Screenshot 2023-10-11 at 2.20.44 PM Courtesy: Voice of America
12 October 2023

Maldives: a democracy evolves

The recent presidential election outcome in the Maldives reflected a thriving democracy driven by voters' concerns for key domestic issues like employment, housing, education and healthcare. To portray the election as a football match between China and India resulting in the latter’s defeat is to ignore how South Asia's smallest state functions.

Maldives-618x412 Courtesy: Dying Regime / Flickr
25 April 2019

A power change in Maldives

Maldives’ new president, Ibrahim Solih, has had two election wins in a span of six months – his own in September 2018 and his Maldivian Democratic Party’s landslide victory in the Majlis elections about three weeks ago. An analysis of what this win says about democratic politics in Maldives, improved relations with India and the complex equation it shares with China

15maldives-master675 Courtesy: New York Times
15 February 2018

Maldives: the Quad’s first crisis

The crisis in the Maldives is a case study of Chinese investments undermining democratic institutions in smaller countries. It poses long term threats to India’s economic and political security. And almost overnight, it has turned the Indian Ocean into the Indo-Pacific

14604005482_30a716689f_b Courtesy: Dying Regime (via flickr)
6 February 2018

Manoeuvring through the Maldives’ constitutional crisis

There is a constitutional crisis unfolding in the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives. With an emergency in effect, and the Chief Justice imprisoned by the President, how will India respond to the crisis? Join Ambassador Neelam Deo as she contextualizes the crisis and what India will do.

Yameen Courtesy: Ministry of External Affairs, India
3 January 2014

The Maldives: small gains

Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen’s visit to India this week aims to repair ties, strained after the Maldives terminated a $500 million contract to the Bangalore-based infrastructure company, GMR. Yameen’s conciliatory stand stems from the need for international help, including India’s, to fix an economy in decline

male international airport Courtesy: wallygrom/Flickr
5 December 2012

The Maldives: Geopolitics trumps geoeconomics

The move by the Maldives to renege on Bangalore-based GMR’s $500 million investment is a classic case of geopolitics trumping geoeconomics. This is an appropriate time for India to boost its diplomatic efforts by including the Ministry of Commerce in initiatives taken by the Ministry of External Affairs.