Publications
EXPLAINED – INDIA BETWEEN BRICS AND QUAD: NA VIGATING STRATEGIC AUTONOMY.
BRICS and the QUAD are two distinct groupings with different purposes, memberships and geopolitical orientations. BRICS brings together emerging economies and has increasingly positioned itself as a platform through which countries of the Global South can seek a grea...
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EXPLAINED – BRICS 2026 : DECODING THE NEW DELHI DECLARATION
India held the BRICS Summit from September 12 to 13, 2026, under its chairmanship in New Delhi. The outcome of this summit was the issuance of the New Delhi Declaration that contained the viewpoints of the BRICS group on various issues. The purpose of this explainer ...
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THE PODIUM AND THE PRODUCT
On 12 September, leaders and representatives from countries accounting for 49.5 per cent of the world's population, 40 per cent of global GDP and 26 per cent of global trade1 stood shoulder to shoulder at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi for the famous BRICS “family photogra...
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Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project: Implementation Challenges and Policy Priorities
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project (KMMTTP) was intended to provide India's Northeast Region (NER) with an alternative route through Myanmar. Eighteen years after the2008 agreement, the project is still not fully operational. Sittwe port has be...
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Explained - Indonesia and the Geoeconomic Advantage of Critical Minerals
What happened?On 2 September 2019, Indonesia announced that it would bring forward its ban on nickel-ore exports to 1 January 2020, two years earlier than scheduled (Reuters, 2019). The restriction on unprocessed nickel ore contributed to a steep increase in global n...
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Explained – Digital Trade is Shaping The Global Trade
What Happened?Before, digital trade was a component of international trade and supported the way international commerce was conducted. But with the rise of digitalisation and AI, digitally ordered and digitally delivered transactions represented around 25 percent of ...
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Explained – Why Does the Strait of Hormuz Disruption Affect Global Trade?
What happened?On 28 February 2026, the military escalation led to a disruption in shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, with commercial traffic in the waterway becoming disrupted. The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow maritime passage between Iran and Oman's Musandam Peninsula, co...
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Explained - Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism: Linking Carbon Cost to Global Trade
What happened? On 1 January 2026, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) entered the definitive regime, after a transitional phase from 2023 to 2025 (European Commission, n.d-a). Importers of iron and steel, cement, fertilisers, aluminium, hydrogen and electricity are ...
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Kazakhstan’s New Kurultai: Institutional Redesign After the 2022 Turning Point
Kazakhstan, Central Asia's largest economy and the world's 9th-largest country, has completed the most far-reaching overhaul of its political architecture since its independence in 1991. What began as a response to the January 2022 protests has culminated in a unicameral legis...
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