Author Archives: Dr. Samir Saran

Global South, Great Power Dynamics, India, international affairs, US and canada, Writing

The US needs a new paradigm for India: ‘Great Power Partnership’

Samir Saran | Kaush Arha

The US-India partnership is unprecedented in its scope. It holds the promise to substantially augment both nations’ security interests and to shape the world to their mutual advantage. The coordination and collaboration between the world’s longest standing democracy and its largest democracy will have far-reaching regional and global implications. This strategic alignment requires sustained forethought and concerted action—as well as a new realist paradigm and lexicon. Prioritizing pragmatic and principled interests and values will lead to the formulation of a novel US-India strategic framework and vocabulary unshackled by past preconceptions.    

The era of great power competition calls for Great Power Partnerships. Size matters. As the United States engages in competitive or adversarial relationships with Asian and Eurasian powers China and Russia, it is prudent for it to seek a Great Power Partnership. Conversely, India is engaged in localized hostilities with its neighbors China and Pakistan, and finds its one-time friend Russia reduced to being a dependent of China. Realpolitik calls for the largest American and Asian nations, as democracies, to forge a Great Power Partnership to their mutual advantage. 

But the US-India partnership represents a strategic convergence between emerging allies driven by shared interests and values. Both countries realize that they are stronger together in deterring Beijing’s hegemonic designs, which are inimical to both US and Indian interests. India shares the longest disputed land border with China and confronts the hostile China-Pakistan axis along virtually its entire western, northern, and eastern land borders. Meanwhile, China’s major foreign policy goal is to displace the United States as the paramount power in the Indo-Pacific and upend the US-led rules-based international order.

The US-India convergence extends beyond deterring the Chinese Communist Party. It smooths India’s path to achieving its “rightful place” among the world’s leading nations. In turn, the United States has, in India, a partner of size to shape world affairs to their collective advantage. Traditional security assurances and treaty provisions underlie the United States’ closest alliances, including those with NATO nations, Israel, and Japan. India has strenuously shunned alliances over the last seven decades. But realism will compel the two nations to increasingly act in concordance, whether they choose to institutionalize their converging interests into a formal treaty or alliance with reciprocal commitments or not.

The two countries have rightly termed this “the most consequential relationship of the twenty-first century.” US and Indian leaders have also referred to it as a “comprehensive strategic partnership”—the same label the United States uses for Vietnam and Indonesia. India deserves a category of its own: Great Power Partnership.

Areas of collaboration

Both countries are in the midst of a consequential election year, with India’s six-week national vote beginning on April 19 and the United States voting this fall. But these essential ties run deeper than any one administration on either side, even though the continuity of Indian administrations has been critical.

Still, to make this new Great Power Partnership paradigm stick will require more than rhetoric. The two countries need to make rapid advances along four fronts.    

  1. Defense co-production. It is in both countries’ interest to help India become the premier naval force and logistics hub across the Indian Ocean, as well as the munitions factory and backstop for a free and open Indo-Pacific. US-India collaboration on co-producing jet engines and armored vehicles should expand to include autonomous weapons with the goal of making the United States and India the bulwarks of the democratic defense industrial value chain. 
  2. Space collaboration, development, and exploration. In India, the United States has an ambitious, capable, and complementary partner with technical competence coupled with a cost-effective model for space endeavors. India’s space program will gain greatly in ability and ambition from close collaboration with US public and private actors. India offers scale and affordability to amplify US space investments and share the benefits with the Global South.
  3. Development and governance of the digital economy driven by artificial intelligence (AI). The United States and India, as the world’s preeminent digital start-up nations, share an innovator’s perspective for digital governance. In contrast, a regulator’s perspective is more prevalent in Europe. It is in both countries’ interests to coordinate on shaping international AI digital governance that fosters responsible innovation and application.
  4. Winning the hearts and minds of the Global South. India and China offer diametrically opposing visions for the Global South. China wants to enlist emerging nations into a countervailing bloc against the existing rules-based international order. India wants to enhance Global South representation within the existing international order to better reflect demographic and economic realities. The US-India partnership advances both India’s stature among the Global South and US outreach to the region. It is essential for both US and Indian interests that the Global South embraces and strengthens the rules-based international order. India is well-positioned to lead this effort.     

Deepening the partnership

As democracies, the United States and India have a common interest in bolstering and modernizing the rules-based institutions that govern world affairs. Indeed, in the twenty-first century, the United States and India may shape a new international order as the United States and Europe did in the twentieth century. The largest American and Asian countries bear the responsibility to ensure that the twenty-first century international order equitably represents the Med-Atlantic, the Indo-Pacific, and the Global South—reinforcing their shared values of liberty and dignity for all.

The partnership between the United States and Europe is buttressed by cultural affinity and institutional solidarity through shared membership in NATO, the Group of Seven (G7), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and other groupings. The US-India partnership does not yet boast either cultural affinity or institutional solidarity at comparable levels, despite the rising force of the Indian diaspora in US society. In time, it can and should develop both.

India is projected to become the world’s third-largest economy by the end of the decade. The United States should lead the effort of inviting India to become a member of the G7 and the OECD. For their economic security, the United States and India should prioritize binding the Indo-Pacific nations to their collective economies more than that of China.

The United States and India have made great strides in coordination through multilateral institutional arrangements. These include the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue, and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (better known as the Quad). The frequency and scope of joint military exercises and intelligence sharing are also on the rise. US-India strategic dialogues on defense and economic coordination need to expand in depth and breadth to regularly engage functionaries in each respective administrative structure to facilitate greater interoperability and knowledge sharing.

The United States and India should also devote singular attention to advancing stronger institutional solidarity and people-to-people connections. Enhanced engagement between middle America and middle India holds the key. The United States is reinvigorating its domestic manufacturing across digital and industrial sectors while confronting a shortage of skilled technicians. India boasts a surfeit of graduates with technical skills looking for better employment. A US-India science and technology mobility agreement with prescreened skilled individuals from both nations would facilitate greater knowledge sharing and co-development between the two digital economies.

The US-India Great Power Partnership enjoys strong tailwinds, but its success is not inevitable. The relationship requires a considered understanding of the cultural, demographic, and political drivers at work in the two complex democracies. All too often, US-India discourse in bureaucratic circles and media outlets is prone to reflexive skepticism and mistrust. Both sides need a more reflective discernment of each other’s society and political system. In this area, the US and Indian business communities are leading the way with a strong sense of cooperation and comprehension.  Overcoming what Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has described as “hesitations of history,” a constructive Great Power Partnership could advance core US-India interests and values going forward. 

This article originally appeared in Atlantic Council.

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China, Economic Interdependence, European Union, international affairs, Writing

Begging will not de-risk Brussels from Beijing

Samir Saran | Gautam Chikermane

Not narratives, not rhetoric: what the EU needs is to wake up from its strategic slumber and act on its China addiction

A new report by the European Union (EU) Chamber of Commerce in China and the China Macro Group, yawning its way between decoupling and de-risking, will be splashed in the media, discussed ad nauseam in think tank convenings, laughed at in Beijing, and laid to rest in the garbage bins of empty rhetoric. Titled “Riskful Thinking: Navigating the Politics of Economic Security”, the report is undergirded by the naive assumption that its 11 recommendations for China will be implemented.

The report effectively resorts to begging for China to adhere to the rules-based order. It recommends that Beijing steer clear of excessive self-reliance but allows considerable latitude for discussing the scope of the word ‘excessive’. It implores the world’s second-largest economy to increase transparency on laws that limit market access, blissfully forgetful of the opaque regime that helped incubate such laws in the first place. Then it urges China to define a common language on de-risking, ignorantly assuming that Chinese polity serves the interests of the EU.

Europe is being suffocated by the rules-based order of its own making—Beijing has weaponised the EU’s rules against itself, thereby asphyxiating its companies, consumers, and citizens.

Trade protectionism, Beijing’s erratic policy shifts, and the quest for localisation find themselves among the other appeals. In a cringeworthy moment, China is even requested to “Refrain from punishing companies for the actions of their home governments.”

Nothing in what is sought is inappropriate. Rather, what is bothersome is that it is being voiced in a 34,000-word, 56-page report that sees a US$19.35-trillion large grouping of 27 democratic nations bend before a US$18.56-trillion authoritarian regime. Besides an amused smile from the Chairman of Everything, Xi Jinping, for exposing the EU’s toxic dependence, this report will achieve little else.

On the other hand, the seven recommendations for the EU, may—and it is a big ‘may’—wake the grouping, and perhaps even the continent, from its strategic slumber. The most important among these is the one around rethinking supply chains of critical inputs and export control frameworks. Yet, here too, the report is unable to imagine a world without China. “Continue to proactively engage with China and reject calls for disengagement,” it recommends. Further, it seeks to remind the actors in this game—chambers of commerce, China-focused think tanks, and businesses—about de-risking but fails to define why this should be paid heed to this time around.

Finally, the report offers nine recommendations for European businesses. Being an industry chamber, some of them are better phrased and informed. For instance, it seeks to pre-empt legislative changes and political risk. It calls for conducting detailed supply chain reviews and risk assessments, as well as intensifying due diligence to determine exposure to potential shocks. It urges companies to monitor areas of risk such as public backlash or sudden changes in market conditions. But when it urges corporations to be prepared for emerging global regulations, it neglects that all ‘global’ regulatory actions are enfeebled by a Beijing that regularly refuses to abide by them.

The recent report sees a US$19.35-trillion large grouping of 27 democratic nations bend before a US$18.56-trillion authoritarian regime. Besides an amused smile from the Chairman of Everything, Xi Jinping, for exposing the EU’s toxic dependence, this report will achieve little else. 

Overall, the report, like several before it, illustrates the risks that European businesses face in China and assumes that a benevolent Beijing knows the problems and will do something to fix them. Worse, it details for the benefit of China exactly how dependent the EU is on its markets, its investments, and its manufacturing.

Given that collective economic security shaped by national issues is a subset of collective national security designed for a common cause, carving out an agenda of mutualism will be impossible for the EU. It is not the same as the EU coming together and taking a collective defence/security stand against Russia at the time of conflict (and not prior to it), for instance.

China is appraised as a commercial venture, and it is unlikely that commercial entities will bear the cost of national security until it is too late and too high for them and others. And then they will; just ask the German Industry about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But most businesses work on hindsight and not foresight when it comes to security issues as they have a false belief in their ability to shape outcomes.

When the Stuttgart-based Mercedes-Benz, for instance, decides to deepen investments in China, despite the EU scrambling for an exit strategy, it shows how strongly the corporate tail of a company is wagging the national security dog of an entire continent. That 19.67 percent of the Mercedes stock is held by two Chinese companies (9.98 percent by BAIC Group, and 9.69 percent by Li Shufu) is not only influencing decisions in one of EU’s most high-profile companies but also weakening the EU hand on strategic affairs between Beijing and Brussels. Worse, instead of finding ways to get out of China, the report states that European companies find that decoupling, i.e. “detaching completely from the Chinese market” from China is a risk.

The impassioned quest for benevolence from the Emperor seems to be the European approach towards China. Transborder calls for ‘alms’ must not pass off as strategy—they are not.

So, while China has weaponised everything, from trade and investments to technology and culture, the EU remains trapped in the pincer of its strategic-commercial constraints on the one side and the rise of ‘wokism’ with a Confucius colour on the other. It is being suffocated by the rules-based order of its own making—Beijing has weaponised the EU’s rules against itself, thereby asphyxiating its companies, consumers, and citizens. Against these democratic constraints and strategic confusions, the Beijing model is unambiguous in its direction and its action.

Take a step back and what you see from the Beijing-Brussels midpoint—New Delhi—is a feeble EU approach to China. Blissful in its strategic slumber, lying on the bed of post-World War II prosperity, with eyes wide shut, Brussels remains addicted to Chinese goods, Chinese markets, and Chinese manufacturing. It appears nothing will change, even as Beijing runs circles around the EU, watching it squirm, and awaiting the next round of periodic rhetoric, even as it plans a deeper dive into the strategic vitals of the EU. The impassioned quest for benevolence from the Emperor seems to be the European approach towards China. Transborder calls for ‘alms’ must not pass off as strategy—they are not.

From the vantage of New Delhi, it is not only the possibility of Russia joining the dragon’s choir that is imminent and worrisome; it is rather the European opera halls hosting this choir that present a clear and present danger. The most important learning from this document for those reading it from outside is scary. If the lesson of its energy dependence on Russia, and the consequent decapitating impact on its security in recent years, has not taught the EU ‘Strategy 101’, nothing ever will. Isn’t it time to reconcile to this simple fact: that the EU is a non-strategic actor and, without radical rethinking—always will be?

The original article appeared in ORF Website, March 30, 2024

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climate change, Governance, Sustainable Development, Writing

Rethinking climate governance

New approaches should reduce the cost of capital, bridge the technology divide and develop new pathways to cooperation.

Climate change is the most salient example of a challenge that demands global cooperation to solve. Yet, this necessity has so far failed to translate into a cooperative mechanism that can withstand geopolitical shocks, partly because trust in the current approach is eroding.

The challenge: global frameworks haven’t kept emissions from rising

In 2023, the world breached the critical 1.5°C average temperature rise barrier for the first time. It is now visibly evident that the impacts of human activity on the climate are no longer a thing of the future. Climate-induced natural hazards are now among the foremost threats to lives and livelihoods, as witnessed by the devastating floods in Libya, East Africa, Italy, Yemen and Pakistan in 2023 alone. The Global South is particularly vulnerable, with some estimates suggesting that the gap in economic output between the world’s richest and poorest countries could be as high as 25 per cent compared to a world without climate change. The future looks even bleaker, with predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggesting that if current emission pathways are maintained, average temperatures could rise 3.2°C by 2100.

Yet the global climate governance framework has failed to deliver. Despite various landmark agreements in Rio (1992), Kyoto (1997) and finally Paris (2015), emissions have continued to rise. Trust has broken down between developed and developing countries, given that the former have not only refused to make binding commitments on emission reduction, but have also failed to deliver on whatever meagre promises they did make – for example, to provide $100 billion annually to the developing world by 2020.

However, the fact is such tussles distract from the real scale of the problem. The final text at COP27 noted that between $4 and $6 trillion needed to be invested annually in renewables and decarbonisation solutions if the world was to stay on track to its Paris commitments. Even less ambitious targets, such as the 2022 Report of the High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, noted that annual investments would have to be between $2 and $3 trillion annually, with at least $1 trillion of that being foreign private investment. Instead of identifying solutions to raise and target flows of this scale, global governance has lost its way fighting over small, insignificant change.

The $100 billion figure has been left behind by events. It is now necessary to think in trillions. For that to happen, the debate needs to be reframed away from questions of guilt and compensation and towards obligation and opportunity. Fortunately, restructuring climate investment as an opportunity is entirely possible given that the technologies to combat climate change are becoming increasingly cost-effective: The IPCC estimates that the global average cost of renewable energy has dropped by up to 85 per cent since 2010. As a consequence, over 80 per cent of climate projects in the developed world are financed by the private sector, which sees a clear business case for green investment in those geographies.

However, investment in the Global North alone will not address a global problem. Only around 25 per cent of global climate finance currently flows to the Global South, although the developing world is where vast new investments in infrastructure and energy access are actually needed. The prohibitive cost of capital in the emerging world means that, in contrast to the developed world, only 14 per cent of green investment originates from private savings.

A new approach for rethinking climate governance

The differentials in the cost of capital between the Global North and South are prohibitive and the largest constraint on private investment flowing into climate action where it is most needed.

There is now a need to rethink global climate governance. The fundamental imbalance is this: While the developed world has been the key contributor to historical emissions, future emissions will be concentrated in the developing world. For instance, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates one-quarter of global energy demand growth between 2019 and 2040 might come from India alone. This energy growth is natural if crippling energy poverty in countries like India is to be addressed. The advantage for policymakers is that much of the energy infrastructure in these countries is yet to be built, and there is an opportunity for new, greener development that does not mimic carbon-intensive pathways adopted by the developed world. Development is energy-intensive, but it does not have to be carbon-emitting.

It is necessary to not just increase the amount of private capital deployed in the Global South, but also to ensure the scope of such investment is widened to include adaptation. Scaling up private investment into renewable energy, particularly grid-scale solar power, is easy to at least imagine. Yet other use cases for climate capital are no less important and need to be financialised. Traditional water conservation methods, regenerative agriculture, drought-resistant practices and seeds, low-cost community infrastructure like bunds to protect against sea level rise and salination – all these can no longer be financed out of public finances alone and must be seen as priority targets for private capital. Finally, the technology needed to scale up green energy solutions also remains concentrated in the developed world and China, requiring the Global South to often pay a heavy premium for using these technologies. Resolving these inequities and addressing the geopolitics around those imbalances will be imperative for achieving the Paris targets and necessitate a radical re-imaging of global cooperation around climate action.

solar power plant

Fortunately, climate action aligns well with the national development strategies of much of the emerging world. The Indian G20 Presidency highlighted the need to place green development at the heart of the climate action agenda. For the global energy transition to be successful, the right conditions need to be created for the Global South to use this transition as a means to eliminate energy poverty, create new economic opportunities and resolve existing gender and health inequalities. The outcome from COP28 in Dubai has kindled renewed hope for multilateral climate cooperation. For the first time there is a clear consensus on the need to transition away from all forms of fossil fuels. The operationalisation of the loss and damage fund and the decision on the global adaptation goal also sends a strong message that adapting to the impacts of climate change is now just as important as mitigation. Yet, the decisions from COP28 fall short of outlining a clear pathway for providing the means of implementation necessary for effective climate action in the Global South. Going forward, ambition must be combined with equity if the United Arab Emirates consensus is to be implemented.

The following are proposals to reimagine global climate governance:

Reduce the cost of capital: The global financial architecture needs urgent reform and re-targeting. Much climate investment requires capital upfront, with savings paying out over long tenures, sometimes in decades. The differentials in the cost of capital between the Global North and South are prohibitive and the largest constraint on private investment flowing into climate action where it is most needed. Ending this problem will need a vast expansion of guarantees and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA)-like schemes.

Traditional reasons for this spread in capital costs are related to the political risks of investing in developing countries. Sovereign risk is, of course, real, but it is also often exaggerated. Certainly, reducing the spread of sovereign risk is a vital task for international financial reform. Climate risk is the greatest threat to the stability of the international financial system. Sovereign risk cannot be allowed to outweigh climate risk.

Bold new initiatives are needed to address the question of sovereign risk delaying climate action. For example, it may be necessary to produce internationally administered pools of capital that directly discount the cost of capital for projects and platforms related to climate action.

India’s experience with digital public infrastructure has shown that there are other possible approaches. The creation of global public goods need not be cost-intensive. A global pipeline of 10,000 climate projects, each with a clear timeline, risk-reward payoff, and carbon scoring – which together might mitigate a significant proportion of future emissions – would represent such a global public good. A green infrastructure database on such a scale would allow for the much faster and more transparent mobility of green capital.

Thus, the mandate and lending patterns of multilateral development banks (MDBs) must be changed if they are to tackle the climate change. These entities can be instrumental in channelling greater financial flows to the Global South by taking on some of the risks that prevent private capital flows to these geographies. While the key areas for reform have been identified by several independent committees, there is a need for clear, time-bound action. An independent committee under the Indian G20 Presidency has put forward a roadmap for MDB reform, aiming to make the provision of global public goods a pivotal mandate alongside existing priorities. This roadmap must be made more ambitious, along the lines suggested above.

Bridge the technology divide: The lesson of the pandemic for the developing world was that even lifesaving technology in a health emergency may not flow quickly enough between the Global North and the Global South. It is natural, therefore, to ask how technological diffusion will work in the climate space.

The global understanding of intellectual property in the health sector is that patent protection is vital for innovation but also that, on occasion, governments may have the duty to override protections in the face of emergencies. The right to issue compulsory licences is rarely invoked but is a vital part of the international property rights landscape. A similar mechanism needs to be deliberated on for climate tech. The presence of the possibility of compulsory licenses also ensures that many companies have the incentive to be good global citizens and provide voluntary licences that spread access to lifesaving technology while preserving a satisfactory share of their profits. Regulators and global institutions need to be able to create a parallel set of incentives for climate tech.

Fortunately, emerging economies are also seeing the emergence of a home-grown cleantech ecosystem driven by start-ups looking to disrupt traditional energy systems. This innovative sector might solve the problem of scaling up climate tech, but home-grown innovation continues to suffer from a lack of available public funds to incentivise research, reduced access to cutting-edge tech and a shortage of early-stage risk capital to bring certain technologies to commercial scale. Creating the right mechanisms to connect available risk capital in the Global North to cleantech ecosystems in the emerging world will be essential to bridging this innovation gap. Voluntary licensing can play a role in this mechanism as well.

Repositioning the start-up sector in the emerging world towards climate goals is a matter of allowing for potential rewards through the creation of risk funds. A simple $100 billion climate tech fund that would disburse money to 120-odd companies in the Global South, including start-ups with clear roadmaps for scaling up climate tech, would greatly multiply the mitigation effect per dollar of its money.

Spotlight the climate-health-gender nexus: The climate conversation needs to be made personal, especially for the vast populations of the Global South. Women, for example, are most affected by climate change and serve on the frontlines of adaptation. They should lead the effort to counter it. Female leadership in the climate field is both practical and essential. Creating women-led projects investing in female leadership will allow for the conversation about climate to move from an elite 30,000-foot discussion to one related to the real requirements and concerns of households.

Women are also the most likely to bear the health impacts of climate-related hazards.

For countries across the world, public health systems will have to adapt and shift scale in response to new climate-related risks. Putting health at the centre of the climate conversation will also allow for a further personalisation of climate policy. It will create new reasons for and loci of climate action.

Multilateral forums such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the G20 must better acknowledge and differentiate impacts of climate change on health outcomes across genders and craft women-led initiatives to mobilise societal support for political action. It is essential to establish appropriate mechanisms that include and build capacities of this key population segment to shape global and national action on climate.

Build new pathways for cooperation: While traditional multilateral mechanisms – such as the UNFCCC and other organs of global climate governance – may have fallen short at times, there is nevertheless an opportunity for global action that transcends geopolitical divides. India’s approach to its G20 presidency prioritised consensus in contested times. Even at the height of geopolitical polarisation, every major country is nevertheless moving, for its own reasons and out of a sense of responsibility, to take national action on mitigation and adaptation. In other words, climate action is the location of “inadvertent cooperation” between great powers and the driver of greater regional dialogue as well.

It can and should be viewed as a mechanism for restoring global stability and trust in multilateralism – if, that is, parties live up to their own commitments. This inadvertent cooperation should be captured and energised through new partnerships, institutions and dialogues. Countries with the coincidence of capabilities and concerns can collaborate in smaller groupings for faster and more ambitious action. UN-led discussions may suffer from “zero-sum” approaches and offer outcomes with only minimal ambition. They offer a suitable location for the mutual blame game, but global climate action must proceed nevertheless and build on the national action and inadvertent cooperation that is already visible.

This co-authored article with Danny Quah was first published on the World Economic Forum (WEF) as part of its White Paper on ‘Shaping Cooperation in a Fragmenting World’.

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India, international affairs, Writing

Raisina Chronicles: India’s Global Public Square

The Raisina Dialogue has become a feature today in the calendars of leaders around the world. It is a must-attend for all who seek to move the needle, disrupt the status quo, defend their beliefs, and create what shall be. India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geo-economics enters its 10th year. In that time, it has emerged as a global, inclusive, and wide-band forum of international importance, transcending borders and ideologies, ages and agendas, hashtags and echo chambers. It is India’s ‘global public square’—located in New Delhi, incubated by the world. Its purpose is to preserve and promote the often-challenged art of dialogue and of working through differences. In keeping with Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision of delivering public goods for the benefit of all humanity, it is indeed a platform that serves this planet.

Raisina has been crucial in propelling discourse, nurturing collaboration, and fostering a sense of shared responsibility. It is a venue for celebrating diversity in all its shapes and forms: of thought, of approaches, of beliefs, of politics. It has captured the age-old Indian premise that within us all lies a desire and power to do good. Each view must be heard, and each suggestion must be considered. Pluralism, confabulation and heterogeneity is what makes us resilient and anti-fragile; and what drives the evolution of individuals and of societies. This is India’s own story as well; an enormous diversity that rests on a powerful timeless unity. or this reason, Raisina provides a rare opportunity for leaders and diplomats, scholars and policymakers, journalists and academics, teenagers and seasoned thinkers, business folks and civil society—to all come together to debate, deliberate, disagree, and discover shared futures and common pathways.

On this occasion, we celebrate the Raisina Decade: a period during which the Dialogue has helped build regional partnerships and transcontinental collaborations, while responding to global challenges. For three days every year, it has brought a fractured and polarised world together. This volume chronicles this journey, and reflects on its unique strengths and attributes. And this is best done by bringing together how it is perceived by eminent participants from different parts of the world. These are the thoughts of those who have themselves experienced Raisina and have contributed ideas, who have listened and spoken there and who appreciate the difference it has made.

Read it here.

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