely independent and proud people, a significant geostrategic location near vital sea lanes,  rich tourism opportunities, and abundant fisheries.

A critical look at Muizzu’s foreign policy since he took office in 2023 reveals that he continues to follow the ‘Maldives First’ aim to create and sustain as many international and regional partnerships as possible, without hurting the vital interests of any of its partners. It remains to be seen whether his latest outreach towards Pakistan will have negative implications for India.

But first, it is essential to chart the trajectory of Muizzu’s diplomacy over the past three years. The historical background is clear. Three of his predecessors – Maumoon Abdul Gayoom (1978–2008), Mohamed Nasheed (2008–2012), and Ibrahim Mohamed Solih (2018-2023)^[5] followed a largely India-centric strategy, giving primacy to a mutually beneficial and amicable partnership with India. The Presidency of Abdulla Yameen from 2013 to 2018, in contrast, is remembered for his strained and adversarial relationship with India.

Muizzu began on a negative note, driven by his ‘India Out’ campaign, demanding the withdrawal of a small contingent of Indian military personnel in the Maldives. In January 2024, he said that the Maldives respected and trusted India, while asserting that if Indian troops were not withdrawn from the Maldives, it will amount to disregarding the “democratic will” of the Maldivian people and would “imperil the future of democracy in the country”.^[6] India agreed, and in May 2024, it began withdrawing its military personnel and replaced them with technical personnel to operate the aviation platforms.^[7]

Instead of choosing India for his first visit abroad, Muizzu went to Türkiye first, in November 2023, and then to China in January 2024 and signed 20 agreements. In the same year, the Maldives and China released an action plan for building a ‘Comprehensive Strategic and Cooperative Partnership’ for 2024-2028.^[8][9]

After President Muizzu’s visit to China,  reality set in, bringing India’s centrality to the Maldives’ external relations to the fore. Malé realised that the expectations placed on China were unrealistic and that it could derive more tangible benefits from India alone. A positive phase in India-Maldives relations followed. Concrete gains and new agreements came after the External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s visit to the Maldives in August 2024, President Muizzu’s visit to India in October 2024 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Malé in July 2025.^[10][11]

Three factors led the Maldives to fall back on its traditional preference for a friendly India: first, the weight of a pro-India constituency within the Maldives. Second, the non-fulfilment of excessive expectations placed on China, and third, India’s patient and pragmatic handling of the Maldives file.

In recent years, relations with India have progressed well, with New Delhi stepping in to assist with a series of financial measures like currency swap facilities worth $400 million under the October 2024 agreement^[12] and continuing other forms of generous assistance such as extending credit lines amounting to $513 million.^[13]

However, recent developments in West Asia, especially the U.S.-Israel war against Iran, have unleashed new forces, creating fresh complications as well as some opportunities for the Maldives. Its inclination to connect with Islamic nations has always been present. This impulse may have grown stronger now, as neighbours like Saudi Arabia and the UAE face serious threats to their security and economic interests. Pakistan stepping in to help Saudi Arabia and forming the Mecca Pact with it and Türkiye in August 2026 has been a significant development for the Maldives. A mix of geography and Islamic affinity has shaped the course of the Maldives’ ties with Pakistan.

President Muizzu’s visit to Pakistan was the first by a  Maldivian President in 11 years. The Pakistani Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, last visited the Maldives in 2017.

First, as is normal on a state visit, Muizzu met the President and the Prime Minister, but he also met Field Marshal Asim Munir, the Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces, showing the Pakistani political elite’s full engagement in upgrading the relationship.

Second, PM Shehbaz Sharif briefed Muizzu on Pakistan’s positions on Jammu and Kashmir and the Indus Waters Treaty. Muizzu said nothing publicly on these issues but spoke of the Maldives’ commitment to playing a constructive and productive role in revitalising the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), including creating conditions to convene the summit at the earliest possible opportunity.^[14]

Third, the two sides signed  20 agreements, covering defence and maritime security, public administration and law enforcement, trade, economy and health, and education, environment and culture.^[15]

Fourth, the two governments set a target to increase trade from the current $13.9 million to $200 million over the next two years.

Fifth, Muizzu announced that Maldivian, the national airline, will soon start direct flights between Malé and Karachi.

Two motivations lie behind this project to upgrade bilateral cooperation on the 60^th anniversary of the diplomatic relations. First, a pressing political instinct to connect better with fellow Muslim countries, which appeals to Muizzu’s domestic constituency, and the presidential elections are barely two years away. Second, the desire to balance close relations with India by creating or expanding other options.

Seen this way, the Maldives is practising the policy of multi-alignment. In all fairness, no one should object. But given India’s immense stakes in the partnership with the Maldives, New Delhi needs to convey, once again, its clear-eyed expectation that the Maldives’ actions will not affect India’s security and vital economic interests. A foreign minister-level interaction in the near future will be an occasion for a candid conversation.

Finally, India should consider responding to the Maldives’ passion for regional groupings, including SAARC. It is already a member of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and the Colombo Security Conclave (CSC). Its role in these institutions should be given due recognition and encouragement. India should also devise, with some diplomatic imagination, a formula to bring the Maldives into the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) as an observer or guest. This will satisfy the Maldives’ need to belong to extended South Asia, given that its yearning for SAARC is unrealistic.

Rajiv Bhatia is a Distinguished Fellow at Gateway House and a former ambassador. He also served as Joint Secretary (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives) in the Ministry of External Affairs.

This article was exclusively written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. You can read more exclusive content here.

For permission to republish, please contact outreach@gatewayhouse.in. 

Support our work here.

© Copyright 2026 Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. All rights reserved. Any unauthorised copying or reproduction is strictly prohibited.

References:

^[1] Bhatia, Rajiv.’Maldives turns to India.’ Gateway House, October 17, 2024.https://www.gatewayhouse.in/maldives-turns-to-india/.

^[2] World Population Review. ‘Maldives Population 2026.’ Accessed 5 November, 2026. https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/maldives.

^[3] International Monetary Fund. ‘Maldives Datasets.’ Accessed 5 November, 2026. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/profile/MDV.

^[4] Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture, Republic of Maldives. ‘Atolls of Maldives.’ Accessed 5 November, 2026. https://www.atollsofmaldives.gov.mv/.

^[5]  The President’s Office, Republic of Maldives. ‘Former Presidents.’ Accessed 5 November, 2026. https://presidency.gov.mv/PO/FormerPresidents/10.

^[6] Parashar, Sachin. ‘India not withdrawing forces will imperial democracy in Maldives, defence ties will continue: President Muizzu.’ Times of India. 4 Jan, 2024. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/india-not-withdrawing-forces-will-imperil-democracy-in-maldives-defence-ties-will-continue-president-muizzu/articleshow/106523430.cms.

^[7] Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. ‘Transcript of Weekly Media Briefing By the Official Spokesperson.’ 9 May, 2024. https://www.mea.gov.in/media-briefings?dtl/37805/Transcript_of_Weekly_Media_Briefing_by_the_Official_Spokesperson_May_09_2024.

^[8] Bhatia, Rajiv. ‘Maldives’ pivot to China.’ Gateway House, 15 January, 2024. https://www.gatewayhouse.in/maldives-pivot-to-china/.

^[9] Bhatia, Rajiv. ‘Maldives’ pivot to China.’ Gateway House, 15 January 2024.

https://www.gatewayhouse.in/maldives-pivot-to-china/

^[10] Bhatia, Rajiv. ‘Maldives turns to India.’ Gateway House, 17 October 2024. https://www.gatewayhouse.in/maldives-turns-to-india/

^[11] Bhatia, Rajiv. ‘India-Maldives reset.’ Gateway House, 31 July, 2025. https://www.gatewayhouse.in/india-maldives-reset/

^[12] Reserve Bank of India. ‘RBI Enters into Currency Swap Agreement with Maldives Monetary Authority.’ 7 October, 2024. https://rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=58839

^[13] Reserve Bank of India. ‘Exim Bank’s GOI-supported Line of Credit (LOC) for Rs. 4,850 crores the Government of Maldives, for financing various development projects in Maldives.’ 23 September, 2026. https://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_CircularIndexDisplay.aspx?Id=13712

^[14] Atoll Times. ‘Pakistan raises India-related concerns in talks with Maldives.’ 21 October, 2026. https://atolltimes.mv/post/news/17479

^[15] Adhadhu. ‘Maldives and Pakistan ink 20 agreements, including military MoU’,  Adhadhu.com, 21 October 2026, https://adhadhu.com/88723.

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In a rare development, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited India from October 20 to 22, the second visit this year after his earlier trip in May. This time, however, it was in a different geography of India: Mumbai and Jamnagar, compared to Kolkata and Delhi previously.

Two photographs defined the contours of the second visit – one showing Rubio and U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor with India’s external affairs minister and foreign secretary in Mumbai, and the other showing the U.S. duo with Mukesh and Anant Ambani, Chief Managing Director and Executive Director, respectively, of Reliance Industries Limited, in Jamnagar. The second photo seemed to have drawn greater attention. This visit was no doubt about conventional diplomacy, but it was perhaps more about public diplomacy and economic diplomacy.

The visit was important because Rubio, besides being the secretary of state, is also the national security adviser and a potential Republican candidate for president or vice president in the 2028 elections. This time his meetings in India presented a chance to evaluate the trajectory of India-U.S. relations since the Trump administration began its second innings in January 2025.

In the background of steady bipartisan support for a strong India-U.S. partnership during the previous 25 years, optimism prevailed. Even before the second term began, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar confidently stated in November 2024 that while many countries were nervous about (a Trump-led) U.S., “India was not one of them.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington in February 2025 raised hopes that a natural convergence between ‘Make America Great Again’ (Maga) and ‘Make India Great Again’ (Miga) would bring the two countries closer together.

However, circumstances changed quickly. In the subsequent year-and-a-half, Washington and New Delhi drifted apart. They did not find themselves on the same page on a long list of issues, comprising the Pakistan, China, and Ukraine war; the Iran conflict; tariffs and trade deals; the visa question; Russian oil; the G20; BRICS; and the Global South-related issues.

Rubio’s visit in May 2026 helped somewhat in expanding mutual understanding on some of these issues. But since then, Washington and Beijing deepened their proximity, as exemplified by the Trump-Xi summit in September. Besides, the Graham Act 2026, additional restrictive measures on H-1B visas, and Trump’s continuing claim of ‘mediation’ that ended the India–Pakistan conflict, aggravated bilateral tensions.

The U.S. Embassy in Delhi must have been tired of frequent criticism in the Indian media in recent months and acted to counter it. The result: Indian experts had begun pointing to the glaring gulf between the Embassy’s positive projection of the relationship and Washington’s actions that seemed to hurt India. A good counter was to bring a familiar political heavyweight from the U.S. capital. And it so happened that Rubio was willing to find time, especially because the U.S. national interest dictated that deeper energy cooperation be developed between India and the U.S.

By choosing Mumbai and Jamnagar for his itinerary, the U.S. side succeeded in focusing attention on a whole range of issues relating to trade, investment and energy cooperation. In addition, by making himself available for several full-fledged interviews and other interactions with media persons, Rubio leveraged the opportunity to put across the U.S. perspective in a clear and candid manner, with primarily Indian audiences in mind.

On China, for example, he countered the impression that the U.S. had turned “soft”. Rubio observed that the U.S. aimed to attain “a level of strategic stability” with China and to avoid a U.S.-China trade war that would be devastating to the rest of the world.

On Pakistan, he was not defensive. Without referring to close personal chemistry between President Trump and General Asif Munir, Rubio insisted that the U.S. needed “to have a relationship with Pakistan”, while reiterating the traditional position that it was not at the expense of India.

On H-1B visa issues, he clarified that the US was in the midst of “fixing” its visa system and that India was not specifically targeted in this context.

To those who bemoaned the slow death of the Quad due to the changed U.S. policy approach towards China, Rubio expressed support and enthusiasm for the Quad framework, adding that a leaders’ summit was planned to take place in November, on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Manila. He expected the summit to produce deliverable results.

However, the timing for the Manila summit is yet to be finalised. Besides, with China’s leader sitting in the main conference room, possibly confabulating with ASEAN leaders, participants in the Quad summit – if it takes place – will need to choose their collective pronouncements with utmost care. Washington may be unwilling to wreck the ongoing progress in strengthening its ties with Beijing.

On the U.S.-India trade agreement, Rubio assured that it was “incredibly close” and that it was only a matter of weeks, not months, before it was signed. Optimists were happy to hear this, while sceptics recalled that U.S. officials had given similar assurance just a few months ago.

Pragmatists argued that India must observe patience, noting that without an agreement, the duty on Indian exports to the U.S. that is currently 10% would increase to 18% after the trade agreement is concluded.

The central issue was energy, with global energy trends impacting the U.S. and others negatively, especially at a time when midterm elections for Congress are imminent. Washington’s decision to hold back on enforcing the Graham Act and conclude a diesel agreement with Russia needs to be viewed in this context.

Rubio’s brief for the Jamnagar leg of the visit was to explore and urge that India, through Reliance and other companies, buy more Venezuelan crude in the future. Very few countries in the world have refineries that process high-sulphur crude, but India is one of them. Linked to this, is the other U.S. request to India: end or reduce the import of Russian oil. This is a complex matter. Subject to technical and price factors, India can increase the intake of Venezuelan oil, but it will be unwilling to oblige the U.S. on the second request.

Regardless of immediate outcomes, Rubio’s visit to Jamnagar was a major plus for Reliance Industries, the world’s largest refiner of crude, and India. He termed the country “a refining superpower”, which was gladly accepted by Indians. Explaining the rationale of his visit to Jamnagar, Rubio stressed that energy was clearly a national security issue.

Asked how he saw the India relationship, Rubio emphasised that it was “positive, and in many ways”. Analysts are less sanguine and point to the paradox of overt coldness in ties, mixed with optimism for progress.

Mukesh Aaghi, president and CEO of the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum, noted that the politics of Trump and Modi may be different, but there is “a sense of maturity and stability between them, and (therefore) a special relationship continues.” If so, the forthcoming meetings between the two leaders in Manila and Miami are potentially significant opportunities for the two governments to stabilise and strengthen bilateral relations. They can ill afford a rocky ride in 2027.

Secretary Rubio’s second visit to India has already made a constructive contribution to this process.

Rajiv Bhatia is the Distinguished Fellow for Foreign Policy Studies and a former diplomat who served as the High Commissioner to Kenya, South Africa and Lesotho.

This article was first published in Firstpost.

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The centre of gravity in global affairs has been shifting to geoeconomics, with trade policy increasingly influenced by security concerns, industrial strategies, and strategic rivalry. Fragmentation, unilateral measures, and pressures on established rules have strained the multilateral trading system. Yet this same context has created room for middle powers to act as bridge-builders, coalition partners, and pragmatic defenders of rules-based trade. While geoeconomic fragmentation poses significant challenges, it may create opportunities for middle powers to exercise greater agency.

Brazil’s trajectory is a good illustration of this dual dynamic in which rising frictions and competition also create incentives for cooperation. Even as geopolitical tensions rise, the country has advanced a series of trade agreements and deepened engagement with partners across regions. What may appear as a paradox – greater fragmentation alongside renewed integration – is in fact a strategic deliberative pivot towards diversification, predictability and legal certainty. Agreements that took decades to negotiate are now moving forward, suggesting that economic cooperation remains both viable and necessary.

‘Brazil had to manage frictions related to the EU’s sustainability framework.’

At the centre of this strategy is the Mercosur–European Union Agreement, provisionally in force since 1 May 2026. It exemplifies Brazil’s middle-power diplomacy, connecting two regions with shared values and long-term interests while sending a clear signal in favour of openness and predictability. Its swift ratification by the congresses of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay – completed in less than three months – also points to broad political support, a momentum likely sharpened by the current geopolitical climate.

In advancing the Mercosur-EU Agreement, Brazil also had to manage frictions related to the EU’s evolving sustainability framework, particularly the EU Deforestation Regulation. While Mercosur countries expressed concerns regarding the measure’s sustainability benefits, trade impact and consistency with WTO principles, the negotiations moved forward through pragmatic engagement and dialogue. The final agreement preserves regulatory autonomy on both sides while incorporating mechanisms aimed at safeguarding the balance of negotiated concessions and ensuring greater predictability for exporters.

This agreement is part of a broader expansion of Brazil’s trade network. In April 2026, two additional agreements were submitted to Congress, Mercosur-EFTA and Mercosur-Singapore. Together, these initiatives increase the share of Brazilian exports covered by trade preferences from around 12 per cent to 31 per cent, marking the most significant expansion of the country’s trade agreements to date. Additionally, negotiations with partners such as Canada have regained pace, reflecting a growing global urge for stable, rules-based partnerships amidst systemic instability.

‘Brazil’s response to the tariffs illustrates the balancing act faced by middle powers.’

Brazil’s response to the 2025 wave of unilateral tariff measures, notably the 50 per cent US tariffs impacting one-third of shipments, illustrates the balancing act faced by middle powers. Brazil has emphasised dialogue and mutually beneficial solutions, while underscoring that engagement must be based on respect and the preservation of national interests. This year’s report confirms that expert perceptions have shifted: key partners remain important, but their role is increasingly seen through the lens of risk and uncertainty, reinforcing the importance of diversification.

Despite these pressures, Brazil’s trade performance has remained robust. Record export and import levels in 2025, alongside a record number of exporting firms, point to a diversified international footprint that provides a natural buffer for Brazil against bilateral disputes.

Brazil has also remained actively engaged in discussions on the reform of global trade governance. Its position reflects a dual-track approach: advancing bilateral and plurilateral agreements while supporting a stronger multilateral system. There is broad backing for a stronger WTO, alongside continued engagement in trade negotiations. This is not a choice between paths, but a combination of both.

By hosting COP30 and chairing BRICS in 2025, Brazil has placed itself at the centre of discussions on sustainability, development, and economic cooperation. In a more fragmented and uncertain world, Brazil’s approach remains anchored in openness and flexibility. The country is not willing to take sides and is actively engaged in preserving the conditions that make non-automatic alignment viable. By maintaining relations with a wide range of partners and investing in a diversified network of agreements and forums, Brazil strengthens its resilience and expands its room for manoeuvre. In doing so, it illustrates how middle powers can remain central to adaptation of the international trading system.

Tatiana Prazeres is the Foreign Trade Secretary for the Brazilian Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade and Services.

This chapter is extracted from the 2026 Emerging Middle Powers Report. You can download the report here.

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Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomes members of the Bnei Menashe Jewish community from northeastern India.

Source: @IsraeliPM / X

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi met representatives of Israel’s 85,000-strong Indian Jewish community on the second day of his two-day state visit to Israel, on 26 February this year, he observed, “Their deep-rooted connection to India and their remarkable contributions to Israel stand as a living bridge between our two nations.”^[1] This people-to-people connector between the two nations is slated to grow even stronger, as the remaining 6,000 Bnei Menashe (children of the tribe of Menashe) from India’s northeast states of Mizoram and Manipur prepare to make their migration or Aliyah (‘to go up’) to Israel.^{[2] [3] [4]}

The Bnei Menashe are from the Tibeto-Burman Kuki-Mizo tribes. In the 1930s and 40s, after converting to Christianity, certain pre-Christian beliefs and rituals persisted. The most important was the strong belief that they were descendants of Manmasi or Manasia, a revered Judaic ancestor.^[5] When they studied the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, as Christians, they felt a familiarity that Christianity did not evoke. The strongest was that their ancestor, Manmasi, was possibly Menashe, grandson of the Biblical Patriarch Jacob and one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. This became a conviction, and a movement to revert to their roots began.

Since the late 1970s, the Bnei Menashe, with a population of about 10,000, have struggled to be recognised by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate as one of the ten lost tribes of the Biblical Northern Kingdom of Israel, exiled and dispersed in 722 BCE after an Assyrian invasion. According to Jewish religious law, they are not considered Jews because of their 2,700-year break from practising Judaism. But they persisted, first by forming proto-Judaic groups whose leaders reached out to India’s traditional Jewish communities; from the early 1990s, an Ashkenazi rabbi began bringing them to Israel. Finally, in 2006, Israel’s Chief Rabbinate recognised the Bnei Menashe as a ‘seed of Israel’ or Lost Tribe.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with Israel’s Indian Jewish community

Source: @narendramodi / X

In November 2025, an Israeli cabinet decision reversed Israel’s decades-long policy of fixed quotas for Bnei Menashe immigrants. It launched “Operation Wings of Dawn”, a $29 million programme that sponsors, trains and resettles them across Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has earmarked 2030 as the year by which all Bnei Menashe who wish to make Aliyah or return can do so under the auspices of Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration and the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Following this and PM Modi’s state visit to Israel, about 600 Bnei Menashe immigrated to Israel in April and May this year. The remaining Bnei Menashe in Mizoram, about 600, will leave before the end of this year.^[6] About 4,800 still reside in the conflict-torn state of Manipur and are scheduled to leave between 2027 and 2030.

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and Finance Minister Smotrich with recent Bnei Menashe immigrants dressed in traditional outfits

Source: @ofir.sofer / Instagram

For this article, members of this community living in Aizawl and Kosabi, the latter being Bnei Menashe Kuki refugees from Manipur, were interviewed. The Manipur refugees are poor, eking out a living through daily-wage work, making necklaces, handweaving Mizo textiles, and selling vegetables and homemade snacks. Consequently, they look forward to a better life in Israel and the prospect of finally joining family and community members there, a few of whom had immigrated in the early 1990s.^[7] All of them will undergo a formal Orthodox conversion to Judaism that will entitle them to Israeli citizenship. The process takes six months after they reach Israel.^[8]

The religious fervour and hopes this community will carry with itself to its new home in Israel can only be understood through their history, sometimes fantastical legends, beliefs, and the role of individuals and non-government organisations (NGOs) in bringing this small community of tribal Indian Northeast Jews to the attention of the mainstream Jewish world.

Historically, two strands explain the discovery of the Bnei Menashe as an Israelite tribe.

One is their pre-Christian belief that they are descendants of Manasia, the grandson of Jacob. Jacob’s 12 sons form the Twelve Tribes of the undivided Biblical Kingdom of Israel. The territorial share of one son, Joseph, is represented by his sons, Menashe and Ephraim.^[9] The Assyrian invasion of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, after undivided Israel split into two on the death of King Solomon in 922 BCE, resulted in the exile and dispersion of the Ten Tribes of the North, including descendants of Jacob’s grandsons Menashe and Ephraim.

When and how the Bnei Menashe arrived in the hills of present-day Mizoram and Manipur is not known, but the discovery of Jewish lost tribes like Maharashtra’s Bene Israel (Children of the Kingdom of Israel) or Ethiopia’s Beta Israel far from their ancestral and spiritual homeland is not uncommon.^[10]

Asaf Reithal, the cantor of the Shalom Tzion synagogue, stands next to the foundation plaque of the Bnei Menashe Council that celebrates its golden anniversary this year. The Council was the first organisation in this community and included those in Manipur too.

Source: Sifra Lentin

The conviction that this community was indeed a Lost Tribe firmed up over time. The strong similarities between their rites, rituals, and practices in their pristine state and those of Halachic (Jewish religious) ones were unmistakable to Rabbinic scholars who visited them. This was triggered after the community wrote to the head librarian of Hebrew University in 1979, asking for information on Judaism. The letter reached Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail, who replied.^[11]

Community member and Chazzan (cantor) of Shalom Tzion synagogue, Aizawl, Asaf Renthlei, points to the community’s pre-Christian practice of covering their heads, shoulders, and arms with large Mizo-woven shawls when praying, as Jews traditionally do. Today, Bnei Menashe men continue this practice but instead enter their synagogue with a kippah (cap) and a tallit, a large Jewish prayer shawl, draped over their head, shoulders, and arms, while women enter with their heads covered and long sleeves. “These were practices we remembered down generations,” Renthlei recalls. Other similarities emerged, like a Bnei Menashe song that spoke of the parting of waters akin to the parting of the Red Sea when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and towards Canaan, and food preparation practices similar to kosher dietary laws.^[12]

Photo of Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail (seated extreme left), his deputy Michael Freund (standing in blue shirt), and Rabbi Birbaum (seated extreme left), who also visited the community in Mizoram, and Bnei Menashe community members.

Source: Elisheva Zodingliani

These similarities became evident after the community converted to Christianity in the late 19th century, when the British gained control of India’s northeast and permitted missionaries from different Christian churches and sects, particularly the Presbyterians and Baptists, to establish themselves there.^[13]

What drew the Bnei Menashe to normative Judaism were the numerous Christian Evangelical sects they joined and constantly shifted loyalties from one to the other, particularly the Messianic, Sabbather (like the Church of God), and Vanmi (People of Heaven). These Christian sects adopted rites and rituals from the Hebrew Bible, such as observing the Jewish Sabbath, while remaining Christian. This restlessness reflected the times. In 1959, the region was ravaged by famine, soon followed by the 1962 Indo-China War in India’s northeast border state of Arunachal Pradesh. Economic distress was a key factor behind the Mizo National Front’s armed insurgency for a separate, independent Mizoram.^[14]

“One of the most consequential was the Vanmi in the early 1970s,” says Isaac Thangjom, a founder of Degel Menashe, an Israeli NGO working for the community, and co-author of ‘Lives of the Children of Manasia’ (2022).^[15] “I would term them as being proto-Judaic,” he says, “as they discussed the Old Testament, the Law, and the Jewish Sabbath.”

Remarkably, despite the civil war in their region, their isolation, and their humble backgrounds, they reached out to other Indian Jewish communities.

Bnei Menashe Refugees from Manipur

Source: Sifra Lentin

Their first success was when T. Daniel from Churachandpur, Manipur, visited Bombay, soon after a visit to Calcutta in 1973.^[16] He stayed for three months with an elderly Baghdadi woman named Esther, who taught him Hebrew and the practices of normative Judaism. He returned home with Jewish prayer books, wrote a book, ‘Israel Ihi’uve, We Are Israel’, and founded the first Jewish-style congregation in Churachandpur, Manipur. The next one was established in Imphal.^[17] These congregations were made up of breakaway groups from Christian sects, which embraced Judaism. However, the numbers remained minuscule.

The second historical strand in the community’s early history is the role of Jewish NGOs, which advocated for and sponsored the Bnei Menashe’s early Aliyah to Israel. The most important figure is the late Israeli Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail, an Orthodox Ashkenazi rabbi well known as a Lost Tribes hunter.^[18]

Elisheva in her home

Source: Sifra Lentin

A young Elisheva during Hanukkah celebrations in the first Hebrew school, Aizawl.

Source: Elisheva Zodingliani

Since receiving the letter in 1978 from the community, Rabbi Avichail made a concerted effort to reach them. He made his first visit to Silchar, Assam, in 1986, because he was not given the Indian government’s Protected Area Permit (PAP) to enter Mizoram and Manipur. He and the community delegation failed to meet in Silchar; he returned to Calcutta, where they finally met. He first visited the Bnei Menashe in 1989-90 in Aizawl. Elisheva Zodingliani, the community’s grand old lady now over 80, remembers this visit and the ones that followed fondly. She helped set up and run the first Hebrew school in Aizawl.

Rabbi Avichail was the first authoritative religious figure to teach the Bnei Menashe their faith.^[19] His influence on this small community is profound. He gifted them Torah scrolls, prayer books and tallitot (prayer shawls), set up a Hebrew School, and named them ‘Bnei Menashe’. Crucially, he sponsored a community member, Gideon Rei, on a trip to Israel and a two-year stay to study the religion in a yeshiva, or religious school.^[20] Rei returned to Aizawl to oversee his community’s religious life.

Meanwhile, Mumbai’s Organisation for Educational Resources and Technological Training (ORT) school, which provided skills-based training and familiarity with Israeli culture for those making Aliyah from India, was critical in preparing the first Bnei Menashe immigrants as early as 1983.^{[21] [22] [23]} The Rabbi sponsored about 50 of these ORT students through his NGO, Amichav, to immigrate to Israel.

Even today, although ORT schools in Mumbai are closed, it runs the Sunday Hebrew classes in Aizawl and a full-fledged regular school for internally displaced Bnei Menashe children in Kibbutz Ma’oz Tzur in Lamka, Manipur.^[24] In 2006, another NGO, Shavei Israel, founded by Avichail’s deputy Michael Freund, was permitted by the Israeli government to sponsor the migration of the Bnei Menashe.^[25] Between 2006 and 2020, Shavei sponsored about 4,000 Bnei Menashe migrants.^[26]

This year brought hope for many of those left behind because the Israeli government itself has taken full charge of the sponsorship and immigration process.  When ‘Operation Wings of Dawn’ winds down in 2030, and the final 4,800 Bnei Menashe leave for Israel,^[27] India’s Northeast will be without almost all its Jews.

There is palpable excitement in the small communities in Aizawl and Kolasib as they prepare to leave by brushing up on their Hebrew, while settling more mundane property and other matters. Not all are leaving. Elisheva believes it’s too late for her to settle in Israel, while Nadav Havnar, treasurer of Shalom Tzion synagogue, plans to leave in 2030. He feels someone should lock up and secure the synagogues. But most look forward to their new lives with a prayer on their lips and hopes for prosperity.

Sifra Lentin is Bombay History Fellow at Gateway House.

This article was exclusively written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. You can read more exclusive content here.

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References:

[1] “PM Modi interacts with Indian-origin Jews in Israel, lauds their deep-rooted connection to India”, PTI, Jerusalem, 27 February 2026. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pm-modi-interacts-with-indian-origin-jews-in-israel-lauds-their-deep-rooted-india-connection/article70681428.ece.

[2] The number 6,000 is taken from a press release by Israel’s Prime Minister’s office.

Prime Minister’s Office. ‘PM Netanyahu to New Immigrants from the Bnei Menashe Community: “We Are Going to Bring the Entire Community to Israel over the next Four Years.” Prime Minister’s Office’. 11 June 2026. https://www.gov.il/en/pages/event-newcomer110626.

[3] The tribe of Menashe is one of the Ten Lost Tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, whose capital was Samaria. When the Assyrian king Antiochus Epiphanes invaded Israel about 722 BCE, the ten tribes were exiled and dispersed. India’s Marathi-speaking Bene Israel community from Maharashtra’s Konkan Coast traces its origins to the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel; hence, they call themselves Bene Israel or the Children of Israel.

[4] On July 5, 1950, the Knesset unanimously adopted the Law of Return, 1950. Section 1 of the Law reads as follows: Every Jew has the right to immigrate to the country.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ‘The Law of Return – 1950’. 20 August 2001. https://www.gov.il/en/pages/the-law-of-return-1950.

[5] This revered ancestor is referred to as Manmasi in Manipur and Manasia in Mizoram.

[6] A residual community comprising mostly its elders will likely remain in Mizoram.

[7] Interviews were conducted from 9 to 11 June 2026 in Aizawl and Kosabi.

[8] Judaism is a non-proselytizing religion; hence, the process of conversion is arduous. According to one interviewee, when Rabbi Avichail, the first Israeli Rabbi to visit Mizoram and Manipur, religiously mentored the Bnei Menashe and sponsored a few to make Aliyah, the conversion process took as long as two years. Today, it is shortened but requires intensive preparation. It is only orthodox conversion that is recognised by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate.

[9] The Kingdom of Israel split after the death of King Solomon in 922 BCE into the Northern Kingdom of Israel, home to ten tribes, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah, home to the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin. ‘Israel (Biblical Kingdom) | Map, History, & Kings | Britannica’. Accessed 27 October 2026. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Israel-Old-Testament-kingdom.

[10] The Bene Israel of Maharashtra and Ethiopia’s Beta Israel are considered Jews by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate; hence, they do not undergo formal conversion. The Bnei Menashe’s long break from Judaism is the reason why they must undergo formal Orthodox conversion.

[11] A feisty, educated, Mizo insurance agent, Zaithangchhungi, visited Israel to meet Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail in 1982. Zai, as she is fondly known in the community, remained a Presbyterian Christian, but her book “Israel-Mizo Identity” made the case that the Mizo (Chhinglung) tribes are children of Menashe and descendants of Israel.

[12] For a detailed study on this, see Halkin, Hillel, Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel (New York, Houghton Mifflin & Co., 2002)

[13] Lentin, Sifra. ‘Mizoram’s Chin Refugees from Myanmar’. Articles. Gateway House, 23 July 2026. https://www.gatewayhouse.in/mizorams-chin-refugees-from-myanmar/.

[14] Mizoram was then the Lushai Hills district of Assam state.

[15] The author interviewed Mr Thangjom over a WhatsApp call on 2 September 2026.

[16] Money was raised for these visits by T. Daniel’s uncle, who sold part of his rice fields to sponsor his nephew.

[17] Halkin, Hillel, and Isaac Thangjom. Lives of the Children of Manasia. Gefen Publishing House Ltd., 2002. Oral interview in this book with Isaac Thangjom.

[18] Hillel Halkin’s book “Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe” (2002) recounts the challenges and umpteen disappointments Avichail faced while searching for Israelites in the dense forests along the China-Myanmar border in the 1990s. Orthodox (Hassidic) Jews believe that the Messiah will only arrive after all the Lost Tribes return to the Holy Land.

[19] He taught them the Ashkenazi or East European liturgy, unlike the Sephardic liturgy sung by India’s traditional Jewish communities.

[20] Gideon Rei and Shimon Gir travelled to Israel at the same time. Shimon’s passage was paid for by his father. The first Bnei Menashe to travel to Israel was T. Avichail Hangshing, who went on his own sometime in 1983 or 1984.

[21] Isaac Thangjom pointed out that the earliest Bnei Menashe students to study in ORT, Mumbai, arrived around 1983. He highlighted the help that the Bene Israel community extended to his community. This was possible because two prominent members from the Bnei Menashe community, his father and T. Avichail Hangshing, who were cousins, were both IAS officers and interacted with the Bene Israel in Delhi and Mumbai. This was how the first Bnei Menashe students made their way to ORT Mumbai.

[22] Interview with Isaac Thangjom on 2 September 2026.

[23] Polytechnic courses like shorthand-typing, machine-tools training, beautician, cooking, and later computer courses, which would help new immigrants earn a living, were once taught at the ORT School. Hebrew classes were also held.

[24] This community enclave was established in 2023, after the COVID pandemic and Manipur ethnic violence erupted on 3 May 2023. It is intended for internally displaced Bnei Menashe refugees and is wholly sponsored by the Israel-based NGO Degel Menashe (lit. Flag of Menashe), whose secretary is Isaac Thongjom, a well-regarded community leader and historian.

[25] In 2006, the Bnei Menashe community was split in its loyalties. Rabbi Avichail’s deputy, Michael Freund, headed a breakaway faction from the Bnei Menashe Council and founded the NGO Shavei Israel to rival the Rabbi’s own NGO, Amichav. When the Israeli government permitted Shavei Israel to facilitate the Bnei Menashe’s immigration to Israel, many switched loyalties, and old-timers like Elisheva, who had advocated tirelessly for her community to make Aliyah, were left behind. The rivalry was so bitter, say community members, that only Shavei loyalists were chosen for Aliyah between 2006 and 2020.

[26] ‘Bnei Menashe’. Shavei Israel, n.d. Accessed 27 October 2026. https://www.shavei.org/communities-2/bnei-menashe/.

[27] The conversion rate used is 1 New Israeli Shekel (NIS) to 0.33 US dollars. Rate as of 6 September 2026.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s expected participation in the ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Manila in November will provide an opportunity to take stock of a relationship that has acquired fresh momentum in 2026. Despite delays in reviewing the ASEAN–India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA), an unsettled global economy, and intensifying strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific, India and  ASEAN have continued to broaden their cooperation. The 2026 declaration of ASEAN-India as the Year of Maritime Cooperation^[1] has given this engagement a distinctive focus: translating a longstanding geographical relationship into practical cooperation in security, connectivity, commerce, and the blue economy.

The year’s significance lies less in any single breakthrough than in the widening range of shared interests. India’s Act East Policy increasingly intersects with ASEAN’s own concerns about maritime security, supply-chain resilience, digital transformation and strategic autonomy. The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership established in 2022^[2] provides the institutional framework, while the Plan of Action for 2026–2030 offers a basis for sustained engagement. As geopolitical alignments shift, both sides have reasons to strengthen a partnership that does not require agreement on every international issue. Five ASEAN leaders attended the BRICS summit in New Delhi, including Philippines’ President Marcos, an invited guest as Chair of ASEAN.^[3]

Maritime cooperation has been the most visible expression of this renewed engagement. The second ASEAN-India Maritime Exercise, held in the Philippines in September-October 2026,^[4] brought Indian naval ships Sahyadri and Kulish together with maritime forces from ASEAN member states. Conducted under the theme ‘Anchored in Trust, United at Sea’, the exercise included operational coordination, humanitarian assistance and disaster-relief drills, and visit, board, search and seizure procedures. Building on the inaugural exercise in 2023, it demonstrated that maritime cooperation is moving beyond declarations toward greater familiarity and interoperability among participating forces. The exercise was particularly appropriate in the Philippines, where maritime security and the interpretation of international maritime law remain central strategic concerns.

The next challenge is to extend such cooperation beyond exercises. Information-sharing, maritime domain awareness, preventing illegal fishing and trafficking, search and rescue, and humanitarian assistance after natural disasters offer practical avenues for progress. India’s Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) in Gurugram can contribute by facilitating the exchange of maritime information with partner countries. The broader objective should be to build a more connected maritime-security architecture spanning the eastern Indian Ocean and the approaches to the Malacca Strait, while remaining complementary to ASEAN-led institutions and respectful of national sensitivities. Now six ASEAN countries are associated with the IFC, with four having resident liaison officers.^[5]

Connectivity is the second important dimension. The sea lanes linking India’s eastern coast with Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia carry commercial traffic and the digital infrastructure on which modern economies depend. Submarine cables are therefore as strategically important as shipping routes. The Malaysia-India-Singapore Transit (MIST) cable, which was activated in 2025, connects India with Southeast Asian network hubs and provides additional high-capacity data routes.^[6] In June 2026, Tata Communications announced a $152 million investment in system capacity, securing a 20-terabit-per-second connection between Mumbai and Singapore.^[7] The I2C (India-Southeast Asia) Subsea Cable System is a 3,600-kilometre undersea cable project led by a consortium including Lightstorm that will link India’s east coast to Southeast Asia by 2029. Its landing points will be South Chennai and Machilipatnam, Singapore and Morib in Malaysia.^[8]

Such investments strengthen the resilience of digital communications and support growing demand from cloud computing, data centres and artificial intelligence. They also underscore the need to protect critical undersea infrastructure.

Physical maritime connectivity deserves comparable attention. India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands sit strategically close to Southeast Asia, while eastern-coast ports provide natural gateways to regional markets. Better shipping services, port cooperation, and logistics integration could reduce business costs and make it easier for smaller Indian and Southeast Asian enterprises to participate in regional value chains.

Economic relations nevertheless remain the partnership’s principal test. Bilateral trade reached approximately $128 billion in 2025–26, and Indian exports in the first five months of 2026 rose by 56% to $23 billion, making ASEAN one of India’s most important trading partners.^[9] Yet the existing AITIGA framework has not delivered all the benefits expected from a free-trade arrangement. Concerns over market access, rules of origin, non-tariff barriers and the distribution of gains have complicated negotiations. The fifteenth meeting of the AITIGA Joint Committee, held in Jakarta from 6-9 October, called for expediting outstanding issues. The review remains unfinished, but the continued negotiations demonstrate that both sides recognise the importance of modernising the agreement. Hopes of its being concluded by 2027 are high.

A successful review must do more than revise tariff schedules. It should make the agreement easier to use, improve customs procedures and address barriers that prevent Indian firms from accessing ASEAN markets. Equally, India must recognise that Southeast Asian economies are deeply integrated into global manufacturing networks. A more predictable trade regime would encourage investment, strengthen supply-chain diversification and help both sides benefit from the restructuring of global production. Singapore’s role as a major source of foreign investment in India illustrates the potential, while Indian businesses have opportunities in renewable energy, automobiles, digital services and infrastructure across Southeast Asia. These opportunities require project-specific evidence and cannot be measured simply by investment announcements. AI, data centers, consolidation of green power resources, and a look at the ASEAN power grid are on the cards.

Digital cooperation offers another promising area. Project Nexus,^[10] moving toward implementation, aims to connect national instant-payment systems so cross-border payments can become faster, cheaper, and more accessible. The Reserve Bank of India and the central banks of Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand are participants; Indonesia formally joined the initiative in February 2026. This is not yet equal to a fully operational network linking every participating country’s payment system, but it represents an important step towards practical financial connectivity. For tourists, students, migrant workers and small businesses, the eventual benefits could be tangible.

Tourism, education and people-to-people contacts provide a complementary foundation. Visa facilitation, more direct flights and better links between Buddhist pilgrimage destinations in India and Southeast Asia can expand travel in both directions. Vietnam’s Sun Phu Quoc Airways, for instance, has announced direct Ahmedabad-Phu Quoc services beginning in December 2026, illustrating the potential for new connections beyond established metropolitan routes. Malaysia set an ambitious target of 2.1 million Indian tourist arrivals for 2026 (up from over 1.6 million), supported by more than 190 weekly direct flights;^[11] Thailand ranked India among its top five international source markets, with over 382,000 Indian visitors in early 2026 alone. The Philippines saw direct flights between Delhi and Manila from October 2026.

Cooperation in higher education, research, skills, and technology should be treated as a long-term investment in the relationship, not a peripheral cultural activity. The results of the IIT fellowship, the agricultural fellowships and the India-ASEAN network of universities remain opportunities. Nalanda University has attracted nearly 300 ASEAN students.^[12]

The Manila summits should therefore be judged by whether they give this broad agenda sharper direction. India and ASEAN need to sustain maritime cooperation, improve the reliability of transport and digital links, strengthen educational exchanges and bring the AITIGA review to a mutually beneficial conclusion. Neither side can insulate itself from great-power rivalry, trade fragmentation or regional conflict. Both can, however, increase their room for manoeuvre through practical cooperation and stronger regional institutions. It’s more important to enhance the partnership through non-government sources and more sustained people-to-people and civil society engagement.

The promise of 2026 is that India-ASEAN relations are becoming more multidimensional. Maritime cooperation supplies the organising theme, but its real value will be measured in safer seas, more resilient connections, easier trade and closer links between people. If Manila turns the year’s activities into durable commitments, Act East will have gained not merely another diplomatic milestone but a stronger regional foundation.

Gurjit Singh is a former Indian Ambassador to Germany and author of The Durian Flavour: India, ASEAN and the Act East Policy. He is currently promoting the impact investment movement for implementing SDGs in Africa.

This article was exclusively written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. You can read more exclusive content here.

Support our work here.

For permission to republish, please contact outreach@gatewayhouse.in

© Copyright 2026 Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. All rights reserved. Any unauthorised copying or reproduction is strictly prohibited. 

References:

[1] Prime Minister’s participation in the 22nd ASEAN-India Summit in Kuala Lumpur , PMO, 26 October 2025, https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2182724&reg=3&lang=2

[2] Joint Statement on ASEAN-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, MEA, 12 November, 2022, https://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents?dtl/35876/Joint_Statement_on_ASEANIndia_Comprehensive_Strategic_Partnership

[3] Gurjit Singh: Expanding the Diplomatic Toolbox: Southeast Asia at the New Delhi BRICS Summit, Fulcrum, 21 October 2026, https://fulcrum.sg/article/commentaries/expanding-the-diplomatic-toolbox-southeast-asia-at-the-new-delhi-brics-summit/

[4] ASEAN-INDIA MARITIME EXERCISE (AIME-2026) COMMENCES IN SUBIC BAY, PHILIPPINES, PIB, 30 September 2026, https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseDetail.aspx?PRID=2317206&reg=48&lang=1

[5] IFC-IOR, Indian Navy,  https://ifcior.indiannavy.gov.in/home#partners

[6] NTT DATA commissions MIST submarine cable system to link India and Southeast Asia, w.media, 17 March 2025, https://w.media/ntt-data-commissions-mist-submarine-cable-system-to-link-india-and-southeast-asia/

[7] Tata Communications To Invest $152 Million In Subsea Cable Systems To Boost India-Singapore AI Corridor, Submarine Cable Networks, I July 2026, https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/nv/insights/tata-communications-to-invest-usd-152-million-in-subsea-cable-systems

[8] I-2SEA, Submarine Cable Networks, https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/intra-asia/i-2sea

[9] Indian exports in the first 5 Months of 2026 rose by 56% to $23 billion making ASEAN one of India’s most important trading partners, ET, 18 October 2026, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/indias-exports-surge-africa-and-asean-drive-growth-in-key-markets/articleshow/135030347.cms?from=mdr

[10] Project Nexus, BIS, https://www.bis.org/project/nexus

[11] Malaysia Retains 2.1 Million India Visitor Target, Expands Focus on Sports and Niche Tourism, Travel News Digest, 26 August 2026,  https://travelnewsdigest.in/digests/malaysia-targets-21-million-indian-tourists-arrivals-pushes-for-direct-air-connectivity

[12] Remarks by Secretary (East) at Inaugural Ceremony – Centre for Southeast Asian Studies Nalanda University, Rajgir, Bihar, MEA, 31 March 2026, https://www.mea.gov.in/speeches-statements?dtl/41060/Remarks_by_Secretary_East_at_Inaugural_Ceremony_Centre_for_Southeast_Asian_Studies_Nalanda_University_Rajgir_Bihar

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Seven years have passed since the monumental parliamentary decision on August 5, 2019, to abrogate Articles 370 and 35A, which irrevocably altered the semi-autonomous status of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir. This bold move fragmented the region into two separate Union Territories (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh – a shift that has left geopolitical scars along the northern frontier. What was initially perceived by New Delhi as a strategic masterstroke aimed at fostering greater integration has instead evolved into a complex and precarious equilibrium, marked by tension and uncertainty. Local residents are restless, and there is some concern in New Delhi, especially as this border state is under threat from China and Pakistan.

Ladakh’s trajectory changed after its separation from Jammu and Kashmir. In Buddhist-majority Leh and the strategic border areas, the 2019 UT status was initially welcomed as an end to decades of perceived neglect by Srinagar.

But residents realized that lack of statehood also meant losing land, job, and demographic protections previously available under Article 370. Direct rule from New Delhi, without legislative safeguards, triggered fears of cultural erosion, bureaucratic overreach, and corporate land grabs. Complete statehood includes having its own legislative assembly. When Ladakh became a Union Territory without a legislature, it lost the four elected MLAs who had represented the region in the erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir Assembly. The lack of direct legislative representation has left a political void and is seen by many residents as a key driver of the current discontent.

For Shia-majority Kargil, the reorganization was opposed from the start — seen as a downgrade to a UT without elected representation and a forced severance from Jammu and Kashmir.  The discontent coalesced into two bodies: the Leh Apex Body (LAB) representing Leh, and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) representing Kargil. Formed after August 2019, both began agitating separately for statehood before joining hands in August 2021 to strengthen their leverage.

Despite deep historical and religious differences between Buddhist-majority Leh and Shia-majority Kargil, the LAB and KDA set aside their divide to forge a joint front. They united around a common four-point agenda — statehood for Ladakh, constitutional safeguards under the Sixth Schedule, which grants autonomous district councils with powers to make laws on land, forests and customary practice; separate Lok Sabha representation for Leh and Kargil; job reservations and a dedicated Public Service Commission for locals. This continues to form the core of the ongoing negotiations between the Ladakhis and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

The demand for statehood has been accompanied by protests, which culminated in violent clashes in September 2025 that led to civilian casualties and the invocation of the National Security Act (NSA) against prominent Ladakhi voices, including environmentalist and education reformer Sonam Wangchuk, who was put under preventive detention on September 26, 2025, and was subsequently held in Jodhpur Central Jail. The Ministry of Home Affairs officially revoked his detention and released him on March 14, 2026.

Against the backdrop of sustained local pressure and the strategic challenge of managing the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, particularly after the deadly 2020 Galwan Valley clashes, in 2021 the MHA opened high-level talks with Ladakh’s leadership. Instead of extending the Sixth Schedule, New Delhi has proposed an alternative model under Article 371 — similar to the special protections in place for Nagaland, Mizoram and Sikkim.

Statehood will give Ladakh full autonomy to govern the state, while as a UT it will be under direct control of New Delhi, as a hill regional council operates as a local governance body within the state or UT.

Meanwhile, New Delhi has begun mapping the region as a strategic, diplomatic, and cartographic countermeasure to assert its territorial sovereignty amid ongoing border standoffs with China. On October 2, 2026, the MHA, in coordination with the Survey of India and the Ladakh local administration, officially published a map establishing standardized names for 28 specific strategic locations and geographical features within the territory to streamline official cartography and improve public awareness (1). These 28 locations include 10 peaks and three mountains, two glaciers and two passes, seven land areas and one valley, one river, one lake and one water body.

The locations cover prominent border friction points along the LAC that were central to the 2020 military standoff – most notably Gogra and Hot Spring. It covers features in Aksai Chin (under Chinese control but claimed by India) and parts of Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan. This move is widely seen as a tit-for-tat cartographic response to Beijing, which, since 2017, has unilaterally issued multiple lists of altered Chinese names for places inside the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Two weeks later, on October 13, 2026, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning strongly protested the move, declaring India’s standardized map “illegal, null, and void.” China explicitly stated it “has never recognised the so-called Union Territory of Ladakh unilaterally and illegally established by India” following the August 2019 bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir. It asserted that India’s administrative mapping cannot alter the “objective fact” that the western section of the India-China border area belongs to China. New Delhi rejected these statements, asserting that Ladakh is an integral and inalienable part of India.

The statement was followed by yet another round of talks on Oct 15 between MHA and the Ladakh leadership, which again collapsed. The MHA provided a 32-page document to the Ladakh leadership, which envisages constitutional safeguards akin to Article 371, and gives 12 States special safeguards and administrative arrangements based on their distinct historical, cultural, and regional circumstances.

The government is now designing a new Constitutional provision for Ladakh in the form of Article 371 (K) that is expected to address some of the reservations and concerns unique to Ladakh. The latest proposal under Article 371, which the government presented to the Ladakhi leadership on October 17, seeks to strengthen the powers of Ladakh’s two Autonomous Hill Development Councils — Leh and Kargil — expanding their legislative, executive, and land-related authority, and introducing domicile-based protections for jobs and land. While seen as a step forward, civil society groups are insisting on substantive changes, which they say, will give them a greater say in how these safeguards are drafted and implemented.

For now, statehood is not on the agenda. In the meantime, in order to pacify the statehood demands, the government has taken some positive steps. On 19 October, the Chief Justice of India inaugurated the Ladakh Bench of the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh at Leh.^[1]

On October 21, the UT administration dissolved the Kargil Hill Council, as panchayat elections will be held there on November 21 this year. The move, though small, does have consequences as Ladakhis await the next meeting with the MHA to discuss the draft proposal on Article 371(K).

For a region that guards India’s most hostile frontier, treating Ladakh as a bureaucratic division run from Delhi is short-sighted and can be strategically reckless. Ladakhis have proved their allegiance to India in every war, every winter, every standoff on the LAC.

And in a borderland that faces China every single day, alienation is a national security threat that no amount of troops can fix.

Nayanima Basu is the Adjunct Fellow at Gateway House and an author. 

This article was exclusively written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. You can read more exclusive content here.

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[1] Prior to this, on October 16, the Centre officially notified the creation of Sankoo as the eighth district of Ladakh, thereby separating it from Kargil district (3). Sankoo played a critical role by way of humanitarian and logistical hub during the 1999 Kargil War.

Administration of the Union Territory of Ladakh. “Chief Justice of India Inaugurates Ladakh Bench of the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh at Leh.” Press release, October 19, 2026. https://ladakh.gov.in/chief-justice-of-india-inaugurates-ladakh-bench-of-the-high-court-of-jammu-kashmir-and-ladakh-at-leh/.

Administration of the Union Territory of Ladakh. “Ladakh Administration Notifies Creation of Sankoo as New District of UT Ladakh.” Press release, October 16, 2026. https://ladakh.gov.in/ladakh-administration-notifies-creation-of-sankoo-as-new-district-of-ut-ladakh/.

Ministry of Home Affairs. “Government of India, in Consultation with UT of Ladakh, Identify 28 Places/Features, Located in the UT of Ladakh, by Standard Place and Feature Names on the Official Map of Survey of India (SoI).” Press Information Bureau, Government of India, October 2, 2026. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2318027&reg=48&lang=2.

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Amid the noise surrounding the current tussle at Tata Sons, few have listened carefully to what Noel Tata, a member of the Tata family and one of two Tata Trusts representatives on the Tata Sons board, has been saying. He issued a statement in which he emphasised that listing Tata Sons, the Tata Group’s holding company, would destroy the ‘Tata Model.’^[1] He added that the Group was conceived as a national service carried on through business for over a century. If listed, it will destroy “the operating model of this House”, which has stood the test of time for more than 158 years. Effectively, short-term shareholder gains will take precedence over the long-term pioneering research, incubation, and industrial execution that Tata Sons and the Trusts together oversee. This will result from the Trusts’ shareholding being diluted after a public listing.^[2]

To understand the low-key ‘Tata Model’ of philanthropy through business, a good example is Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR, est. 1945), founded during J.R.D. Tata’s stewardship of Tata Sons.  The Trust that provided seed capital for building its Colaba campus, and funds for the first nine years since its founding, was the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT).^[3] The erstwhile Bombay government and central government contributed the rest. PM Nehru’s personal intervention with India’s Ministry of Defence helped acquire 30 acres for the TIFR campus in Colaba’s Navy Nagar.^[4] 

Dr Homi Bhabha explaining the TIFR building model to Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. To the left of Dr Bhabha is JRD Tata, and his wife, Thelma Tata, is standing beside PM Nehru; Dr S.S. Bhatnagar (next to PM Nehru) was head of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research; Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court M.C. Chagla (centre, wearing glasses), and next to him is Chief Minister of Bombay State Morarji Desai.

Source: TATA. Year 1954.

Although TIFR was the brainchild of Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha, a young accomplished theoretical physicist from Cambridge University, it never would have been built without the Tata Trusts’ initial majority contribution. Bhabha’s vision remains intact today because, under a 1955 trilateral agreement, the head of SDTT serves as chair of the TIFR Council and continues to provide vision, guidance, and commitment to date.^[5][6]This unique governance structure and partnership between private capital and government is the Tata Model, and it has evolved over time, as TIFR’s history shows.

The early 1940s, when TIFR was established, were tumultuous years. The Second World War (1939-45) was ongoing, and it kept the brilliant physicist Dr Homi J. Bhabha from returning to England after travelling home to India in 1939 to visit family. This was also the time when India was on the cusp of Independence, and plans were already underway for rapid economic development after independence. One problem remained: an energy gap. It was clear that India would be partitioned and, in addition to losing its oilfields in Burma, which had been overrun by Japan in 1942, India would likely lose its oilfields in Kaur, Attock, in Northwest Punjab. The popularity of the internal combustion engine meant the country would remain a net importer of petroleum. To make post-Independence India energy self-sufficient, the country’s scientific community and its soon-to-be first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, were convinced that nuclear energy was the answer.^[7]

Against this geopolitical and economic backdrop, Dr Bhabha proposed an institute for blue-sky research in the physical sciences. He ran this idea by JRD Tata, who suggested he work on detailed plans to present to the Trustees of SDTT. The Sir Dorabji Tata Trust was recommended because one of its objects was ‘the advancement of learning in all its branches especially research work in connection with medical and industrial problems.’^[8] Bhabha did not immediately convince the Board about the need for an institute of fundamental research for India on the lines of those he had worked in abroad. It was only after JRD Tata put his weight behind the project that it took off. Thanks to his backing, TIFR (est. 1945) joined the ranks of two other pioneering institutions established by SDTT within a span of a decade: the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (est. 1936) and the Tata Memorial Hospital (est. 1941).

Aerial View of Royal Bombay Yacht Club.

Source: Captain Haseler (via Past-India)

TIFR, established on 1 June 1945, originally operated out of the cosmic ray unit at another Tata-established institute, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore.^[9] Space soon ran out, and in October that year it shifted to new premises in Bombay: Bhabha’s birthplace, the Kenilworth bungalow on Peddar Road.^[10] Sir John Colville, governor of Bombay, inaugurated the new premises on December 19, 1945.

TIFR grew fast. The Nuclear Emulsion and the Electron Magnetism Group started in 1953. Work in Computer Science and Technology began in 1954.^[11] This necessitated more space, and the institute’s shift to the southern tip of Bombay city began when the sea-facing premises of the Old Royal Bombay Yacht Club at Apollo Bunder were acquired in  1949 to house TIFR’s fast-expanding work.

TIFRAC (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Automatic Calculator).

Source: TIFR Archives

Despite the whirlwind of setting up different specialised groups, the focus on nuclear energy was never lost. Almost simultaneously with establishing TIFR, the Atomic Energy Commission (1946) was set up in Bombay, with Bhabha as chairman. From TIFR also grew the Department of Atomic Energy (1954), which in the early years (but no longer) was considered part of TIFR and is today based in its old premises at the Old Yacht Club at Apollo Bunder.

India joined the nuclear club after its first indigenously built experimental nuclear reactor, Apsara, went critical in 1954 at the Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay (AEET). To consolidate TIFR’s expertise in reactor design, instrumentation, metallurgy, and materials science, the government spun off a separate institution on January 3, 1954—the Atomic Energy Establishment Trombay (AEET), later renamed the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre after Bhabha’s death in 1966.

A critical pivot in TIFR’s evolution was the Tripartite Agreement of 1955-56.^[12] The funding contribution and involvement of the Government of India, the Government of Bombay and the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust were restructured. The new setup envisaged extensive financial support from the Government of India and, correspondingly, a greater and more permanent representative on TIFR’s Council of Management. But with a key provision: the SDTT chairman would always chair the Council.^[13]

The Canada-India Reactor Utility Services (CIRUS) research reactor.

Source: The Society for the Preservation of Canada’s Nuclear Heritage

India built its first nuclear reactor, the Canada India Reactor Utility Services (CIRUS), at AEET’s Trombay campus in 1956, the same year TIFR restructured its funding and governance.^[14] This nuclear reactor, which used Canadian natural uranium and US heavy water, went critical in July 1960.^[15] This was soon followed by a 1963 bilateral agreement between India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), when Dr Homi Bhabha was secretary, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which resulted in the establishment of units one and two of the Tarapur Atomic Power Station, just north of Bombay, which still supplies electricity to the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat.^[16] It made TIFR the cradle of India’s nuclear research, and along with AEET (Trombay), AEC and DAE, it gave the country atomic energy and its nuclear program.

Tarapur Power Station (Unit 3 and 4).

Source: Department of Atomic Energy.

This public-private partnership model between the government and the Tatas has been time-tested not only by TIFR’s high-quality research and the institutional ecosystem it has spawned, but also by two enduring facts.

First, having the chair of SDTT heading the TIFR Council, like Ratan Tata most recently did, has ensured that fundamental research feeds into medical institutes and industry. Ratan Tata’s abiding interest was nuclear medicine and genetics. He ensured that the research carried out at TIFR and its sister institutes, the National Centre for Biological Sciences, the Tata Institute of Genetics and Society (TIGS), BRIC-inStem, and C-CAMP (a vibrant incubator), all in the Bangalore Life Sciences campus, feeds into India’s cancer research centres and hospitals, like Tata Memorial Centre.

Second, the SDTT’s continued presence on the Council has ensured project-wise endowments to TIFR, such as the Rs. 1 crore it donated on TIFR’s Golden Anniversary (1995) to establish its archives and chair professorships.^[17]

This public-private partnership in institution-building is a critical part of the Tata Model that Noel Tata refers to. This makes the Trusts a vital bridge between the philanthropy it practices and industry-scale incubation.

Sifra Lentin is Bombay History Fellow at Gateway House.

This article was exclusively written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. You can read more exclusive content here.

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©Copyright 2026 Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. All rights reserved. Any unauthorised copying or reproduction is strictly prohibited.

References:

[1] Mitra, Chandrajit. “Tata Sons IPO Could Destroy Group’s National Service Character: Tata Trusts’ Noel Tata,” NDTV, September 18, 2026, https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/tata-sons-ipo-could-destroy-groups-national-service-character-tata-trusts-noel-tata-12061056.

[2] Under the RBI’s NBFC regulations, Tata Sons is designated as a Core Investment Company and Non-Banking Financial Company – Upper Layer. This requires that it be a publicly listed company.

[3] The Sir Dorabji Tata Trust was then chaired by Sir Sohrab D. Saklatwala.

[4] The term Bombay Government is a reference to erstwhile Bombay State, which was partitioned on 1^st May 1960 to form the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat.

[5] Dr Homi Bhabha was related to the Tata family through Lady Meherbai Dorabji Tata. He was her nephew.

[7] In the 1940s, the thorium-rich sands of the Kerala Coast were identified as the fuel to power this growth.

[8] Lala, R.M., The Creation of Wealth (Bombay, IBH Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 3^rd Edition, 1992), p. 154

[9] The IISc was set up by the founder of the Group, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, in collaboration with the government of the princely state of Mysore and the colonial government. J.N. Tata viewed establishing IISc as a national need and priority. This Institute was completed after J.N. Tata death in 1904. The annual income of the Institute (Rs. 2,62,500/-) was thus made up of Rs. 1,25,000 /- from Mr Tata’s two sons (Dorab and Ratan), Rs. 50,000 /from the Mysore Durbar, and Rs. 87,500/- from the Government of India. The Mysore Durbar contributed a further Rs. 5 lacs towards capital expenditure, and the Government of India added Rs. 2.5 lacs in accordance with its promise of a grant-in-aid.

Harris, F.R., Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata: A Chronicle Of His Life

[10] The Kenilworth bungalow no longer stands, and in its place are buildings for the staff of the Department of Atomic Energy and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. There is a plaque on the boundary wall facing the main Peddar Road commemorating Kenilworth Bungalow as the birthplace of Dr Homi Bhabha and TIFR’s first home in Bombay.

[11] The first pilot machine became operational in 1956, and TIFRAC (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Automatic Calculator) was commissioned in February 1960.

[12]“History,” Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, https://www.tifr.res.in/maincampus/history.php.

[13] Today, more than 99% of the expenditure of the Institute is borne by the Government of India. The Institute comes under the purview of the Department of Atomic Energy through which all grants are channelled.

[14] It was built under a bilateral treaty with Canada, which supplied the natural uranium used in this reactor, and a contract with the United States, which supplied heavy water used as a moderator for this reactor. CIRUS was modelled on the Canadian Chalk River National Research X-perimental (NRX) reactor. Similar to the one signed much later with the U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), called the ‘123 Agreement’ (1963).  India’s next two reactors were 160 MWe Boiling Water Reactors at the Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS), just north of Bombay.

[15] The CIRUS reactor was decommissioned in 2010.

[16] “Tarapur Atomic Power Station – Units 1 and 2,” Tata Consulting Engineers, https://www.tataconsultingengineers.com/project/tarapur-atomic-power-station-units-1-2/.

[17] “[Endowment],” Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, https://www.tifr.res.in/endowment/.

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