Geopolitics, international affairs, Writing

Six shades of leadership: A Davos barometer

As the traditional global order fractures, Davos 2026 reveals a new reality: The future no longer belongs to those with the most eloquent rhetoric, but to the leaders combining technical competence with the quiet confidence of actual delivery.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, is not merely an assemblage of elites; it is a barometer of the zeitgeist. Each year, it reveals how leaders interpret power, responsibility and risk in a changing world. This year’s interventions presented six distinct shades of leadership, conveyed through four key perspectives and embodied by two central actors. Together, they present not consensus, but a sharp study in contrast.

The first shade was managerial stewardship, articulated by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. His address pointed to a moment of “rupture.” He argued that intensifying great-power rivalry has led countries to seek “greater strategic autonomy,” creating a “world of fortresses.”

Carney’s speech was rooted in institutional confidence. He framed the strengthening of domestic economies and collective investment in resilience as twin objectives, arguing for a world order that respects human rights, sustainable development and sovereignty. His Davos was a call to be “principled and pragmatic” rather than to re-architect the global order. This was leadership that trusts existing institutions and believes the world still has the patience to let them work.

The second shade was transactional disruption, communicated by United States President Donald Trump. His rhetoric rejected multilateral restraint in favor of bilateral leverage, presenting economic gain as an overriding priority and alliances as instruments rather than obligations. The message was clear: prosperity follows power, not process. As Trump put it, “We’re a great power […] I think they found that out.” With a focus on tariffs and trade deficits, his Davos was interested only in outcomes, not rules, in immediacy, not institution-building.

The third shade was a desire for normative leadership, expressed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. She sought to reaffirm Europe’s belief that values can still anchor power, citing climate leadership, rules-based trade and responsible digital cooperation as sources of strategic strength.

Yet, there lay an unresolved tension: Europe’s influence rests on standards, but its ability to enforce them is being tested by a world that respects speed, scale and leverage more than value-based persuasion. Von der Leyen’s was a Davos of aspiration, eloquent and principled, but also one of wistfulness: “The cooperative world order we imagined 25 years ago has not turned into reality.”

The fourth shade was a return to the principle of inclusion, articulated by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto. The conviction that “there will be no prosperity without peace” framed his speech. Prabowo highlighted Indonesia’s recognition as a “global bright spot,” a result of a legacy of “unity over fragmentation and collaboration over confrontation,” alongside a consistently unblemished record of debt repayment. His Davos was one of excellence at home and cooperation with the world on mutually beneficial terms, proving that sound domestic investment creates international gravity.

Together, these four perspectives revealed a fractured global conversation: stewardship without urgency, disruption without responsibility, values without sufficient power and peace over chaos.

The fifth shade emerged not through rhetoric but through technical confidence, embodied by Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s electronics and IT minister. Speaking on India’s progress in manufacturing and its transformational digital public infrastructure, Vaishnaw carried a quiet authority. He presented India’s story as proof of capability rather than a plea for recognition. On the AI race, he observed that producing massive large language models (LLMs) did not necessarily grant an edge; rather, the creative deployment of AI did. His understated style reminded audiences that credibility flows from delivery, not declaration, setting the stage for the AI Impact Summit in India later this month.

The sixth shade was political presence, represented by Smriti Irani at the WEF Lead Pavilion. Her engagement focused on asserting India’s voice on women’s leadership, health and enterprise through the Alliance for Global Good.

Since its launch, the Alliance has significantly scaled its coalition-building. In 2026, the focus shifted to women’s health as an “economic and national imperative.” Irani’s message, placing women at the center of decision-making, resonated across governments and business movements alike.

Together, these six shades tell a story of a leadership landscape fragmenting across temperaments: managerial, transactional, normative, inclusive, technical and political. Davos remains the stage, but it no longer writes the script. The most consequential leadership today will be provided by those who combine competence with confidence, and ambition with delivery.

In that sense, the clarity of the Indian and Indonesian interventions signified that the future belongs not to those who speak most eloquently about the world, but to those who are steadily building it.

Originally Appeared in The JakartaPost

BRICS, Budapest Global Dialogue, Geopolitics, international affairs, Writing

The Budapest Dossier 2025: Choices In This New World

Ed Samir Saran | Gladden J Pappin

Editors’ Note

As the world begins a second quarter of the current century, there is a clear reshaping of the global balance of power. Yet, it is not only the diffusion of power that is shifting; so is the organising logic of the global system itself, moving toward security and resilience, and carrying implications for economic integration, strategic partnerships, and institutional cooperation. For Europe, this is a moment of strategic reflection; for emerging powers, a moment of assertive arrival.

The essays in this volume probe the tensions and opportunities of a world in transition—the struggle to rebuild credible multilateralism, the race for technological and economic sovereignty, and the search for forms of connectivity and cooperation that strengthen, rather than surrender, national agency. Together, these articles compel a rethinking of inherited assumptions and remind us that legitimacy today is earned through capability, credibility, and the courage to design new compacts. The future will be scripted less by legacy alliances, and more by a wider constellation of actors—from Europe to the emerging powers—with Hungary positioned as a critical bridge in these unfolding conversations.

The Budapest Dossier 2025 captures this moment of inflection, convening scholars across disciplines and geographies to illuminate how a world in flux is recasting its political, economic, and strategic foundations.

Kwame Owino argues that global economic fragmentation—through rising regionalism and stalled multilateral reform—creates new vulnerabilities for sub-Saharan Africa’s lower- and middle-income economies. In a multipolar world shaped by larger emerging powers, Africa’s strongest anchor remains a functioning multilateral system.

Philipp Siegert argues that Europe’s geopolitical comfort zone has collapsed as the global system and global order drift out of alignment. The European Union (EU), caught between globalisation, state agency, and democracy, now confronts an intensified version of Rodrik’s Trilemma that it can no longer evade. He contends that only a shift toward “sovereign internationalism” and adaptive connectivity can restore Europe’s strategic relevance.

Márton Ugrósdy casts Hungary’s worldview as a sovereignty-first doctrine that rejects supranational presumption and globalist orthodoxy, insisting that power and legitimacy rise from the people. Everything else—EU cooperation, global partnerships, foreign policy—follows from that foundational conviction.

Péter Siklósi shows that Europe’s call for autonomy rings hollow in a moment when only NATO underwrites its security. Caught between renewed threats and insufficient capabilities, Europe remains reactive, and not a shaper of the emerging order.

Kimlong Chheng argues that Europe is caught in a crisis of identity and cohesion, where fraying values and sovereignty battles unsettle its political core. These tensions weaken Europe’s regulatory ambition and strategic confidence. Its relevance in a multipolar world, he contends, hinges on restoring trust and a coherent values-driven compass.

Philip Pilkington argues that Europe’s competitiveness crisis is being fundamentally misread: the real rupture is not technological lag but the loss of cheap energy after the eruption of the war in Ukraine. He shows that protectionism, industrial policy, and the Draghi Report all skirt the core issue, leaving Europe to drift toward de-industrialisation. Until the energy question is confronted head-on, Europe cannot reclaim economic strength nor strategic agency.

Victoria V. Panova presents BRICS as a non-Western coalition pushing for an inclusive, law-based global order grounded in equality and respect. As Western structures retreat into coercion, she argues, BRICS offers a more constructive model for a plural world.

Sunaina Kumar casts the Indo-Pacific as the heat engine of global geopolitics—an arena where great-power rivalry collides with the region’s central role in trade, growth, and climate stability. She argues that the challenge for regional actors is to balance security imperatives with deeply interdependent economic futures, using flexible coalitions and minilaterals to navigate an increasingly fractured order. The Indo-Pacific’s ability to shape the emerging system, she observes, depends on inclusive cooperation, resilient connectivity, and a shared commitment to sustainable development.

Lydia Kostopoulos argues that the fusion of AI, data, and converging technologies has turned geopolitics into technogeopolitics, forcing states to reclaim sovereignty in a domain increasingly dominated by private actors. She underscores the need for nations to invest in resilient energy and digital infrastructure, craft trustworthy regulation, and deploy agile policy tools like sandboxes to stay competitive. The future of statecraft, she writes, will belong to countries that wield technology as a deliberate instrument of national power.

Boglárka Ballester-Bólya argues that Europe’s slide in competitiveness is largely self-inflicted—driven by regulatory excess, ideological policymaking, and an energy regime that undermines industry. Hungary’s call for “less red tape, more innovation” is framed as a strategic course correction, restoring productivity, affordability, and ambition. She warns that unless Brussels embraces pragmatism over performative governance, Europe will watch the global race from the sidelines.

Matthias Bauer’s essay portrays a Europe tangled in its own rules — overregulated, under-scaled, and falling behind while others accelerate. He insists that only bold, continent-wide legal harmonisation can restore Europe’s ability to innovate, attract investment, and compete at the technological frontier. Fragmentation, Bauer warns, is not just inefficient—it is a quiet erosion of Europe’s global standing.

Stephen R. Nagy casts infrastructure as the new battleground of sovereignty, where small and medium-sized states craft manoeuvrability through diversified partnerships. Nagy argues that ASEAN and Hungary hedge through connectivity—engaging China, Japan, the United States, and others without surrendering choice or autonomy. In a divided world, he writes, infrastructure is not dependency but agency in physical form.

Jagannath Panda describes the Indo-Pacific as moving from a United States-led hierarchy to a diffuse, coalition-driven order shaped by strategic autonomy, hedging, and competing connectivity visions. As the United States’ centrality wavers and China advances its architectural ambitions, India emerges as the region’s stabilising anchor—democratic, autonomous, and increasingly central to the strategic calculations of major powers. The future, he says, will be written not by hegemonies but by networks of states unwilling to be bound by any single pole.

Szabolcs Pásztor argues that ‘slowbalisation’ has not fully fractured the world into rival blocs but propelled it into a new era of networked connectivity, where emerging economies have become hubs rather than peripheries. South–South trade, digital flows, and value-chain linkages now drive global growth, making decoupling both costly and illusory. He contends that the future belongs to bridges—open standards, cross-regional infrastructure, and cooperative institutions that keep the global system resilient and open.

These essays converge on a simple truth: the international system is being rebuilt in real time. Those who combine resilience, capability, and cooperative ambition will not only endure this transition but help define its architecture.

Read the monograph here.

Energy, Global Energy Transition, Viksit Bharat, Writing

India’s Cheapest Power Needs New Buyers

Nikit Abhyankar | Samir Saran

Manufacturing clusters, export-oriented industries, and data centres can procure clean electricity through open access or captive routes, gaining long-term cost certainty while absorbing large volumes of new capacity

For decades, India’s power sector grappled with scarcity and affordability issues even as it undertook complex and ambitious power-sector reforms. Today, we add 40 GW of renewable capacity every year, far more than in most developed economies and cheaper than in most geographies. The task is to organise markets, institutions, and demand. Absorption is becoming a constraint with nearly 42 GW of renewable capacity awarded through auctions yet to find buyer utilities. Distribution companies are cautious about additional clean energy commitments. To sustain clean-energy momentum, the pool of buyers must expand. Two structural shifts make this possible.

The first is the fall in clean-energy prices. Recent reverse auctions have closed at around Rs 3 per unit for solar power paired with storage — with prices remaining flat in nominal terms for 12 to 25 years. These projects can deliver near round-the-clock supply at the same prices. The second factor is a product of institutional reform. Open access and captive procurement allow large industrial and commercial consumers to buy power from anywhere in the country by paying network charges. Roughly a quarter of India’s renewable capacity addition is now driven by this. This transition will allow utilities to evolve into strong grid and reliability platforms while new demand absorbs low-cost clean power. Where will new demand come from?

The second factor is a product of institutional reform. Open access and captive procurement allow large industrial and commercial consumers to buy power from anywhere in the country by paying network charges.

First, manufacturing clusters, export-oriented industries, and data centres can procure clean electricity through open access or captive routes, gaining long-term cost certainty while absorbing large volumes of new capacity. Such clusters, offering Indian exports an edge under carbon border measures such as the EU’s CBAM, could unlock FDI and green finance, accelerating industrial growth and clean-power deployment. Second, nearly half of India’s industrial energy demand is to process heat, with a large portion supplied by imported oil and gas. Electric heat pumps and high-temperature heat batteries allow this demand to shift towards clean electricity.

Third, fertiliser and steel are important sectors, yet depend on imported gas and coking coal. Recent green ammonia auctions reveal fertiliser production using clean electricity is competitive. With continued cost declines, green steel could follow a similar path. Fourth, electrifying buses, commercial fleets, and freight corridors can create a large and flexible demand source for domestic clean power. When charging is aligned with daytime solar output, electricity demand rises when clean power is most abundant. Fifth, distributed rooftop solar across commercial buildings, MSMEs, and homes lowers bills and improves resilience. For utilities, it reduces peak demand, losses, and subsidy burdens.

Large buyers could transition faster if long-term clean-energy contracts were aggregated and securitised through dedicated finance platforms. Smaller consumers will need India Stack–connected fintech products to reduce transaction friction. Expanding demand for clean electricity is also the most effective way to absorb India’s excess solar panel manufacturing capacity. One concern is that key components, particularly batteries, are often imported. India has shown through solar manufacturing that such dependencies can be reduced with scale and policy certainty. Batteries can follow a similar trajectory, supported through partnerships with allied economies to secure critical minerals.

Robust domestic demand has always been the Indian economy’s greatest strength. It can now also work for its energy transition. India’s cheapest power has arrived. Building the markets, institutions, and end-use pathways will define the journey to Viksit Bharat.

Originally Appeared in Indian Express.

Artificial Intelligence, Cyber and Internet Governance, Cyber and Technology, Cyber Security, Writing

Swords and Shields: Navigating the Modern Intelligence Landscape

SAMIR SARAN | ARCHISHMAN RAY GOSWAMI

As key custodians of a nation’s strategic intent, national intelligence services must account for and adapt to the wider socio-cultural and political factors shaping their operational environment. Today, shifting geopolitical tides in the form of accelerated multipolarity, scientific progress, and the erosion of accountability in global technological governance have converged to reshape national intelligence strategies. This paper seeks to make sense of these changes by discussing key features of the shifting global intelligence landscape. These include factors such as the role of ‘geotechnography’ in blurring distinctions between offline and online experiences, the consequences of growing inter-state competition over rare-earth elements and supply chains, the evolving character of human intelligence (HUMINT) amid ubiquitous technical surveillance (UTS), and the role of private sector intelligence and Big Tech in a data-infused geostrategic terrain. The aim is to foster a discussion on how nations think about and use intelligence in changing times. It closes with an exploration of the implications of these changes for India’s national security.

Originally appeared here

Global South, Green Technology, international affairs, Sustainable Development, Writing

Issue Brief : The Green Development Compact: Atlantic Ambition, Southern Scale

Amitabh Kant | Samir Saran

The United States (US) and the European Union (EU) have shifted beyond market-led climate action toward state-backed green industrial policy, driven by competitiveness, economic security, and technological leadership concerns. Despite differences in approach, Atlantic strategies share an inward focus that positions the Global South primarily as a consumer market or supplier of intermediate inputs. Such models are politically unsustainable for developing economies and economically inefficient for achieving the scale required for the global energy transition. This brief argues for moving from competition-driven industrial policy toward co-development and shared prosperity across regions. It proposes a Green Development Compact that integrates Northern capital, innovation, and corporate capacity with Southern scale, speed, and renewable endowments. It outlines practical instruments to operationalise this framework, including long-term offtake guarantees, shared innovation commons, and financial mechanisms that reduce risk for Southern projects.

Read more here.

Source: ORF Website, January 3, 2026

India, Writing

Growth story powered by indigenous engines

In the 1980s, a young India was being excited against older nation-states. In the 2020s, an ancient civilisation is leading the way in forging a new consensus

The year 2025 might well go down in Indian economic history alongside 1991 as a year that marks a decisive break with the past. These were both years that accelerated our intent, ambition, and execution as a nation. But, if in 1991, the initial burst of economic reform was driven by recognition of a balance of payments crisis, the 2025 reforms have been driven by understanding a balance of power opportunity. And this burst of reform, even more than those before, reflects how India’s leadership at the highest level — particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself — understands the way that growth is nurtured in this evolving, fragmented world.

By creating a political and geo-economic challenge, Donald Trump invited the Modi of the past to reappear: The political and economic revolutionary who thrives by confronting stale orthodoxy and refuses to outsource national destiny. By revealing international relationships as nakedly transactional, the US president reminded New Delhi of one basic truth: Nobody is going to celebrate India’s rise. In a progress-starved global economy, growth is not shared. Instead, growth is competed for, hoarded, weaponised. We might have been lulled into thinking, for a time, that growth would emerge from partnerships. But Modi has correctly identified that growth is DIY: We must do it for ourselves — and keep doing it. It must be incubated, nourished, and sustained domestically, like a household plant that needs constant watering, or a steel plant that can never be shut down. Global relationships matter, but the West is neither enemy nor saviour. It is simply a partner whose errant ways must be moderated through calm engagement.

In the 1980s, a young India was being excited against older nation-states. But, in the 2020s, an ancient civilisation is leading the way in forging a new consensus, through example rather than exhortation. This is what it means to be Bharat. Growth is the greatest, best example we can set for the world. And that is what Modi has given us in this year of reform on steroids: The building blocks of decades of growth.

Perhaps, the most consequential of these is the pushing through of the four labour codes. This is the biggest factor-market structural reset since the 1990s. Today’s India has finally understood the support businesses need to help us become a developed nation. Rules have been cut by three-quarters, reporting forms by 60%, and registers for returns by 90%. More than 60 million enterprises will benefit — five times the footprint even of GST.

But GST itself has been reshaped: Two slabs eliminated, compliance simplified. Lower tax enabled quarters of euphoric growth — but, even more importantly, the fatigue felt by small businesses was addressed. Reform is not just a one-off event, an initial investment; it requires maintenance, continual recalibration in response to lived reality, and attentive leadership.

Tax cuts are, in fact, stimulus by stealth. When Union Budget 2025 raised the cut-off for income tax exemption to ₹1,00,000 a month, Modi showed that the creation of an Indian middle class requires its protection from government — not just from extortionary taxes but from unnecessary harassment and criminalisation. The Unified Securities Market Code, the Jan Vishwas 2.0 Bill, and the new Income Tax Act show that clarity rather than coercion is the cornerstone of India’s emerging State.

Finally, in December, three reforms signal the strategic confidence that Bharat now has. In the past, a divided polity twisted itself into knots about foreign participation in sectors such as insurance and nuclear energy. Those days are gone. Without fuss or fanfare, nuclear power and insurance were opened to private participation, their legal framework modernised and brought into line with global norms, and our clean energy ambitions restated.

Each of these reforms is individually significant. Taken together, they are revolutionary. Modi is doing nationally what he once did in Gujarat, what he did later with Digital India and the GST — taking big bets and forcing an ossified state machinery into movement through sheer willpower. No longer will anyone pretend that external benevolence can carry India forward. The engines and energy that propel us will be indigenous.

Throughout 2025, unforeseen challenges arose abroad. But Modi’s response was domestic energy, domestic focus, domestic reform. Before restructuring its partnership with the world, India must rewrite its contract with itself. This is the time to write India’s future, and Indians will do it.

Source: Originally appeared in Hindustan Times

Artificial Intelligence, India, Writing

Beyond Chips, Data Centres Lies India’s Ai Opportunity

As the world leaves the Compute Era and enters the Diffusion Era, India – its companies, its institutions and governments – must ask three questions

The world is competing over AI. But this will not remain merely a race towards a smaller chip, a larger data centre, or a faster model. The winner will be determined by those who turn innovation into impact and convert technological advances into product value, institutional capacity and community trust. Power in this era will flow not only to those who own algorithms or command fields of silicon, but also to those who find ways to weave AI into daily life at the national or continental scale.

Three distinct processes and evolutions compose this AI age. The first is the Compute Era, in which chip supply chains and hyperscale data centres determine market share. It tilts towards those with capital, energy and traditional resources such as land and water. The second is the Diffusion Era, where nations with population-scale digital platforms and deep real-economy deployment shape how and where value is created, captured, and compounded. The third is the Governance Era, in which sovereign power and political legitimacy — as well as geopolitical leverage — pick winners among AI systems.

As talk of overinvestment in data centres and supporting facilities grows, we may see the peaking of the Compute Era. Computational resources will become a utility — invested in like legacy utilities, priced like them, and regulated like them. Such a path has been followed many times: The introduction of a new technology, a boom period of sensation and overinvestment, followed by an overhang in which the physical, corporate and human-capital remnants of the boom are transformed into core infrastructure for broader innovation and growth.

What you do with compute infrastructure is what will create value in the Diffusion Era. Nations like India — experienced at adopting and adapting technology at scale — will have a natural advantage. The benefits of compute as a utility will flow to those who can build applications that create value for the greatest number. Trust will be the key. Success will depend upon how effectively kinship and trust can be nurtured, and how much value a community sees in a product. LLMs will have to localise. Large models are trained on the Common Crawl, which over-represents Western data and misrepresents the cultural context of countries like India. The Diffusion Era will seek to correct that. New winners will emerge from within communities. Beyond the horizon lies the Governance Era. Governments will respond to the Diffusion Era by guarding data sovereignty more zealously than they have hitherto. They will seek to control the utilities left over from the Compute Era, and intervene in the competitive dynamics of the Diffusion Era. Such a return to sovereign power is almost inevitable for a boom-bust-diffusion technology.

As the world leaves the Compute Era and enters the Diffusion Era, India — its companies, its institutions and governments — must ask three questions.

First, can Indian companies take the necessary risks? Do they have the capability to bet on an unknown future? Smaller enterprises have demonstrated they have the entrepreneurial nous to do so. But will the broader private sector be able to seize the benefits of the Diffusion Era? It will require a change in mindset, in corporate governance, and risk appetite.

Second, can Indian institutions and finance find, energise and incentivise capital to create systems that can bet on unknowns and undiscovered innovations? Can we ensure that patient capital emerges from India and the world that can support and develop infrastructure at a utility scale?

And can the government create a world-beating regulatory structure that blends private profit and public good — like, for example, the Digital Public Infrastructure model? Can it protect individual rights and digital sovereignty without stifling entrepreneurial fever? Can we build an India-specific AI architecture that sits comfortably within and atop a global AI system?

If India can answer these three questions, it will dominate the threefold era of AI. Let’s build compute infrastructure, unleash entrepreneurial communities, and create supportive regulation.

Source: Originally Appeared in Indian Express

Global Governance, international affairs, multilateralism, Multipolar World, Writing

Annual Trends Report : Beyond Global Polarization: New Cooperation Wanted

Foreword by Karim El Aynaoui, Paolo Magri, Samir Saran

In 2025, the global landscape became increasingly fragmented and uncertain. Great power competition intensified, regional conflicts became protracted and exacerbated, while economic nationalism reshaped the rules of trade and development. The mechanisms for conflict resolution and cooperation that have long provided a foundation for international cooperation are now under strain due to polarization and mistrust. Even longstanding alliances, bilateral and collective security architectures at the core of international security system have not escaped these changes. While some attribute these trends to the emergence of a multipolar world order, there is no consensus whether such a transformation is occurring or on the causal link. There is agreement only on the notion that the world is moving beyond the post-cold war order and that, eighty years after the creation of the UN, institutional reform is overdue.

Yet while these challenges and the erosion of traditional mechanisms of cooperation understandably dominate the attention of the public, policymakers and the expert community, they do not tell the whole story. Amidst polarization, unilateral policies and growing calls by political leaders to adopt inward-looking policies, new and pragmatic forms of cooperation are emerging. By keeping sight of the shared interest in coordinating responses to global challenges, these efforts are, in effect, transcending some of the existing divides between nations of the North and the South. They therefore might merit recognition and sustained support, not only for their potential transformative impact but also for the message they convey: that alternative pathways are possible! It is the ultimate acknowledgement that living in a world where an increasing diversity of political, economic, and social models coexists and where differing visions of governance and development are put forward comes with difficulties. Yet this very reality also offers a great opportunity: plurality is key to finding appropriate responses to emerging challenges.

It is in that spirit that leaders and experts from over 100 countries convened in February 2025 for the AI Action Summit. The summit highlighted innovation, real-world applications, and economic prospects of AI, while also addressing wider risks. The signing by 58 nations, including Morocco, India and Italy, and various international organizations of the Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet demonstrates that a core group of countries willing to mutualize their efforts is emerging.

On the war in Gaza, the High-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and Implementation of the Two-State Solution, held in July, showed that many nations were eager to move past the deadlock in the UN Security Council and take collective action to end the war and discuss the contours of a comprehensive peace plan for the region, before the Gaza Peace Plan was signed by the parties and endorsed by the UN Security Council in early October. The New York Declaration, which is the outcome document of the July conference, was endorsed by 142 nations when they voted in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution backing the document. This stands as a reminder that coalitions can be formed across traditional divides. It is also a testament that when political will converges, pragmatic partnerships can emerge that transcend national interests, regional rivalries, or historical grievances. Unfortunately, at the moment a similar convergence has not yet fully materialized on the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Similarly, on the economic front, at a time when protectionism and economic nationalism seem to dominate the global narrative, it is important to recognize that new avenues for economic cooperation are also developing, as is the case for the Future of Investment and Trade Partnership (FITP), which brings together 14 small and medium-sized economies to support open and rules-based global trade. In sum, these efforts matter not only because they push back against the perception of an inevitable slide into isolationism or polarization into opposite camps at the international level, but also because they concretely demonstrate that pragmatic alliances that include diverse nations are still possible. Even when they operate outside traditional frameworks, such initiatives serve the broader global public interest by keeping channels of cooperation open. What stands out in these initiatives is the imagination behind them: a willingness to adapt, to experiment, and to work together in spite of differences. They reflect a simple truth: the challenges we face are shared, and the responses will only be effective if they are coordinated.

This belief is at the heart of the partnership between the Policy Center for the New South (PCNS, Morocco), the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF, India). Our three institutions coordinate a partnership that extends across regions, disciplines, and perspectives. The tripartite initiative that we launched in 2023 frames our strategic deliberations and engagement. It is an avenue for over 400 experts from three continents to meet, exchange, conduct research, and disseminate findings and cross-perspectives. One of the outputs of this joint research, the Annual Trends report, today in its third edition, seeks to provide a forward-looking analysis of global developments, to highlight areas where cooperation is possible, and to contribute ideas for a more inclusive and resilient international order.

This edition explores five key areas: global governance, security, the economy and development, energy and climate, and new technologies and the digital transition, underscoring that in a polarized world where blame and scapegoating consume valuable time, genuine progress depends on constructive engagement that brings together willing partners across regions to move beyond confrontation and build practical paths toward cooperation.

At the same time, even as new initiatives and partnerships take shape, this should not lead us to abandon the frameworks that have long underpinned international cooperation. Reforms are necessary, but they must not serve as an excuse to neglect the preservation of global public goods. These institutions remain the pillars that make cooperation possible, and investing in them is essential if we are to turn shared challenges into shared solutions.

Read the volume here.

India, Maritime Security, Writing

Steady hand on the helm: India charts a confident course in global maritime transformation

India is strengthening its maritime presence and global trade links. New initiatives aim to boost shipbuilding and shipping capacity. India is also focusing on sustainable practices and digital transformation in its ports. These efforts position India as a key player in global maritime security and economic stability, fostering cooperative growth and reliable supply chains for many nations.

Over four-fifths of world trade still moves by sea. As geopolitical tensions buffet maritime routes, India’s role in protecting the global commons grows ever more strategic. The transition from SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) to MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), alongside the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047, reflects India’s intent to anchor both regional stability and global connectivity.

Under the Sagarmala initiative, India has expanded port infra, shipbuilding and port-linked industrialisation at record pace. In FY25, India’s 12 major ports handled an unprecedented 855 mn t of cargo – a 4.3% y-o-y rise. Container throughput grew by 10%, fertilisers by 13%, and petroleum traffic by 3%. For the first time, Paradip and Deendayal ports each crossed the 150 mn t mark, underscoring India’s operational maturity.

Yet, India’s ambitions extend beyond trade logistics. Despite its overwhelming dependence on maritime commerce – 95% by volume and 70% by value – India’s share in global shipbuilding remains modest, at about 1%, with its shipping registry accounting for only 0.8% of the world’s vessels. To remedy this strategic deficit, GoI has unveiled a ₹69,725-cr programme aimed at expanding shipbuilding capacity, financing mechanisms, skill development and regulatory reforms.

These measures, expected to add 4.5 mn gross t in capacity and generate over 3 mn jobs, mark Sagarmala 2.0, a comprehensive effort to position India among the world’s leading shipbuilding and shipping nations. The goal is clear: to secure at least 10% of global shipbuilding and ownership over the next decade, insulating India from external vulnerabilities and asserting its place in the global maritime economy.

The future of maritime growth, however, must be sustainable. India’s plan to establish green hydrogen hub ports in Kandla, Paradip and Tuticorin represents a decisive turn toward decarbonised shipping and industrial ecosystems. These hubs will leverage the country’s vast RE potential to power cleaner supply chains, spur green hydrogen exports and anchor new industrial clusters.

Simultaneously, digital platforms such as SAGAR SETU and the National Logistics Portal-Marine are facilitating a transition to a smart, paperless and transparent ecosystem, enabling real-time cargo tracking and seamless global integration.

India’s port-led development is no longer an inward-looking exercise. It is becoming a template for cooperative growth. The MAHASAGAR framework highlights the indivisible link between security and prosperity, drawing like-minded nations into shared maritime resilience. India’s participation in strategic corridors – from India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) to the Chabahar Port initiative – demonstrates how it is shaping the geography of global connectivity.

India’s maritime rise, therefore, is not a solitary journey. It is a collective ascent. It anchors supply chains, stabilises economies and offers the world a new pole of reliability in turbulent times. As the seas churn with uncertainty, India’s steady hand on the helm ensures that many more nations can sail ahead with confidence.

Source: Economic Times, October 29, 2025

economy, Writing

The affection economy

The future belongs to those who best understand that the prosperity, influence and well-being at this time is care and belonging.

Any epoch has an underlying currency that determines how power is distributed, partnerships are formed, and international relations are managed. In the distant past, it was fertile land. Then it was mineral resources. More recently, it has been demography, innovation or creativity that determined value, national purpose, and global power.

As old orders replace themselves, new economic forms emerge. The emergence of the information age gave us the data economy and the attention economy. In today’s world — decoupled, divided, atomistic — another term must receive our consideration: The affection economy.

Success today — in trade, in innovation, in the creation of value — depends upon how skillfully you curate a community, how effectively you kindle kinship, how carefully you nurture cohorts. Cohorts, kinships, communities: They are the building blocks of co-operation and economic success.

We have already seen glimmerings of this understanding permeate even the most rational, realist spheres of international relations. What, after all, do we mean when we speak of “like-minded” nations? Like-mindedness creates commonality. It creates a shared purpose and ensures a common direction. It means trust endures even through the temporary turbulence of the sort that the American president is currently inflicting.

The affection economy has visible effects on the corporate world as well. Both companies and countries compete for affection; they expand their footprint through a dedication to empathetic engagement and care.

The smartest places, like Dubai, have designed entire demographic and growth policies around curated communities. Visas are offered apparently for commercial reasons, but actually to create a golden cohort of affection. The purpose of their national policy is to make people embrace Dubai. Like Dubai, fly Dubai, buy Dubai, live Dubai.

The UAE may be the perfect exemplar, but it is not the only one. Other countries are constructing or have constructed soft power strategies around communities of interest. Germany is one; Australia and New Zealand, too — and of course Singapore.

Corporations have done it. In India, the stakeholder capitalism that Dhirubhai Ambani fostered — filling stadiums with tens of thousands of co-owners of the Reliance enterprise — offers an analogy. It percolates to the company’s thinking even today, with the equity community being succeeded by the data equity community, taking broadband to the bottom of the pyramid.

The US is a special case. Companies like Apple have built on that foundation to create global production and consumption networks that look to California for inspiration. The federal government has largely let the American private sector run the affection economy.

It is this stored-up affection capital that President Donald Trump is running down so speedily. What differentiates countries and companies today is the networks they lead. It has long been taken for granted that China lacked soft power, that it was respected but not loved. In the 21st century, this placed a hard ceiling on its rise. The US had no such hard ceiling till it constructed one for itself.

How has the affection economy come to dominate? The flattening of the world by digital technology has had something to do with it. It replaced organic connections created by neighbourhoods and workplaces with the more diffuse, detached and delicate bonds that are created online.

But this and individualisation have been in progress for decades. Political scientist Robert Putnam developed a theory in the 1990s of “social capital”, explaining how person-to-person connections were foundational for modern America. In his book Bowling Alone, he argued that this social capital was on the decline, taking civic consciousness with it. This would cause problems, as the community was the true determinant and differentiator of success. Francis Fukuyama demonstrated in his book Trust (1995) how social capital created trust within nations, and how trust led to stability and economic growth.

Putnam is not surprised that the desolation of communities has caused the rise of extreme movements. Political activist Steve Bannon has publicly said that Bowling Alone inspired him and others to identify their political movement as a cure for the social isolation felt by many Americans. This phenomenon is being replicated around the world: Individualistic societies are abandoning their lonely members to such extreme communities. These groups and movements may be only a dark imitation of the true solidarity and fellowship that creates trust, but they are still communities for those who have no other.

The final push that transformed global society would have to be a global event. Covid provided that impetus. It was a period when isolation deepened, the workplace became irrelevant, and the appeal of the solo actor was enhanced. Today, the digital nomad and the lone-wolf terrorist are two sides of the same coin.

The future will belong to those who best understand that advancements in the technology and economic realms have brought human collectives back a full circle socially. We have indeed returned to a primal state, where communities matter more than anything else. The currency for prosperity, influence and well-being at this time is care and belonging. Prime Minister Narendra Modi read this right when he spoke of vasudhaiva kutumbakam: One Earth, One Family, One Future. It is indeed the time for a return on and to affection.

Source : Appeared in Indian Express