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Subject: International Relations

  • India’s opportunity to put BRICS back together

    Why in the News

    The 18th BRICS Summit is to be held in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September 2026 under India’s chairship. The grouping now carries 11 members and 10 partner countries after an expansion India and Brazil both resisted. Its founding practice of adopting documents only by consensus has been bypassed more than once since 2020, most recently at the BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting held in New Delhi in May 2026. The contest is over what the group is for: a reform coalition of emerging economies working inside existing institutions, or a bloc defined by opposition to the West. The summit is the point at which the chair can push that choice one way or the other.

    What is BRICS?

    1. What it is: BRICS is a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, formed to give the emerging economies a greater voice in global governance and institutions, particularly financial and economic ones, and to work towards a more equitable multilateral order.
    2. How it works: It has no treaty and no binding decision procedure. It operates by consensus, and its output is a summit declaration adopted by all members.
    3. What it has built: Its principal institution is the New Development Bank, the multilateral development bank established by the members to lend for infrastructure and sustainable development.

    What did India originally want from BRICS?

    1. A vehicle for reform: India was an enthusiastic early participant, treating the group as a means of securing genuine reform of multilateral institutions.
    2. The first Indian-hosted summit: The fourth BRICS summit, held in India in 2012, took the theme “Global Stability, Security and Prosperity”, which tacitly reflected a much broader geopolitical canvas than economics alone.
    3. What the Indian presidency produced: It helped lead to the establishment of the New Development Bank. Other Indian initiatives followed, including the integration of a counter-terrorism architecture into the group’s work.
    4. The current chairship’s framing: This year’s theme rests on four pillars, Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability, and draws on the Prime Minister’s “Humanity First” vision and a “people-centric” approach to BRICS cooperation.

    How did China’s use of BRICS diverge from the reform agenda?

    1. A different purpose from the start: China saw the group as a counterpoise to Western domination, a view India also shared initially in the specific context of reform.
    2. Why China needed the platform: A group of emerging economies accounting for nearly 20 per cent of world GDP in 2010 could amplify Chinese global ambitions in a way China could not do alone.
    3. The outreach mechanisms carried the design: BRICS-Plus and BRICS Outreach were used to reach the Global South and consolidate its profile as a second pole in a future bipolar world.
    4. Reform support proved selective: China resisted supporting the bids of India, Brazil and South Africa for permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council. India then shifted its own effort towards consolidation and intra-BRICS matters to resist Chinese grandstanding.

    What has happened to the consensus principle?

    1. Consensus is what held the group together: It is the practice that prevents a majority from binding the rest, and its erosion changes what membership is worth.
    2. The 2019 summit was the high point of restraint: The Brasilia summit was held with no invited guest countries at all, only the five original members.
    3. The first breach came in 2020: Under the Russian presidency a chair’s statement on COVID-19 was issued without consensus, probably the first such document in the group’s history.
    4. It has become routine: Non-consensus documents were resorted to again at the Foreign Ministers’ meeting in May 2026, because the new members could not agree.
    5. The failure model already exists: The danger is that BRICS goes the way of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), where a majority can bulldoze its view through.

    What has expansion done to the group’s cohesion?

    1. China pushed it and India resisted: China pressed first for expansion of the New Development Bank and then for expansion of BRICS itself. India and Brazil both resisted and were overruled.
    2. The size now: The group has 11 members following the addition of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia, along with 10 partner countries.
    3. The original five manage their differences: Some of those differences are serious, and the five handle them with the maturity that keeping the group intact requires.
    4. The new members do not: They carry their bilateral conflicts into the group and are subverting it through them.
    5. The regional precedent: The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is the case of a grouping paralysed by the bilateral disputes of its own members.

    Is BRICS non-West or anti-West?

    1. India’s line is “non-West”: India has worked to keep the group non-West against pressure from some members to turn it explicitly anti-West.
    2. Events push the other way: China is competing with the United States for global leadership, Russia is at war with Ukraine with the full backing of Europe, and Iran is being bombarded by the United States and Israel.
    3. Two members are under direct pressure: Brazil and India have both been subjected to punitive tariffs by the U.S. President, and the U.S. Congress is considering legislation empowering the President to levy punitive tariffs on countries importing Russian oil.
    4. India’s other options are weakening at the same time: The Quad is being emasculated by the United States, India-U.S. relations are under great pressure, Pakistan is being courted by the United States at India’s expense, and global institutions are being made dysfunctional by the West.
    5. The restraint has support inside the group: Many members share India’s effort to prevent an anti-Western drift, since they gain from engaging actors in different camps in their own national interest. They want change without geopolitical realignment behind China and Russia.

    Why is de-dollarisation not moving as China wants?

    1. The parallel currency proposal has stalled: The push for de-dollarisation through the establishment of a BRICS currency is receiving a lukewarm response.
    2. The reason is who would dominate it: Members are uncomfortable with a currency dominated by the renminbi.
    3. What they will accept instead: The preference is for interlinking payment systems, central bank digital currencies and transactions settled in national currencies.
    4. China is proceeding on its own track: After a successful pilot, it is formally launching mBridge, an alternative cross-border financial payment system.
    5. What India is guarding against: An alternative Bretton Woods system dominated by China is the outcome India least wants.

    What parallel orders are being built outside BRICS?

    1. Both major powers are writing their own rules: The United States and China are enunciating parallel visions of the world and playing by rules of their own rather than internationally negotiated ones.
    2. The contested areas are new ones: Parallel structures and standards are being set in artificial intelligence, digital and Internet governance, data ownership, state control, 5G and 6G telecom, satellite navigation and electric vehicles.
    3. China has added an institution: It has set up a World AI Cooperation Organisation in Shanghai.
    4. The financial architecture already has a rival: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Belt and Road Initiative and the Digital Silk Road challenge the Bretton Woods institutions and their governance and financing models.
    5. Neither power wants reform: Both are building around the existing institutions rather than seeking to change them, and both see BRICS as one vehicle for those broader goals.

    What is “reformed multilateralism” and why does India want it back?

    1. Where it came from: The Prime Minister first articulated the vision of “reformed multilateralism” at the leaders’ retreat of the 2018 BRICS Summit in South Africa.
    2. How it became group language: By 2019 it had found its way into the summit document at Brasilia, with India, Brazil and South Africa pushing for it.
    3. What it commits the group to: Changing the governance of existing institutions rather than replacing them, which is the opposite of building parallel structures.
    4. Why it matters now: Reviving it makes BRICS a strong voice for the non-West middle powers and, by extension, for the Global South.

    Can BRICS be an organisation of Global South middle powers?

    1. A Global South middle power is a different thing: The middle powers described at Davos by the Canadian Prime Minister are broadly West-centric, and a Global South middle power does not share that anchoring.
    2. BRICS is the only credible platform: If there is a credible organisation of Global South middle powers, it is BRICS.
    3. Its largest member does not fit the description: China is hardly a middle power and holds disproportionate influence within the group.
    4. The India-China relationship is the constraint: The two need greater synergy on emerging global issues even as their bilateral differences are being contained.
    5. The composition is incomplete: Some middle powers that ought to be in the group are not represented in it, which limits what it can claim to speak for.

    Challenges to BRICS

    1. De-dollarisation is rhetorical rather than operational: The share of world trade actually settled outside the dollar has barely moved despite a decade of declarations. Eg. The US dollar is still used in over 80 per cent of global trade settlement.
      The Fix: Set a measurable target for local-currency settlement of intra-group trade and report performance against it at each summit.
    2. Intra-group trade is thin: Members trade far more with the G7 than with each other, so the group’s combined economic weight does not convert into bargaining leverage. Eg. Most members still rely on G7 markets for high-technology imports and services exports.
      The Fix: Negotiate a tariff-preference arrangement covering a limited list of goods, rather than a full trade agreement the membership cannot agree on.
    3. There is no permanent secretariat or charter: Work does not carry between summits, so each chair restarts the agenda and commitments lapse without anyone recording that they have. Eg. The New Development Bank remains the only permanent institution the group has built since its first summit.
      The Fix: Create a small standing secretariat with the single mandate of tracking summit commitments and reporting compliance.
    4. Sanctions constrain the group’s own bank: Western sanctions on Russia limit the New Development Bank’s ability to lend for certain projects, which weakens the alternative it was built to be. Eg. The bank put new transactions in Russia on hold in 2022.
      The Fix: Raise the share of local-currency lending and widen the capital base to more Global South members, so exposure to one jurisdiction’s sanctions falls.
    5. The political systems diverge too far for common positions on norms: The membership spans established democracies and autocracies, so joint declarations cannot carry commitments on rights or governance standards. Eg. Group declarations avoid the language on domestic governance that G7 communiqués routinely carry.
      The Fix: Confine collective positions to the areas where interests genuinely converge, namely institutional reform, development finance and technology standards.

    Conclusion

    BRICS is now being asked to do two jobs that pull against each other. One is to press for reform of institutions that its largest member has no interest in reforming. The other is to hold an enlarged membership carrying live bilateral quarrels inside a body that can only decide unanimously. The Delhi outcome will indicate which job the group has chosen. The specific marker is whether the summit closes on a declaration adopted by every member or on a chair’s statement issued over the heads of some.

    Global South Plurilateral Groupings in India’s Foreign Policy

    1. About: A plurilateral grouping is a small, issue-focused coalition of states that operates outside a formal treaty organisation. Its instruments are summit declarations and working groups rather than binding law.
    2. Why India uses them: They allow India to pursue different interests with different partners at the same time, which is what multi-alignment means in operation.
    3. The spread in practice: India sits in BRICS and the SCO alongside Russia and China, and in the Quad and the I2U2 grouping alongside the United States, without either set of memberships cancelling the other.
    4. What they are measured by: Their output is agenda-setting and coalition building, not enforceable commitment, so their value lies in shifting what larger institutions are willing to discuss.

    Key Facts about BRICS and Global South Groupings

    1. The name: The acronym BRIC was coined in 2001 by a Goldman Sachs economist to group high-growth emerging economies. The first Foreign Ministers’ meeting was held on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in 2006.
    2. The first summit: The first leaders’ summit was held at Yekaterinburg in Russia in 2009, and South Africa joined in 2011 to make the grouping BRICS.
    3. Current weight: The enlarged grouping accounts for over 45 per cent of the world’s population, about 3.6 billion people, and roughly 37 per cent of global GDP measured at purchasing power parity, ahead of the G7 share.
    4. Energy: It controls roughly 42 per cent of global oil production and exports.
    5. New Development Bank: Headquartered at Shanghai, it has approved over $35 billion in infrastructure lending since it began operations.
    6. Contingent Reserve Arrangement: A $100 billion pool providing short-term liquidity support to members facing balance of payments pressure.
    7. Other Global South platforms: IBSA, the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum, was formed in 2003. The G-77 was formed at the United Nations in 1964 with 77 founding members and now carries over 130.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2026, GS2, 10 marks] “BRICS acts as a powerful counterweight in global governance, actively amplifying the voice and influence of the Global South.” Explain the role of BRICS in projecting itself as an alternative to other groupings.”

  • ‘Working together, combining resources, talent, scale, we think India and Canada can be world beaters’

    ‘Working together, combining resources, talent, scale, we think India and Canada can be world beaters’

    Why in the News

    Canada’s High Commissioner to India has set out the instruments now in place to rebuild the bilateral relationship, and has stated confidence that the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) will be concluded by the end of the year.

    How has the relationship been rebuilt since the 2023 rupture?

    1. Leader-level contact restored: The two Prime Ministers have met four times over the past year. New envoys were announced in June last year after the reset was agreed.
    2. Security channels reopened: Security officials on both sides are now in regular contact over practical cooperation. The stated purpose is that neither side is surprised by the other’s statements or actions.
    3. A terrorist entity listing: Canada has listed the Bishnoi gang as a terrorist entity and launched a financial crimes commission. The stated trigger is extortion pressure on the Indian community in Canada from such gangs.
    4. The separatism question remains open: Canada’s position is that political expression is protected in a democracy, so it will not restrict views it disagrees with. Its intelligence agency’s report tabled before Parliament refers to Khalistan actors and to the Air India bombing.

    What does Canada offer India on energy and critical minerals?

    1. Scale in hydrocarbons: Canada ranks fourth in oil reserves and production, fifth in natural gas production, fifth in liquefied petroleum gas production and sixth in nuclear power.
    2. Export capacity is being built out: By 2030 Canada expects to export 50 million tonnes of natural gas through its West Coast ports, with a 400 per cent increase in liquefied petroleum gas export capacity. A newly announced pipeline will allow the export of two million barrels of oil, against a production of five to six million barrels a day.
    3. India’s import volume matches that scale: India imports crude oil at roughly the level Canada produces each day. Canada has never sold India oil, gas or liquefied petroleum gas.
    4. Minerals are in the ground, not in production: Canada holds rare earths, lithium and graphite, and 20 per cent of the world’s tungsten reserves. It has no active tungsten mine, and opening one takes three to five years.

    How central is nuclear cooperation to the relationship?

    1. A concluded contract: A uranium sale worth $2.3 billion for India’s reactors was concluded during the Canadian Prime Minister’s visit.
    2. The installed base is Canadian in origin: Eighteen of India’s 24 existing reactors are based on CANDU technology.
    3. Canada’s new policy is export-facing: A newly announced nuclear policy looks to build up to 10 more reactors in Canada, and is focused on working with other countries on building their nuclear capacity.
    4. Small modular reactors are the proposed next step: Powering the full electrification of India’s railway system has been floated as an application for small modular reactors.

    What does the trade track now involve?

    1. A dated target: The CEPA is targeted for conclusion by the end of the year, with both Prime Ministers having repeatedly committed to it.
    2. The record it is measured against: The previous attempt at a bilateral trade agreement ran 12 years without getting far. Canada concluded a comparable agreement with the United Arab Emirates in 47 days.
    3. A trade volume commitment: The two Prime Ministers committed to double bilateral trade by 2030. Current trade is described as nowhere near where it should be.
    4. A business delegation follows: A large Canadian trade delegation is due in India in October.

    What is the defence and maritime component?

    1. A partnership already announced: A maritime security partnership was announced in March, covering defence material cooperation. The joint statement provides for a defence dialogue between the two governments.
    2. An information-sharing framework is being negotiated: A joint security of information agreement is under work, to give companies on both sides a framework for handling sensitive information.
    3. The procurement number is large: About $180 billion of Canada’s $500 billion defence outlay to 2035 is procurement, with the remainder on dual-use infrastructure.
    4. Canada’s constraint is scale, not technology: A population of 42 million cannot absorb the cost of defence products alone, and Canada has agreed with European partners to develop 12 submarines. Its stated specialisations include optics, driven by rising access to the Arctic.

    What is the state of the student and visa channel?

    1. The numbers are substantial: There are 400,000 Indian students in Canada, alongside a diaspora of almost two million people.
    2. Caps were a housing response: Study permit caps were imposed because intake outran available housing. Some colleges were found to be delivering no real education.
    3. Reputation is the cost being carried: The tightening left a perception in India that Canada had closed itself to students. The visa system is under review to correct processing.

    Why is Canada turning to India now?

    1. Trade talks with the United States have collapsed: Canada walked away from the negotiation over demands it judged to lie beyond normal trade talks, including impositions on its cultural sovereignty. Tariffs are being imposed dollar for dollar in response.
    2. Diversification is stated as the primary plan: Canada describes building its own economy and external partnerships as plan A rather than a fallback. Investment is being directed into domestic resources and capacity.
    3. China remains the larger relationship: Canada’s economic relationship with China is bigger than the one with India and has been put back on an even keel. It is described as different in quality and character from the Indian relationship.

    Challenges to the India-Canada reset

    1. The criminal case is still live: A finding in the Canadian courts on the 2023 killing can reopen the political dispute the reset was built to contain. Eg. The allegation in October 2023 produced tit-for-tat expulsions and the withdrawal of most Canadian diplomats from India.
      The Fix: Keep the security dialogue and the economic track under separate institutional mandates, so a judicial outcome suspends neither.
    2. Distance works against Canadian energy: Freight cost and voyage time from the Pacific coast disadvantage Canadian cargoes against short-haul Gulf suppliers. Eg. Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates supply the bulk of India’s crude on far shorter sea routes.
      The Fix: Anchor Canadian supply in long-term contracts and upstream equity rather than spot cargoes, so volume rather than delivered price carries the relationship.
    3. Nuclear liability law blocks reactor sales: Foreign vendors have resisted India’s supplier recourse provision, which is why cooperation has stayed at the fuel supply stage. Eg. Section 17(b) of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 has held up foreign reactor contracts for over a decade.
      The Fix: Settle supplier recourse terms in a bilateral protocol before any reactor negotiation opens.
    4. Critical mineral reserves are not supply: Reserves without processing capacity cannot displace the existing source of refined material. Eg. China refines the majority of the world’s rare earths and graphite.
      The Fix: Co-invest in Canadian separation and refining plants under a shared offtake agreement, rather than contracting for unmined ore.

    Conclusion

    The relationship is being rebuilt instrument by instrument rather than by settling what broke it. That design holds only as long as both governments treat the court’s eventual finding as a legal outcome and not a diplomatic one. Everything else listed so far is either a contract or an announcement. The trade agreement is the first thing the two governments have set themselves to close, and whether they close it is the marker to watch.

    Back2Basics

    1. CANDU reactor: Short for CANada Deuterium Uranium, a pressurised heavy water reactor design developed in Canada.
    2. Fuel and moderator: It runs on natural uranium and uses heavy water as both moderator and coolant, so it needs no uranium enrichment.
    3. On-power refuelling: Fuel bundles are replaced while the reactor is running, which raises availability and removes the need for shutdown refuelling.
    4. The Indian link: India’s pressurised heavy water reactor programme began with Rajasthan Atomic Power Station Unit 1, built with Canadian collaboration and commissioned in 1973.

    [2019, GS2, 15 marks] “What introduces friction into the ties between India and the United States is that Washington is still unable to find for India a position in its global strategy, which would satisfy India’s National self-esteem and ambitions” Explain with suitable examples.

  • As yoga and Ayurveda become part of India’s global health diplomacy

    As yoga and Ayurveda become part of India’s global health diplomacy

    Why in the News

    India’s recent trade agreements now carry written commitments on traditional medicine. The India-Oman Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), operationalised in June 2026, carries what the government describes as its first comprehensive commitment on traditional medicine across all modes of supply. The India-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (FTA) adds a dedicated health and traditional medicine annex. Together these agreements move Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) from a cultural export to a formalised health services opportunity. Practitioners of these systems now have a treaty basis for licensing, standards and mobility abroad. The contest is over what that basis is worth, since formal recognition converts into market access only where evidence, regulation and practitioner quality satisfy the host regulator.

    What have India’s recent trade agreements committed on traditional medicine?

    1. The Oman agreement sets the benchmark: The India-Oman CEPA carries the government’s first comprehensive commitment on traditional medicine covering all modes of supply. It came into operation in June 2026.
    2. The New Zealand agreement creates a mobility route: The India-New Zealand FTA carries a dedicated health and traditional medicine annex covering AYUSH practices. It provides a structured mobility pathway with a dedicated visa quota for AYUSH practitioners.
    3. The European Union agreement goes furthest on qualifications: The India-European Union FTA, signed in January 2026, allows AYUSH practitioners to use their Indian qualifications in member countries that have no regulatory framework of their own. It also provides for AYUSH wellness centres and clinics.
    4. The common obligations are regulatory, not promotional: All three agreements carry measures to ease licensing, develop standards and facilitate the movement of AYUSH practitioners and instructors. The New Zealand agreement additionally institutionalises cooperation on education, training, standards development and wellness services.

    What carries the strategy outside the trade agreements?

    1. A dedicated visa category: The AYUSH visa was introduced in 2023 for foreign nationals travelling to India for treatment under these systems. Between January 2023 and December 2025, 3,375 people travelled on AYUSH or e-AYUSH visas and another 579 on attendant visas.
    2. The earlier reported count: The Ministry of AYUSH had previously reported 1,646 AYUSH visas issued to nationals of 75 countries between January 2024 and February 2025.
    3. An education channel: Under the AYUSH Fellowship Scheme, 260 students from 32 countries were studying these systems in Indian institutions. Education operates as a channel of influence alongside treatment.
    4. Overseas programming: The Ministry’s international cooperation programmes fund training, seminars, conferences and knowledge exchange. These include yoga instruction and education delivered overseas.

    Why can the return on these commitments not be measured?

    1. The growth figure is not an AYUSH figure: Foreign medical arrivals in India rose from 1.83 lakh in 2020 to 6.44 lakh in 2024. That count covers medical travel of every kind and not AYUSH patients specifically.
    2. No country-wise ranking is published: The government does not publish a current consolidated country-wise ranking of AYUSH patients. The named markets are Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Germany, Russia, Malaysia, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia.
    3. The market share is unknown: The absence of consolidated data makes it impossible to assess what share of India’s medical value travel market AYUSH actually holds. A negotiator therefore cannot state the value of the access being sought.
    4. The expert objection is about inputs, not demand: Credible standards, an evidence base, regulation, practitioner quality and patient safety are named as the preconditions for these systems to establish themselves in regulated healthcare markets.

    Challenges to AYUSH market access abroad

    1. Host country law decides the right to practise: Destination markets license practitioners under their own medical statutes, so an Indian qualification carries no automatic right to treat patients. Eg. Ayurveda is recognised in law as a practising profession in only a small set of jurisdictions, Hungary and Switzerland among them.
      The Fix: Negotiate mutual recognition annexes that name the qualifying degree and the permitted scope of practice, rather than a general commitment to cooperate on standards.
    2. A thin clinical evidence base: Regulators in evidence-driven markets ask for trial data that most classical formulations do not carry. Eg. The World Health Organization opened its Global Centre for Traditional Medicine at Jamnagar in 2022 to build exactly this evidence and data base.
      The Fix: Fund registered controlled trials on a shortlist of high-volume formulations and publish the protocols, so a foreign regulator can audit the method.
    3. Product safety findings block entry: Heavy metal content in some traditional preparations has drawn regulatory action in importing countries. Eg. The United States Food and Drug Administration has issued import alerts against Ayurvedic products over lead and mercury contamination.
      The Fix: Make batch-level heavy metal testing and certification mandatory before export, with the results carried on the product label.
    4. Domestic advertising undercuts the regulatory case: Cure claims made without trial evidence at home weaken the argument for recognition abroad. Eg. The Supreme Court held Patanjali Ayurved in contempt in 2024 over advertisements claiming cures for named diseases.
      The Fix: Enforce the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 against AYUSH advertising and publish the penalty orders.

    Conclusion

    The commitments are in force and the harder work now sits inside India. What a foreign regulator will ask for is what a practitioner has been trained to and what a preparation contains, and neither is currently documented to an auditable standard. India also cannot count its own AYUSH patients separately from medical travellers, so it has no way to report what any of these annexes has delivered. The first practitioner registered abroad on an Indian qualification, and the first published count of AYUSH-specific arrivals, are the two markers that will show whether this is trade access or an announcement.

    Back2Basics

    1. Ministry of AYUSH: Formed in November 2014 by upgrading the Department of AYUSH, which itself succeeded the Department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy set up in 1995.
    2. Mandate: It administers education, research, drug standardisation and practice regulation for the six recognised systems.
    3. Education regulators: The National Commission for Indian System of Medicine and the National Commission for Homoeopathy, both created by 2020 statutes, regulate education and registration in place of the earlier central councils.
    4. Drug regulation: AYUSH medicines are regulated under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and the rules made under it.

    [2026] The Chancellor of Germany visited India in January 2026. Which of the following is/are NOT correct in terms of outcomes?

    1. MoU between All India Institute of Ayurveda and University of Hamburg

    2. MoU on Youth Hockey Development between Hockey India and German Hockey Federation

    3. Establishment of a bilateral dialogue mechanism on the Indo-Pacific

    4. Opening of an Honorary Consul of Germany in Lucknow

    (a) 2 and 3 (b) 1 and 4 (c) 3 and 4 (d) 1 only

  • Bogged down

    Bogged down

    Why in the News

    The tension is that the war’s declared objective and its actual battlefield no longer match, since the fighting now turns entirely on the Strait rather than on the nuclear programme.

    How did the war’s objective shift to the Strait?

    1. The stated aims have been displaced: The central focus of the war today is the Strait of Hormuz, not the nuclear facilities or the political order the campaign was launched to change.
    2. Iran chose the ground and Washington accepted it: Tehran forced the United States to fight over a problem it created rather than pursue Washington’s original objective, which is in itself a strategic victory for Iran.
    3. The chokehold has not been broken: Iran still maintains its control over the waterway, so the single condition the campaign now exists to remove remains in place.

    What has the escalation actually consisted of?

    1. Iran has crossed into attacks on military vessels: This is the first time in months that Iran has targeted United States warships, apparently seeking to break the naval blockade.
    2. The United States has crossed a red line in return: By striking Iranian oil tankers in retaliation, Washington extended the war to commercial shipping under Iranian flag.
    3. Six vessels struck in one round: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s parallel armed force reporting to the Supreme Leader, announced that it had struck six vessels in the Gulf, three tankers and three United States-linked ships, in retaliation for the American attacks on oil tankers, and vowed to expand strikes against United States ships.
    4. The exchange has spread to land targets: The return to American strikes triggered Iranian attacks on United States bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan.

    Why has economic warfare not changed Iran’s position?

    1. The policy shifted from strikes to pressure and then back: The United States President moved the focus of Iran policy to economic warfare last month, announcing new sanctions and tightening the United States Navy’s blockade of Iran’s ports. Unable to find a way out, Washington returned to strikes.
    2. The workaround was matched: The United States managed to get some oil tankers through the Strait via a southern route along the Omani coast, and Iran continued to target vessels taking that route.
    3. Economic pain has raised Iran’s risk appetite rather than lowered it: Iran has emerged more assertive despite its economic difficulties, and the more Washington seeks to trap it in an economic gridlock, the less risk-averse Tehran becomes.

    What does the absence of a theory of victory mean?

    1. Neither instrument has produced a change of position: Neither the military effort nor the economic warfare has forced Iran to alter its stance, and the Strait remains unsafe while the toll on the global economy mounts.
    2. Attrition has replaced strategy: The administration is ‘mowing the lawn’, a doctrine taken from the Israeli playbook that seeks to periodically degrade an adversary’s attack capability without attempting to defeat it.
    3. Iran is running its own attrition strategy: Tehran pursues ‘debasification’, pushing United States military presence away from its immediate periphery each time it retaliates.
    4. Both sides are chasing an outcome neither can reach: Each seeks escalation dominance, the ability to raise the level of force to a point the other cannot match, and the war therefore risks spiralling out of control.

    Challenges to reviving a negotiated framework

    1. The declared aim of regime change is incompatible with a negotiated outcome: No government negotiates the terms of its own removal, so the objective and the talks track cancel each other out. Eg. The talks channel collapsed within months of being opened while the military campaign continued.
      The Fix: Separate the nuclear file from the political objective and negotiate only the first, as the 2015 nuclear agreement did.
    2. Verification capacity has been destroyed along with the facilities: Strikes on nuclear sites remove the baseline against which any future inspection regime would measure compliance. Eg. Access for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors has been the recurring breaking point since the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was agreed in 2015.
      The Fix: Restore inspector access as the first deliverable of any revived framework, before sanctions relief is discussed.
    3. American commitments carry a credibility discount: A negotiated framework abandoned once is harder to sell domestically in Tehran the second time. Eg. The United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018 despite Iranian compliance being certified.
      The Fix: Anchor any revived understanding in a United Nations Security Council resolution rather than in an executive arrangement that a change of administration can reverse.
    4. A pause that leaves the blockade in place gives Iran no reason to stop: Iran’s attacks on shipping are its only instrument against the economic siege, so a ceasefire on attacks alone asks it to surrender the leverage. Eg. Iranian targeting of the southern route began after the blockade of its ports was tightened.
      The Fix: Pair a halt to attacks on shipping with a defined easing of the port blockade, so each side gives up an instrument simultaneously.
    5. The costs land on third-party importers with no say in the war: Energy importers absorb the freight, insurance and price consequences of an unsafe Strait without being party to the dispute. Eg. India draws a large share of its crude oil imports from West Asian suppliers whose cargoes transit the Strait.
      The Fix: Convene the major Asian importers as a bloc to press both sides on the narrow question of shipping safety, separately from the nuclear dispute.

    Conclusion

    Six months of strikes and sanctions have moved neither Iran’s position nor the safety of the waterway. The war has produced an unresolved tension rather than a stalemate that can simply be held: the party with overwhelming military superiority cannot convert it into an outcome, and the party under economic siege grows less cautious the tighter the siege becomes. The talks track collapsed once and remains the only route either side has actually attempted, which is why its revival, rather than the next round of retaliation, is the development to watch.

    Back2Basics

    1. Strait of Hormuz: The sea passage connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, and the only maritime outlet for oil exported from the Gulf producers.
    2. Geography: It is about 33 km wide at its narrowest point, with inbound and outbound shipping lanes only a few kilometres wide, bounded by Iran on the northern shore and by Oman and the United Arab Emirates on the southern shore.
    3. Why it is a chokepoint: Roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil moves through it, and there is no alternative sea route out of the Gulf, so a threat to the lane transmits directly into global crude prices.
    4. Bypass capacity: Pipelines run by Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea and by the United Arab Emirates to Fujairah can carry only a fraction of the volume that normally transits the Strait.

    [2018, GS2, 15 marks] In what ways would the ongoing US-Iran Nuclear Pact Controversy affect the national interest of India? How should India respond to this situation?

  • Moscow-Kyiv to Delhi, connect the dots

    Moscow-Kyiv to Delhi, connect the dots

    Why in the News

    India has stepped up its diplomatic engagement on the Russia-Ukraine war, holding senior-level meetings in both Moscow and Kyiv. The engagement follows an American track that has produced contact without a settlement. Negotiators for the United States President met the Russian President over the weekend, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) travelled secretly to Moscow two weeks earlier to press the Kremlin to cut a deal. Neither belligerent has changed position on the ground, since each of the two great powers supplies the other’s adversary in a separate conflict. The tension is that India now holds access to both capitals at a moment when the mediator with actual leverage is stretched across two theatres.

    What access has India actually acquired?

    1. A meeting at the level of the Russian presidency: The External Affairs Minister met the Russian President directly rather than through the standing bilateral machinery.
    2. The war raised at a multilateral summit: The Prime Minister took up the war with the Russian President at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, urging an end to it “for humanity’s sake”.
    3. A reciprocal opening in Kyiv: The External Affairs Minister travelled to Kyiv. The Ukrainian President thanked India for its “commitment to ending this unjust war”.

    Why has the American track not converted contact into a settlement?

    1. The intelligence channel has been reopened at the top: The last known visit to Russia by a serving CIA Director was nearly five years ago, made to warn the Kremlin that Washington knew of its plans to invade Ukraine. That deterrence effort failed, and the present visit was reportedly aimed at persuading Moscow to cut a deal.
    2. A reset announced more than a year ago has changed nothing: The two governments have talked since their summit at Anchorage and remain on opposing sides of two active conflicts.
    3. Each power arms the other’s adversary: The United States supplies Ukraine with intelligence to strike targets inside Russia. Russia does the same for Iran in the Gulf.

    What does the conduct of the war show about its direction?

    1. Neither side will back down under escalation: Russia has intensified drone and missile strikes on Ukraine. Ukraine has relentlessly targeted Russian energy infrastructure.
    2. The damage has reached Russian domestic supply: The disruption has been severe enough for Moscow to turn to India for petrol imports, and restrictions on fuel sales have been imposed across Russia.
    3. The war is leaking into third countries: A series of suspected acts of sabotage across Europe is being investigated for possible links to Russia. Any loss of life on European soil raises the risk of the conflict spilling further into the continent.

    What would a realistic first step look like?

    1. A ceasefire basis before a settlement: The immediate requirement is to bring Moscow and Kyiv back to the table and establish a basis for a ceasefire, rather than to open with terms neither will accept.
    2. A narrow opening ask rather than a comprehensive one: Protection of energy and civilian infrastructure, along with commercial shipping lanes in the Black Sea, is available as a first step because it serves both belligerents’ own interests.
    3. A collective call rather than an Indian one: New Delhi can use the BRICS summit it hosts, with the Russian and Chinese Presidents expected to attend, to build a collective call for confidence-building measures instead of a solitary appeal.

    Challenges to an Indian mediation role

    1. India is an interested party in the war’s economics: Discounted Russian crude has made Russia India’s largest oil supplier since 2022, so any Indian proposal is read in Kyiv and Brussels through the trade relationship. Eg. Moscow’s turn to India for refined petrol deepens the same commercial dependence.
      The Fix: Separate the commercial track from the diplomatic one by routing the peace effort through a designated special envoy rather than through the ministries that handle energy trade.
    2. No leverage exists over the party financing Ukraine’s defence: The war’s outcome turns on American intelligence and weapons supply, and India holds no instrument that touches that flow. Eg. Strike intelligence for targets inside Russia is supplied by Washington, not by any BRICS member.
      The Fix: Aim at a humanitarian and infrastructure truce that neither capital needs American consent to accept, rather than at a comprehensive settlement.
    3. BRICS is not a conflict-resolution forum: The grouping has no mediation machinery, no secretariat with a political mandate and no record of brokering a ceasefire. Eg. It issued no collective position when the war began in 2022.
      The Fix: Seek a narrow chair’s statement on infrastructure and shipping protection rather than a group position on the war itself.
    4. Both belligerents currently believe escalation still pays: A mediator arrives with nothing to offer when neither side has reached the point of exhaustion. Eg. Ukraine’s strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and Russia’s intensified missile campaign both increased through the current phase.
      The Fix: Hold an offer of monitoring and verification capacity in reserve, so India has something concrete to supply once a pause becomes attractive to both.
    5. India’s own track record is regional, not extra-regional: New Delhi has not brokered a ceasefire between two states outside its immediate neighbourhood, so its convening power rests on access rather than on precedent. Eg. Its wartime role so far has been the delivery of humanitarian consignments and the evacuation of students.
      The Fix: Build the role incrementally through technical facilitation, beginning with grain, nuclear-plant safety and prisoner exchange files.

    Conclusion

    Access to both capitals is a diplomatic asset that decays if it is not converted into a specific ask. The two governments that can end the war are simultaneously arming opposite sides of a second one, which is the ceiling any external mediator runs into. The concrete thing to watch is the BRICS summit in New Delhi from 11 to 13 September, and specifically whether its outcome document names infrastructure and shipping protection at all.

    Back2Basics

    1. Confidence-building measures: Reciprocal steps taken by adversaries to reduce the risk of accidental escalation and to make each side’s intentions readable, adopted without either side conceding its political position.
    2. Typical forms: Advance notification of military exercises, hotlines between commands, limits on deployments in a defined zone, and agreed exclusions of a category of target from attack.
    3. Why they precede a ceasefire: They require no agreement on the disputed issue itself, so they can be adopted while the war’s causes remain unresolved.
    4. Precedent in this war: The Black Sea Grain Initiative of 2022 allowed Ukrainian grain exports to resume under an inspection arrangement without either belligerent altering its war aims.

    [2019, GS2, 15 marks] “The long-sustained image of India as a leader of the oppressed and marginalised Nations has disappeared on account of its new found role in the emerging global order”. Elaborate.”

  • India votes in favour of UNGA resolution on new world map

    Why in the News

    India has voted in favour of a United Nations General Assembly resolution aimed at correcting the world map to promote a “more accurate representation” of continental landmasses. The 193-member Assembly adopted the resolution “Correct the map: rebalancing global cartographic representation and promoting equitable representation of the world’s regions, particularly Africa”, which was sponsored by Togo. It encourages governments and institutions around the world to replace the traditional Mercator map with the Equal Earth projection, which “shows locations more accurately”. The resolution carried 164 votes in favour, with a lone vote against from the United States. The question the vote raises is whether a projection designed in the sixteenth century for navigation should continue to set how the world’s regions are seen.

    What is a map projection, and what does the Mercator do to area?

    1. The underlying problem: A projection is the rule for transferring a curved surface onto a flat sheet, and no flat map can preserve shape, area, distance and direction at the same time. Every projection therefore chooses which property to keep and which to sacrifice.
    2. What the Mercator keeps: It preserves angles, so a line of constant compass bearing plots as a straight line. That property is what made it a navigator’s map.
    3. What it sacrifices: Scale grows with distance from the equator, so landmasses near the poles are inflated and those near the equator are compressed. Eg. Greenland reads as roughly the size of Africa, though Africa is about 14 times larger.
    4. What Equal Earth does instead: It is an equal-area projection, so every region occupies its true share of the map’s surface. The cost is a controlled distortion of shape rather than of size.

    What did the Assembly actually adopt?

    1. The instrument is a recommendation: The resolution encourages governments and institutions to switch projection. A General Assembly resolution of this kind carries no binding force on any member state.
    2. The sponsor and the stated purpose: Togo sponsored the text, and its stated aim is the equitable representation of the world’s regions, and of Africa in particular.
    3. The campaign behind it: It carries forward an African Union-backed campaign to limit use of the Mercator map on the ground that visual under-representation reinforces a perception of the continent as peripheral.
    4. India’s vote: India voted in favour, placing it with the large majority rather than with the abstaining or dissenting group.

    What does the voting pattern show?

    1. The scale of support: 164 of the 193 members voted in favour, which is an overwhelming margin for a text with a contested premise.
    2. The single dissent: The United States cast the lone vote against.
    3. The abstentions: Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine abstained.
    4. What a wide margin does not settle: Adoption records agreement on a principle. It creates no obligation on any national mapping agency, publisher or platform to change what it prints.

    Challenges to replacing the Mercator projection

    1. No projection is politically neutral, and equal-area maps distort in their own way: Preserving area forces a distortion of shape, so a switch trades one visual misrepresentation for another. Eg. The Gall-Peters projection was promoted on the same equity argument in the 1970s and 1980s, and it stretched Africa vertically enough that seven North American geographic bodies passed a joint resolution in 1989 against rectangular projections of that kind.
      The Fix: Pair any recommendation with published guidance on which projection suits which purpose, so a navigation chart and a thematic world map are not held to one standard.
    2. The digital map layer is locked into Mercator by design: Web mapping tiles use a Mercator variant because it keeps north upward and shapes locally correct at every zoom level, which is what makes seamless zooming possible. Eg. Web Mercator underlies the standard tile schemes of the major online mapping services.
      The Fix: Require default map interfaces to switch to an equal-area view at continental and global zoom levels, where the distortion is largest and the navigation property is not being used.
    3. The change has to travel through textbooks and curricula, which move slowly: School atlases, examination material and classroom wall maps are procured on multi-year cycles, so a resolution adopted in one year reaches a classroom several later. Eg. Boston’s public school district switched its classroom maps to an equal-area projection in 2017, and the change stayed confined to that district.
      The Fix: Route the recommendation through national survey agencies and curriculum bodies, which specify the base maps that textbook publishers are obliged to reproduce.

    Conclusion

    The vote settles a question of principle that was never seriously contested and leaves the operative one untouched. What people actually see is set by the default projection of a handful of digital mapping services and by the atlases that education departments procure, and none of them is bound by this text. The measure of the resolution is therefore not the margin it passed by. It is whether a national mapping agency or a major platform changes its default in the year that follows.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “With reference to the United Nations General Assembly, consider the following statements : 1. The UN General Assembly can grant observer status to the non-member States. 2. Inter-governmental organisations can seek observer status in the UN General Assembly. 3. Permanent Observers in the UN General Assembly can maintain missions at the UN headquarters. Which of the statements given above are correct ? (a) 1 and 2 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3”

  • 128 countries agree text on lethal autonomous weapons

    Why in the News

    Nearly 130 countries have agreed on a text defining lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), called “killer robots” by their critics. The agreement, announced by 128 countries at Geneva, is a first step towards talks on a possible international treaty to regulate them. The text agreed upon has not yet been made public. Campaign groups following the talks say the definition and the measures meant to reduce harm to civilians were watered down before agreement was reached. The contest is between a definition that now exists on paper and a negotiating mandate that several of the largest military powers are resisting.

    What is a lethal autonomous weapons system?

    1. The defining capability: It is a weapon capable of selecting targets and using force against them without human intervention.
    2. The name its critics use: Campaign groups call these systems “killer robots”, and that label has framed the public argument around them.
    3. The category is not hypothetical: Countries are already developing and using weapons with this capability, which is why the definition is being written now rather than ahead of deployment.

    What was agreed at Geneva, and what was left open?

    1. Who agreed: The Dutch Foreign Minister announced the agreement by 128 countries, and the Netherlands has been overseeing the talks.
    2. What the text does: It defines the category of weapon and sets out measures to reduce the possible harmful effects of such weapons on civilians.
    3. What it does not do: It creates no obligation on any state, and it is described only as a first step towards talks on a possible treaty.
    4. Where the decision sits: UN member states will decide at the November talks of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) whether to move towards a treaty regulating such weapons.

    Why do campaign groups say the outcome is already weakened?

    1. The substance was diluted: One rights group said the text’s definition of an autonomous weapon, and the measures to reduce their possible harmful effects on civilians, appeared to have been watered down.
    2. The named obstruction: The executive director of Stop Killer Robots, an international alliance of campaign groups, accused the United States, Russia and their allies of trying to weaken the agreed text.
    3. The named opponents: Lex International, a Geneva-based philanthropic group that funds work on key policy issues, said the U.S., Russia, India and Israel are among the key opponents of negotiations.
    4. The named sponsors: The same group said the governments of Brazil, Ireland and Norway are leading efforts to get such negotiations started in November.

    What do humanitarian bodies want instead?

    1. The stated warning: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the unconstrained development and use of autonomous weapon systems pose serious legal, ethical and humanitarian challenges.
    2. The demand: The ICRC and several campaigning groups have called for international legally binding rules to restrict and regulate the use of these weapons.
    3. Why a definition alone will not deliver that: The CCW works by consensus, so a single state party can block the opening of treaty negotiations whatever the size of the majority behind them.

    Challenges to regulating lethal autonomous weapons

    1. Nobody is clearly answerable when the machine chooses wrongly: Responsibility for an unlawful strike is split between the commander, the operator, the programmer and the manufacturer, and no existing rule allocates it. Eg. Article 36 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, 1977 requires a state to legally review every new weapon, and there is no shared standard for reviewing software whose behaviour changes after deployment.
      The Fix: Require states to publish the methodology of their Article 36 reviews for autonomous systems, so the review becomes checkable rather than declaratory.
    2. States do not agree on how much human control is enough: The negotiations have run for a decade on competing formulations, and a treaty cannot be drafted around a threshold nobody has fixed. Eg. “Meaningful human control”, “appropriate human judgement” and “human-machine interaction” have all been advanced as the operative test at the Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS.
      The Fix: Settle one operative term in the agreed text before the negotiating mandate is voted on, rather than after.
    3. Verification cannot see software: Arms control regimes are built to count and inspect physical objects, and autonomy is a line of code that can be loaded or removed before an inspection. Eg. The Chemical Weapons Convention, 1993 verifies a declared substance at a declared facility, and the same inspection tells an inspector nothing about a targeting algorithm.
      The Fix: Shift verification onto declared doctrine, test logs and procurement records, which are documentary and can be audited.
    4. The technology diffuses through civilian supply chains: Autonomy rides on commercial drones, cameras and machine vision software that no arms control list covers. Eg. Commercially available quadcopters have been modified for strike use at scale in the Russia-Ukraine war.
      The Fix: Add autonomous targeting software and machine vision payloads to the dual-use control lists of the Wassenaar Arrangement, so transfers are licensed rather than untracked.

    Conclusion

    A definition is the cheapest thing a negotiation can produce, and it has taken a decade to produce this one. The states that field the most advanced autonomous systems are the ones resisting a mandate to negotiate, which means the majority behind the text does not translate into a treaty. The next meeting of the Convention’s states parties is where that gap is either closed or carried forward. Whether the agreed definition survives publication intact is the first thing to check when the text is released.

    Back2Basics: Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons

    1. What it is: The Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects was adopted at Geneva in 1980 and entered into force in 1983.
    2. How it is structured: It is a framework convention that carries no prohibitions itself, and the substantive bans sit in protocols that states join separately.
    3. The protocols: Five protocols cover non-detectable fragments, mines and booby-traps, incendiary weapons, blinding laser weapons and explosive remnants of war.
    4. India’s position: India is a party to the Convention, and the LAWS discussion has been conducted within its Group of Governmental Experts rather than in a separate forum.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “With reference to ‘Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)’, consider the following statements: 1. It is an organization of European Union in working relation with NATO and WHO. 2. It monitors chemical industry to prevent new weapons from emerging. 3. It provides assistance and protection to States (Parties) against chemical weapons threats. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3”

  • The house of multilaterals

    Why in the News

    The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has held its 26th summit at Bishkek in the Kyrgyz Republic, marking the completion of 25 years since its launch. The Bishkek Declaration expressed deep concern at and condemned the military strikes on Iran, and reaffirmed support for its sovereignty and territorial integrity. It named the United States and Israel as having violated the principles of international law and the UN Charter. The summit was the first since the U.S. and Israel began their war on Iran on 28 February 2026, which killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a number of senior officials. The tension is that a grouping able to speak in one voice against outside powers closed the summit by handing its chair to Pakistan.

    What is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation?

    1. Founding: The SCO was launched on 15 June 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, together known as the Shanghai Five, as its founding members. India and Pakistan joined the group in 2017.
    2. Institutional machinery: The grouping has 29 charter bodies, including the Council of Heads of State, the Council of Heads of Government, the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, meetings of heads of ministries and agencies, and the Council of National Coordinators, alongside over 40 working mechanisms.
    3. What the machinery is for: These bodies meet through the year and serve as formal channels of communication between member states. They give members a standing consultation route in a sudden conflict or a cross-border natural calamity.
    4. No collective defence: The SCO carries no collective defence component, and several of its members have disputes with one another.

    What did the declaration say on West Asia?

    1. Condolence and a peace process: Member states condoled the assassination of Ali Khamenei and welcomed the peace process supported and mediated by several countries, including SCO member Pakistan.
    2. Indirect backing on the nuclear question: The summit advocated the “inalienable right” of member countries to develop atomic energy for peaceful purposes, which reads as support for Iran in its nuclear negotiations with the U.S.
    3. Palestine named as the root question: The declaration asserted that lasting stability in West Asia can be secured only through a just settlement of the Palestine question.
    4. Silence on Ukraine: Member states maintained silence on Russia’s role in the Ukraine war.

    Where did the declaration push back against the prevailing order?

    1. Missile defence: The declaration held that the “unilateral and unlimited build-up of global missile defence systems by groups of states” has a negative impact on international security and stability.
    2. Satellite Internet: It stated that “unauthorised satellite Internet services on the territory of Member States” violate international law, an evident reference to Starlink supplying Internet services in parts of eastern Ukraine and in Iran.
    3. Trade in local currencies: SCO leaders have periodically called for greater use of local currencies in trade, a practice viewed with scepticism in the West and particularly by the current U.S. leadership.
    4. A bank of its own: The announcement of the establishment of an SCO Development Bank is a further step in that direction.

    What did India press at Bishkek, and where did it diverge?

    1. No double standards on terrorism: The Prime Minister, who led the Indian delegation, spoke on ensuring that there is “no double standards” in fighting terrorism and called for peace and stability in Afghanistan.
    2. India’s Afghanistan record: He highlighted India’s role in supplying relief materials to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan over the years, and the declaration separately called on Afghanistan to form an “inclusive government”.
    3. Connectivity with a condition: He spoke for greater connectivity between the markets of SCO members, and for respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. That formulation is an apparent reference to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which India has criticised for years.
    4. The Belt and Road split: India stayed away from endorsing the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Other member states expressed support for it and advocated alignment between the BRI and the Eurasian Economic Union, a customs union of Russia and four post-Soviet states.
    5. The troika language: The declaration carried strong language on the troika of challenges, “terrorism, separatism and extremism”, and “strongly condemned” terrorism, reflecting India’s concerns and those of other members.

    Why does the next chair create a problem for New Delhi?

    1. Pakistan takes the chair: With the conclusion of the summit, Pakistan has assumed the chair of the SCO, and the group’s next summit will be held in that country.
    2. The level of attendance is undecided: The Ministry of External Affairs has not clarified whether the Prime Minister will travel to Pakistan for it. The External Affairs Minister had visited Islamabad in 2024 for the 23rd meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government.
    3. What has intervened since: The Pahalgam terror attack of 22 April 2025, the subsequent Operation Sindoor, and India’s decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty, the 1960 arrangement sharing the Indus system between India and Pakistan, “in abeyance” have further complicated relations.
    4. A decision, not a formality: These developments will be a factor in the level at which the government sends representatives to next year’s summit.

    What has India got out of the grouping since 2017?

    1. A route back to China after Galwan: India and China began to re-engage at the 2024 Kazan Summit in Russia, where the Prime Minister met the Chinese President.
    2. A concrete boundary outcome: A further meeting between the two leaders at Tianjin in 2025 produced an “Early Harvest” proposal on boundary delimitation and the resumption of border trade through three points.
    3. Political will survived a military crisis: The Tianjin meeting showed that both sides retained the will to meet despite the strain following Operation Sindoor in May 2025, when China supported Pakistan as India targeted terror camps in Pakistani territory.
    4. A multilateral setting for hard subjects: The SCO gives the world an opportunity to engage China multilaterally on issues such as freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, and gives India and Pakistan a platform for sustained engagement inside a broader framework.
    5. Leverage in an uncertain phase with Washington: With the U.S. President imposing punitive tariffs on Indian goods, the grouping let New Delhi engage all major stakeholders and maintain diplomatic dialogue.

    Challenges to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

    1. Consensus decision-making lets one member stall an agenda: Every substantive document needs unanimity, so an economic or connectivity text is reduced to language all ten members can sign. Eg. India declined to endorse the Belt and Road paragraph at successive summits, and the connectivity language in SCO declarations has stayed generic as a result.
      The Fix: Adopt a consensus-minus-one procedure for economic annexures, so a project document can proceed without binding a dissenting member.
    2. Enlargement has widened the internal contradictions: Membership has grown from the original five to include India and Pakistan in 2017, Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024, and each addition brings its own quarrels into the room. Eg. Two pairs of members, India and Pakistan and India and China, carry live disputes with each other.
      The Fix: Tier the agenda, so security cooperation runs among members with no active bilateral dispute and the full membership meets on economic and connectivity subjects.
    3. Members do not share a definition of terrorism: The counter-terrorism arm works from a list members interpret differently, so a summit can condemn terrorism in general and fail on any specific incident. Eg. The SCO defence ministers’ meeting at Qingdao in June 2025 ended without a joint communique after India refused to sign a text that omitted the Pahalgam attack.
      The Fix: Attach a standing annexure of entities already designated by the UN Security Council, so the counter-terrorism text is not renegotiated at every summit.
    4. Connectivity runs through bilateral corridors rather than a common framework: The grouping has no transit and customs instrument of its own, so trade routes are governed by separate bilateral or plurilateral agreements. Eg. The International North-South Transport Corridor, used by India, Iran and Russia, rests on a 2000 agreement signed outside the SCO entirely.
      The Fix: Bring the corridor’s customs, transit and insurance protocols under an SCO transport facilitation agreement, so members trade on one rulebook.

    Conclusion

    The grouping’s value to India has always been access rather than agreement. It is the one table where New Delhi can sit with Beijing and Islamabad without the meeting itself being the story. That access now comes attached to a host India has no ordinary diplomatic traffic with. The decision to watch is the level at which India is represented at the next summit, because it will show whether access is still worth the price of attending.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “Critically examine the aims and objectives of SCO. What importance does it hold for India?”

  • The Gulf is calling and New Delhi must listen

    The Gulf is calling and New Delhi must listen

    Why in the News

    Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan have entered a collective defence arrangement, the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, at India’s western maritime doorstep. The agreement follows an American retreat into an unpredictable “selective engagement” posture, which has opened a security vacuum that regional states are now filling with new partners. India’s West Asia policy was built for the opposite condition. The United States guaranteed regional security and kept sea lines of communication open, so India could hedge between Riyadh, Tehran, Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi without accepting security obligations to any of them. That posture, called multi alignment, bought influence while the region wanted markets, labour and capital. The region now wants security guarantees, and India has none on offer.

    What is the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement?

    1. Three capabilities in one arrangement: It links Gulf capital to Turkish defence technology and to Pakistani military manpower and skill, inside a collective defence framework.
    2. It is framed as defensive: The pact is presented as a way of managing shared vulnerabilities among its members rather than as a bloc aimed at any particular state.
    3. Its significance is structural: It signals that West Asia’s security framework is being rewritten, and that the rewriting is being done by actors whose strategic interests run counter to India’s long term objectives.

    What did India’s multi alignment rest on?

    1. The region was read as an economic hinterland: West Asia was treated as a critical source of crude oil, a reliable destination for outbound labour and a vital conduit for remittances.
    2. Hedging was the default in a crisis: India balanced relations between competing power centres and declined security obligations to any single capital.
    3. The framing was macroeconomic: The region’s geography, oil and gas reserves, capital accumulation and appetite for imported labour and skills positioned it as the bridge between a debt burdened West and a rising Asia.
    4. Distance was itself the asset: Being friendly to all without being too friendly to any was the point of the policy, since an obligation to one power centre would have cost access to another.

    What has changed in the region’s security market?

    1. Distancing has lost its value: West Asian capitals no longer treat non alignment or multi alignment as a virtue, and are actively seeking dependable security partners.
    2. Diplomatic and commercial offers no longer buy influence: What is sought is naval patrols, intelligence sharing, defence industrial collaboration and credible counter terrorism capability, not platitudes and routine economic cooperation.
    3. The vacuum is filled by whoever arrives first: Türkiye has already converted the opening into a treaty commitment, and regional security arrangements will coalesce with or without Indian participation.
    4. The exposure is concrete: Hostile regional pacts and the growing influence of external powers bear directly on India’s trade routes, its energy security and the welfare of millions of Indian citizens in the Gulf.

    Why does economic infrastructure not buy security?

    1. Low cost weapons defeat capital intensive assets: The eruption of hostilities involving Iran showed that state of the art port facilities, energy networks and logistics corridors remain vulnerable to low cost drones in grey zone, asymmetric warfare, meaning attacks kept below the threshold of declared war and carried out by deniable or irregular means.
    2. A secure enclave is not secure: Hyper secure economic zones stay exposed to spillover from the instability around them, because the perimeter is not where the risk originates.
    3. The Gulf model is hostage to perception: The economy runs on foreign corporations and expatriate labour, so talent and capital exit as rapidly as they arrived once security risk crosses a psychological threshold.
    4. A corridor is only as strong as its worst link: Disruption at a narrow naval chokepoint or along an overland route stalls the whole supply chain, whatever the quality of the infrastructure at either end.

    What hard moves are available to India?

    1. Build presence at the chokepoints: The named priorities are the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman, the Gulf of Aden, the waters off the Somali coast and the Bab el-Mandeb.
    2. Convert presence into standing arrangements: Joint maritime patrols, permanent logistics access arrangements and interoperable surveillance networks with friendly Gulf states are what turn deployments into a net security provider role.
    3. Sell capability rather than only buying it: India’s defence manufacturing base can offer West Asian states an alternative source of hardware and technology, with collaborative ventures, exercises carrying real operational content and deep intelligence sharing replacing procurement discussions.
    4. Use minilaterals rather than alliances: Security frameworks with the United Arab Emirates or Israel, and separately with Saudi Arabia, build a counterweight against hostile axes without the rigidity of a Cold War style alliance.

    Challenges to an Indian security role in West Asia

    1. India holds no base of its own in the region: Sustained naval presence at several chokepoints needs repair, replenishment and crew rotation ashore, which an access agreement does not guarantee during a crisis. Eg. India’s logistics in the western Indian Ocean rest on access to Port Duqm in Oman rather than on infrastructure it controls.
      The Fix: Convert existing access arrangements into pre stocked logistics hubs with agreed wartime access clauses, so replenishment does not turn on a host government’s decision mid conflict.
    2. A Gulf security partnership collides with the Iran relationship: Deeper security alignment with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi narrows the space for India’s connectivity investments in Iran. Eg. The Chabahar port project has already run into payment and equipment difficulties because of exposure to United States sanctions.
      The Fix: Keep the maritime role functional rather than political, built around freedom of navigation and anti piracy tasks from which Iran also benefits.
    3. Pakistan’s institutional depth in Gulf security cannot be matched quickly: Decades of troop deployments, training missions and personnel exchanges give it standing that a new partner cannot replicate through joint exercises. Eg. Pakistani personnel have served in Saudi Arabian training and internal security roles across successive decades.
      The Fix: Compete where the incumbent is weak, in maritime domain awareness, satellite surveillance and cyber defence, rather than in ground manpower.
    4. The defence export base is small relative to the offer: Supplying a serious regional partner requires sustained production, spares and lifecycle support, which the Indian ecosystem has demonstrated in a narrow band of systems. Eg. India’s defence exports remain concentrated in components, subsystems and a small number of complete platforms.
      The Fix: Anchor offers to systems with a proven service record and a committed spares chain, instead of promising a full spectrum supplier relationship the industrial base cannot yet sustain.
    5. A guarantor role imports the region’s own quarrels: Standing commitments make India a party to disputes among partners who are themselves in conflict with each other. Eg. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates backed rival factions in Yemen while both are named as prospective Indian partners.
      The Fix: Restrict commitments to maritime and counter terrorism tasks with defined geographic limits, excluding participation in intra regional ground conflicts.

    Conclusion

    The currency of influence in West Asia has changed from investment to protection, and India’s instruments were built for the older one. Trade volume and a large resident population do not translate into a seat in a security arrangement, which is what the region is now assembling. The marker to watch is whether the Mecca arrangement acquires operational content, meaning a joint command, basing rights or a published exercise calendar, since that is the point at which a signed pact becomes a standing capability. India’s answer will register in the same currency or it will not register at all.

    India and West Asia

    1. The policy has a named progression: A pro Arab, Non Aligned Movement era stance gave way to full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992, a “Look West” policy in 2005 centred on the Gulf Cooperation Council, and a “Think West” approach from 2014 that added maritime security, counter terrorism and investment to oil and diaspora.
    2. Energy is the base of the relationship: The region supplies nearly 60 percent of India’s crude oil and about 70 percent of its liquefied petroleum gas and liquefied natural gas requirements.
    3. The Gulf is India’s largest trading bloc: India-GCC bilateral trade stood at $178 billion in FY 2024-25, making the Gulf Cooperation Council India’s largest trading partner bloc.
    4. The human link is the largest anywhere: About 10 million Indians live and work in West Asia, and the region contributes roughly 38 percent of India’s global remittances.

    Government Initiatives and Frameworks for India-West Asia Relations

    1. I2U2: A grouping of India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, working on joint projects in food and energy security.
    2. India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC): A rail and shipping corridor intended to link India to Europe through the Gulf, bypassing the Suez route.
    3. India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA): A bilateral trade agreement that removed tariffs across most trade lines and deepened investment flows between the two countries.
    4. Chabahar port agreement: A ten year contract signed in 2024 to operate the Shahid Beheshti terminal in Iran, giving India a land and sea route to Afghanistan and Central Asia that avoids Pakistan.

    Challenges in India’s West Asia Engagement

    1. Energy import concentration: A large share of India’s crude and gas comes from a single region whose export routes run through two narrow straits. Eg. Qatar supplies roughly 40 percent of India’s liquefied natural gas imports.
      The Fix: Expand long term contracts with West African, American and Australian suppliers, so no single region carries a majority of the import basket.
    2. Remittance dependence at the State level: Household incomes and State finances in parts of India rest on Gulf transfers that fall the moment the regional economy contracts. Eg. Kerala reported roughly a 20 percent decline in monthly Gulf inflows during the 2026 crisis.
      The Fix: Widen the destination mix for emigrant workers through skill mobility agreements with Japan, Germany and Australia, so remittance flows are not tied to one region’s business cycle.
    3. Fertiliser and food input exposure: Gulf sourced urea and phosphate underpin Indian crop cycles, so a shipping disruption reaches the farm within a season. Eg. Long term potash and phosphate supplies from Jordan and Oman are central to India’s fertiliser availability.
      The Fix: Hold buffer stocks timed to the Rabi and Kharif input calendars, and widen phosphate sourcing towards Morocco, so one corridor’s closure does not hit a sowing season.

    [2018, GS2, 15 marks] In what ways would the ongoing US-Iran Nuclear Pact Controversy affect the national interest of India? How should India respond to this situation?”

  • ‘UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is still the constitution of oceans’

    ‘UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is still the constitution of oceans’

    Why in the News

    The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) remains the governing framework for the world’s oceans, in the assessment of Tommy Koh. He presided over the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, and led more than 150 nations to adopt the Convention in 1982. He is among this year’s Ramon Magsaysay award winners. He puts the number of parties at 172 and treats that as near universal. The United States has never ratified the Convention and still regards it as the authoritative law of the sea. Iran is not a party either, and the regime of transit passage binds it as customary international law. The Convention’s authority is therefore being tested in the Strait of Hormuz against a state that never accepted the treaty.

    What is UNCLOS?

    1. What it is: A comprehensive treaty setting the legal order for the world’s oceans, adopted in 1982 after nine years of negotiation and in force since 1994.
    2. What it allocates: It fixes the maritime zones a coastal state may claim and the rights it holds in each, running outward from the territorial sea to the exclusive economic zone, the continental shelf and the high seas.
    3. What it does with the deep seabed: Part XI treats the deep seabed and its minerals as the “common heritage of mankind”, to be administered for all states rather than claimed by any one of them.
    4. Why it is described as a constitution: It settles jurisdiction, resource rights and dispute settlement in one instrument, so later ocean agreements are negotiated inside its framework rather than beside it.

    Why has the United States never ratified UNCLOS?

    1. The objection was to the seabed regime, not to the law of the sea: The Reagan Administration rejected Part XI as incompatible with free enterprise and private property norms.
    2. It reversed an earlier American position: The stance taken during the Carter Administration was changed under President Reagan, and the demands that followed were rejected by the developing countries.
    3. The 1994 repair did not change the outcome: A separate agreement in 1994 revised the Part XI arrangements to meet those objections, and ratification still did not follow.
    4. Non ratification is not confined to one objector: Iran and a number of other states have also stayed outside the Convention.

    What binds a state that is not a party?

    1. The count itself does the work: With 172 parties, the Convention’s rules describe general state practice rather than the internal arrangements of a treaty club.
    2. Custom reaches the non party: Transit passage through international straits has passed into customary international law, so it binds Iran although Iran never joined the Convention.
    3. The dispute is political rather than legal: There was no trouble in the Strait of Hormuz before the war, so the priority is ending the war rather than rewriting the law that governs the strait.
    4. A fourth conference answers the wrong question: Reopening the Convention to bring the remaining states in would put a settled architecture back on the negotiating table, and near universal participation already exists without it.

    Where does the Convention not reach?

    1. Dark fleet enforcement is happening outside it: States are designating vessels as a “dark fleet” and taking punitive material action against them, including on the high seas.
    2. The forum named for that problem is the IMO: The International Maritime Organization, rather than a law of the sea conference, is where the practice should be addressed.
    3. Boundary disputes are read as application, not failure: Exclusive economic zone and seabed contests in the South China Sea and over Indian Ocean boundaries are treated as arguments inside the Convention’s architecture rather than as evidence that the architecture has stopped working.

    Conclusion

    A treaty honoured by states that never signed it is strong in one sense and weak in another. Its rules describe how states actually behave, which is precisely what turns them into custom. It carries no way of compelling a state that decides to behave differently, because the states outside it are the ones its dispute settlement machinery cannot reach. That gap is where a closed strait sits, and no further round of accessions would close it.

    Back2Basics: International Maritime Organization

    1. What it is: The United Nations specialised agency responsible for the safety and security of shipping and for preventing marine pollution by ships.
    2. When it was established: It was created by a convention adopted in 1948, began functioning in 1959, and is headquartered in London.
    3. What it produces: Its principal instruments are the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL).
    4. How it enforces: It sets standards that flag states then apply to ships registered with them, so it regulates through member state implementation rather than by direct enforcement at sea.

    [2022] With reference to the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea, consider the following statements :

    1. A coastal state has the right to establish the breadth of its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles, measured from baseline determined in accordance with the convention.

    2. Ships of all states, whether coastal or land-locked, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea.

    3. The Exclusive Economic Zone shall not extend beyond 200 nautical miles from the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.

    Which of the statements given above are correct ?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3