India Narrative

33 Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s maiden visit to Fiji in 2014 was significant in Indian foreign policy, highlighting the growing importance of the South Pacific in India’s Act East Policy and laying the foundation for the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) in 2014. Today, India considers the region integral to her grand Indo-Pacific strategy, as asserted at the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting in Koror, Palau, on September 1, 2026.

35 India will host the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi next week and has already set the tone by re-anchoring the acronym BRICS to mean “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”. The groundwork is in place to steer BRICS out of the shadows of weaponised plurilateralism, but India’s grand strategy also faces a high-stress test.

45 The upcoming 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, scheduled for 12–13 September 2026, will be a consequential test of whether an expanded BRICS can translate its political appeal into practical, institution-building outcomes.

14 For generations, our schoolchildren have stood before classroom walls and absorbed a quiet untruth. On the familiar Mercator world map, Africa looks modest, almost peripheral — roughly the size of Greenland, squeezed between an inflated Europe and a swollen North America. Last Friday, the United Nations General Assembly voted, at last, to say that this picture is no longer good enough.

55 Japan’s Defence of Japan 2026 marks an important stage in Tokyo’s continuing transformation from a predominantly reactive security actor into a more capable, networked and technologically integrated power. Its central message is clear: Japan believes that the post-war regional order is under exceptional pressure, and that deterrence can no longer depend solely on the Japan–United States alliance or on traditional platforms such as aircraft, ships and missiles.

40 Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever spent three days in India from September 2 to 4, holding talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi before moving on to business meetings in Mumbai. The visit was the first by a Belgian head of government in two decades. The last was in 2006; Modi travelled to Brussels in 2016. That gap is the first thing to understand about the trip. India and Belgium have traded steadily for years without much political attention.

24 India is transitioning from discussions to practical steps to enter the Arctic shipping sector, with plans to undertake its first cargo voyage. In August 2026, at the Arctic Regions Forum in Russia, the Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways announced that India plans to dispatch its first pilot cargo vessel via the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in 2027.

19 The country has talent, data, clean energy and public digital rails. What it needs now is the will to build capability at population scale. Whether you are ready or not, we are in the midst of a civilizational transition. The last of this magnitude was the Industrial Revolution, which took two centuries to play out. This one will take two decades.

51 China watching is especially vulnerable to coincidences that look like signals. General Zhao Zongqi’s removal is a case in point. General Zhao Zongqi headed the Western Theatre Command during the 2020 crisis and was also the commander who oversaw Doklam in 2017.

32 The face of the city has changed almost  beyond recognition since the days when the princely painter Ravi Varma from Kerala recreated the landscape of Shehar Jeypore on his easel. Founded by a visionary ruler, Sawai Jaisingh, truly a renaissance man- an astronomer, benevolent ruler, statesman, and patron of the arts- it was a lovingly planned city. Gifted Bengali Architect Vidyadhar transformed the dream of his patron into reality.