Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Extreme pressure, darkness and difficult access make deep-ocean exploration one of science’s major challenges.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Earth’s surface, atmosphere and ecosystems are continuously changing through natural and human-driven processes.
Athletes, scientists, engineers and explorers continue to establish new benchmarks in many fields.
Ingredients, climate, migration and local traditions all influence the foods associated with different places.
Scientific explanations are refined when new observations and stronger evidence become available.
Elephants live in social groups and use vocalisations, touch and body movements to communicate.
Long-distance trade carried not only goods but also languages, technologies, ideas and cultural traditions.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Cities shaped by mountains, rivers, coastlines or multiple cultural regions often develop distinctive identities.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Extreme pressure, darkness and difficult access make deep-ocean exploration one of science’s major challenges.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Earth’s surface, atmosphere and ecosystems are continuously changing through natural and human-driven processes.
Athletes, scientists, engineers and explorers continue to establish new benchmarks in many fields.
Ingredients, climate, migration and local traditions all influence the foods associated with different places.
Scientific explanations are refined when new observations and stronger evidence become available.
Elephants live in social groups and use vocalisations, touch and body movements to communicate.
Long-distance trade carried not only goods but also languages, technologies, ideas and cultural traditions.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Latest information is being followed through current published reports. Readers should open the original report for full context.
Cities shaped by mountains, rivers, coastlines or multiple cultural regions often develop distinctive identities.
COP31 approaches in Antalya, the Indian diaspora has opportunities to connect climate finance, technology, research and community resilience across borders. But private investment and philanthropy cannot replace governments’ climate commitments. The real test is whether diaspora networks can help deliver measurable results where they are…
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From New York to 900+ Centres: How ISKCON Took Krishna Consciousness Around the World In 1965, a 70-year-old Indian spiritual teacher arrived in New York carrying little more than books, a message and a determination to introduce the teachings of Krishna to people who knew very little about them. Six decades later, the organisation he founded has a presence that stretches across continents. The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement, marks its 60th anniversary in 2026. Its official website currently lists 900+ centres worldwide, alongside thousands of festivals and more than 110 vegetarian restaurants associated with its global activities. That makes ISKCON’s story one of the more remarkable examples of an Indian spiritual tradition developing a sustained international presence. And the story begins in an unlikely place. From a small New York storefront to a worldwide movement When A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada arrived in New York in 1965, the city was hardly an obvious launchpad for a movement rooted in Vaishnava devotional traditions. Yet New York became the starting point. ISKCON was formally established in 1966, and its early activities centred on chanting, devotional practice, spiritual discussion and the distribution of Srila Prabhupada’s
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Does India Really Need Billions of Dollars of AI Compute to Become a Superpower? India wants to become a major artificial-intelligence power. But there is a difficult question behind that ambition: does a country need to own enormous amounts of computing infrastructure to be a genuine AI superpower? The answer is not as simple as “yes.” Frontier AI requires extraordinary amounts of computing power. Training and operating the most capable models involves advanced processors, large data centres, enormous electricity requirements and sophisticated networking infrastructure. Countries and companies controlling these resources therefore possess an important strategic advantage. But AI is much larger than frontier-model training. India’s opportunity may lie not only in building enormous computing clusters, but also in deciding where sovereign infrastructure is essential, where collaboration is sensible and where Indian companies can create global value without owning every layer of the technology stack. That distinction could determine India’s AI strategy over the next decade. The compute problem is real Artificial intelligence ultimately runs on physical infrastructure. Behind every large language model are semiconductor accelerators, servers, networking equipment, cooling systems, electricity and data-centre capacity. The most advanced AI systems require huge computational resources. Access to cutting-edge chips has also become
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Why Tiny Minerals Matter to Big Technology Oil once defined the vocabulary of strategic resources. Today, some of the most consequential materials in the global economy are far less glamorous. They can fit into a laboratory container, appear as obscure entries on a periodic table and rarely make the evening news. Yet gallium and germanium sit inside technologies that increasingly define economic and national security — from semiconductors and optical communications to defence electronics, infrared systems and advanced energy technologies. For India, their importance is growing at precisely the moment the country is trying to build semiconductor manufacturing, expand high-technology production and strengthen domestic defence capabilities. The uncomfortable question is therefore not simply whether India has enough minerals. It is whether India can build a reliable supply chain from mineral resources to refined material to finished technology. Why gallium and germanium matter India’s Ministry of Mines included both gallium and germanium in its official list of 30 critical minerals released in 2023. The classification reflects their importance to strategic industries and the risks associated with concentrated supply chains. Gallium is particularly important for compound semiconductors such as gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium nitride (GaN). These materials have applications in high-frequency
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If Washington and Beijing Make Peace on Trade, What Happens to India’s China+1 Opportunity? For several years, one of the most repeated phrases in global manufacturing has been “China+1.” The idea is simple: companies that have traditionally depended heavily on China add another manufacturing location…
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Why Europe’s Biggest Market Opportunity Could Change the Way India Does Business There are trade agreements, and then there are trade agreements that make exporters start checking their calculators twice. The India–European Union Free Trade Agreement (FTA) belongs to the second category. On January 27, 2026, India and the European Union announced the conclusion of negotiations for their long-awaited FTA at the 16th India–EU Summit in New Delhi. It followed years of negotiations and the formal relaunch of talks in 2022. But there is an important distinction: the negotiations have been concluded; the agreement has not yet entered into force. Legal revision, approvals, signing and the respective internal procedures still have to be completed. The Indian government says the FTA will enter into force after India and the EU exchange written notifications confirming completion of their internal legal procedures, unless they mutually agree another date. That distinction may sound like legal paperwork. For Indian exporters, however, it is the difference between “opportunity coming” and “opportunity available.” A market of roughly 2 billion people The scale is difficult to ignore. India and the EU together represent a market of around 2 billion people, approximately one-quarter of global GDP, and around one-third
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From Workers to World Leaders There was a time when the story of Indians going abroad was largely told through airports: a suitcase, a passport, a job offer and a family waving goodbye. Today, that story looks very different. An Indian abroad may be a software engineer in Silicon Valley, a doctor in London, an entrepreneur in Dubai, an academic in Australia, a construction worker in the Gulf—or the person sitting in the corner office of one of the world’s biggest technology companies. India’s global presence is no longer simply about migration. It is about skills, businesses, money, ideas, culture and leadership moving across borders. According to data from India’s Ministry of External Affairs, approximately 35.42 million overseas Indians were recorded as of May 2024, including about 15.85 million non-resident Indians and 19.57 million people of Indian origin. The community stretches across more than 200 countries and territories. That number is large enough to create a small thought experiment: if the overseas Indian community were a country, it would be one of the world’s larger populations. But numbers alone do not explain its significance. From migration to leadership One of the most visible changes has happened in corporate leadership. Satya
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Beyond India’s Borders: How Global Tenders Can Open New Markets for Indian Businesses For a small Indian manufacturer, service provider or exporter, entering an overseas market can appear to require enormous resources: finding buyers, understanding foreign procurement systems, establishing credibility and competing with companies already familiar with the market. But there is another route to international business that is often less visible to the general public: global public and private tenders. The Indian Trade Portal’s Global Tender Service is designed around this opportunity. According to the portal, its service brings international tender opportunities to Indian exporters across more than 100 countries and 25 business sectors. The platform also maintains past tenders, allowing businesses to examine previous opportunities and understand markets. The idea is straightforward: instead of waiting for an overseas buyer to discover an Indian company, an Indian business can actively look for procurement opportunities in international markets. A different way to think about exports Export growth is often associated with large corporations, established brands and major manufacturing groups. Global tenders present a different possibility. The Indian Trade Portal specifically identifies MSMEs, Indian manufacturers and service companies among the businesses that can benefit from its Global Tender Service. The objective
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India’s artificial-intelligence story is entering a more consequential phase. The question is no longer simply whether Indian companies can build AI products for the Indian market. The bigger question is whether those products can travel—across languages, industries, regulatory environments and national borders. A new partnership…
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India’s Global Acquisition Drive: Why Indian Companies Are Buying Abroad Indian companies are increasingly looking beyond India’s borders—not simply to sell more products, but to secure the assets, capabilities and supply chains that may determine who remains competitive in the next decade. That shift is…
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How India’s Entrepreneurial Talent Built 205 Unicorns Abroad For decades, the Indian diaspora has been measured in familiar numbers: population, remittances, professionals, students and migrants. A new dataset suggests that another number deserves attention. $560 billion. That is the founder-share-attributed company value associated with 205…
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India’s 7.8% Growth Story: —and Why the Number Alone Is Not Enough At a time when the global economy is dealing with geopolitical tensions, expensive energy, disrupted supply chains and uncertain trade conditions, India has produced a number that naturally attracts attention: 7.8%. That is India’s real GDP growth in the first quarter of financial year 2026–27, covering April to June 2026. According to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, real GDP was estimated at ₹81.36 lakh crore in the quarter, compared with ₹75.46 lakh crore a year earlier. Real Gross Value Added grew even faster, at 8.2%. The number is significant. But the more important question is not simply how fast India is growing. It is what is driving that growth—and whether it can continue. From a 7.4% outlook to 7.8% reality Earlier this year, APCO Worldwide’s India Outlook 2026 described India as one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies and projected growth of around 7.4% for 2026. Its analysis pointed to domestic demand, infrastructure investment, digital transformation, reforms and India’s growing international economic role. The actual first-quarter number has now come in higher. That does not mean the APCO forecast was “wrong” in any dramatic sense. A
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UPI at 10: How India’s Digital Payment Revolution Became a Global Technology Story There was a time when paying for a cup of tea in India could involve searching for change, asking whether the shopkeeper had ₹10, and occasionally beginning a philosophical discussion about who had the correct amount. Then came UPI. Today, a customer can scan a QR code, enter a PIN and transfer money directly from a bank account in seconds. What began as a relatively modest digital-payment experiment has become one of India’s most important pieces of digital public infrastructure—and increasingly, a technology that India is taking beyond its own borders. In 2026, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) completed a decade of operation. The numbers behind that decade are extraordinary: annual UPI transaction volume reached 24,162 crore transactions in FY2025–26, while annual transaction value reached about ₹314 lakh crore. By July 2026, 741 banks were live on the platform. And July itself produced a record: 2,366 crore transactions in a single month, worth about ₹29.88 lakh crore. That is no longer merely a payment app story. It is a technology story. What exactly is UPI? UPI was developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) under
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Indian Businesses in the UAE There was a time when the Indian presence in the UAE was discussed mainly in terms of workers, remittances and the millions of Indians building careers across the Gulf. That story is now incomplete. In 2026, another Indian presence is becoming impossible to ignore: Indian businesses. By the end of March 2026, 84,088 Indian companies were registered as active members of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce, after 3,995 new Indian companies joined during the first quarter alone. Indian companies represented the largest foreign business community among Dubai Chamber’s members. That number is not simply an immigration statistic. It is a business statistic. And it says something important about how the India–UAE economic relationship is changing. Dubai is becoming more than a place to sell to For many Indian entrepreneurs, the UAE is no longer just an export market. It is becoming a regional operating base. Dubai’s location provides access not only to the Gulf but also to markets across the Middle East, Africa and parts of Europe and Asia. That makes the UAE particularly attractive for companies that want to internationalise without immediately establishing offices in multiple countries. The strategy can be relatively simple: Build
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Why Indian IT Giants Put Their New York Offices in Midtown and the Financial District Walk through Midtown Manhattan or Lower Manhattan and you may notice something interesting: behind the glass façades and expensive office lobbies are some very familiar Indian names. TCS. Infosys. Wipro. HCLTech. For an Indian reader, there is something satisfying about seeing these companies occupying prime New York real estate. But why are Indian technology companies so heavily represented in Manhattan’s major business districts? The obvious answer is clients. The complete answer is considerably more interesting. It is not just about Wall Street New York is one of the world’s major financial centres. The city’s own economic-development authorities describe finance as one of its core industries, with more than 330,000 financial-services workers in the city. That matters enormously to technology-services companies. Large banks, insurers, investment firms and financial institutions require enormous amounts of technology: cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, data management, artificial intelligence, software engineering, digital transformation, risk systems and customer platforms. Indian IT companies are major providers of these kinds of services. Therefore, being physically close to the corporate ecosystem they serve has obvious advantages. But saying that these companies are in Manhattan only because of Wall
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From Ore to AI: How India and Australia Are Building a New Economic Corridor For decades, the India–Australia economic relationship was easy to describe. Australia supplied resources. India supplied services, students, professionals and a rapidly expanding consumer market. That description is now becoming too small. A more complicated economic corridor is taking shape—one that connects Australian minerals and energy resources with Indian manufacturing, technology, clean-energy ambitions and research. The transformation is being supported by the Australia–India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA), which entered into force on 29 December 2022, while negotiations continue for a more comprehensive Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA). Australian government data puts two-way trade in goods and services at A$50.2 billion in calendar 2025, while DFAT’s FY2024–25 measure puts it at A$54.4 billion. The interesting part is not simply that trade is growing. It is what the two countries increasingly want to trade and build together. ECTA Was the Beginning, Not the Finish Line ECTA was designed as an initial step toward a broader trade relationship. Under the agreement, more than 90 per cent of Australian goods exports by value to India will have tariffs eliminated or reduced, while Australian government guidance says more than 85
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What America’s Extended Visa Fee Means for Indian Professionals The extended US H-1B restriction is not a ban on Indian professionals. But it could reshape how American companies recruit global talent — and make India an even more important technology base. For Indian technology professionals, the latest US H-1B announcement comes with a number that is difficult to ignore: $100,000. The Trump administration has extended for another year a proclamation requiring a $100,000 payment for certain H-1B workers seeking entry to the United States. The extension runs until September 21, 2027. The policy was first introduced in September 2025 and has faced legal challenges in US courts. The headline can easily become dramatic. But the reality requires considerably more fine print. This is not an American ban on Indian professionals, nor does it mean every Indian holding an H-1B visa suddenly has to pay $100,000. The important question is much more practical: Who is actually affected, and what happens to India’s enormous technology workforce if US companies find it more expensive to bring new employees into America? First, What Does the $100,000 Requirement Actually Cover? Under the current proclamation, the restriction applies to certain H-1B specialty-occupation workers who are outside
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India’s Jewellery Industry Goes Global: From Diamond Cutting Hub to Design Powerhouse India’s gems and jewellery industry exported about US$27.72 billion worth of products in FY2025–26. But the more interesting story is not the size of the number. It is what is happening underneath it: Indian companies are increasingly trying to move from being the world’s manufacturing workshop to becoming a design, branding and value-creation powerhouse. India has an unusual relationship with jewellery. For millions of families, it is tradition. For investors, it can be an asset. For artisans, it is a livelihood. For exporters, it is a global business. And for the international jewellery industry, India has long been one of the places where an enormous share of the world’s diamonds gets transformed from rough stones into finished gems. Now the industry wants to change the perception again. Not merely: “Made in India.” But increasingly: “Designed, crafted and created in India.” $27.72 billion—but not a simple boom India’s gross gems and jewellery exports reached approximately US$27.72 billion in FY2025–26, according to GJEPC and IBEF. That is an enormous number. But there is an important qualification. Dollar-denominated exports actually declined 3.32% from the previous year, while rupee-denominated exports increased modestly.
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India’s Global Indians Just Gave the Rupee a $127 Billion Cushion In 2026, that power has taken a striking new form: more than $127 billion in foreign-currency deposits flowed into Indian banks under a special Reserve Bank of India facility, helping rebuild India’s foreign-exchange firepower. For years, the familiar story of Indians abroad was simple: work overseas, send money home, support parents and children, buy a house, invest in gold and perhaps return one day. That story is changing. The latest numbers suggest that India’s global community is increasingly becoming part of the country’s financial architecture, not merely its remittance economy. The $127-billion surprise In June 2026, the Reserve Bank of India introduced a special USD-INR foreign-exchange swap facility covering foreign-currency deposits by non-resident Indians, along with certain overseas borrowings. The response was extraordinary. By the end of August, the programme had attracted about $136.38 billion in total foreign-currency inflows. Of that, approximately $127.23 billion came through Foreign Currency Non-Resident (Bank), or FCNR(B), deposits. Another $3.89 billion came through external commercial borrowings and about $5.26 billion through overseas foreign-currency borrowings. In other words, the headline number is not simply “Indians abroad deposited $127 billion into Indian banks.” It represents a
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What the Upgrade Really Says About the Indian Economy For decades, India wanted to join the club. Not the G7. Not the World Cup. Not even the rather mysterious club of countries whose citizens can discuss GDP over dinner without everyone changing the subject. This was the A-rated sovereign club—the group of economies considered to have relatively strong creditworthiness. On September 2, 2026, India moved closer to that club when the Japan Credit Rating Agency (JCR) upgraded India’s sovereign credit rating from BBB+ to A-, while maintaining a Stable outlook. It was not merely a symbolic change in an alphabetical table. A sovereign credit rating is ultimately a judgement about a country’s ability and willingness to meet its financial obligations. And JCR’s decision offers an interesting external assessment of India’s economic transformation. Why did JCR upgrade India? JCR pointed to several developments. The agency noted that India has maintained a high rate of economic growth, supported by robust private consumption and public investment. It also highlighted the government’s continued implementation of policies aimed at improving productivity and the foundations for long-term growth, including digital public infrastructure and the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The agency also saw improvement in the
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India’s Trade Deficit Narrows in August, But Oil Could Quickly Change the Story India’s latest trade figures offer a mixed but important message: the country’s merchandise trade deficit narrowed sharply in August, but the improvement may be vulnerable to a renewed rise in crude oil prices. India’s merchandise trade deficit fell to $26.86 billion in August 2026, from about $31.98 billion in July. The improvement came as imports dropped substantially, particularly gold imports, while exports remained strong. At first glance, that sounds like straightforward good news. It isn’t quite that simple. The August numbers show that India’s external trade position can improve when imports moderate and exports remain resilient. But they also expose a familiar vulnerability: India remains highly sensitive to international energy prices. And this time, the warning light is coming from the Middle East. A smaller trade gap—but why? India exported goods worth $43.81 billion in August, slightly below July’s $44.24 billion but still the highest August export figure in a decade, according to Reuters’ report based on the latest trade data. Imports, meanwhile, fell to $70.67 billion, from $76.22 billion in July. That difference produces the merchandise trade deficit: $70.67 billion − $43.81 billion = $26.86 billion.
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Saudi Oil Pipeline Attack: A pipeline in the Saudi Arabian desert may sound like a problem thousands of kilometres away from India. It isn’t. When the East-West Pipeline, also known as the Petroline, was hit by drone attacks on September 10, the immediate concern was Saudi Arabia’s ability to move crude from its oil-producing east to the Red Sea. But the consequences extend much further — into international oil prices, shipping routes, freight costs and eventually the economics of one of the world’s largest oil-importing countries: India. The important point, however, is not that India suddenly faces an oil shortage. The bigger risk is that getting the oil India needs could become more expensive. What happened to Saudi Arabia’s oil route? Saudi Arabia temporarily shut its roughly 1,200-kilometre East-West Pipeline after attacks struck two pumping stations in the Riyadh and Madinah regions on September 10. The pipeline runs from the kingdom’s eastern oil-producing region towards Yanbu, a major Red Sea export facility. Its nominal capacity is about 7 million barrels of crude a day, although the quantity actually being transported has been significantly lower. Recent reporting estimates that around 4 million barrels per day had been moving through the route
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China’s Memory-Chip Breakthrough: Why India’s Semiconductor Ambition Is Watching Closely As China pushes deeper into advanced memory manufacturing, India is trying to build something larger than a chip factory — an entire semiconductor ecosystem. The semiconductor race is entering a more complicated phase. It is no longer simply a contest over who can manufacture the fastest processor or build the world’s most advanced fabrication plant. Memory chips, advanced packaging, semiconductor equipment, materials, chip design and supply-chain resilience are becoming equally important pieces of the global technology puzzle. That is why a fresh development from China deserves attention in India. Chinese memory-chip manufacturer ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) has announced that its fifth-generation DRAM technology platform has entered mass production. The company says its new process improves memory density, power efficiency and production yields, strengthening its ability to compete in a global memory market dominated by Samsung, SK hynix and Micron. For India, this is not simply another China technology story. It is a reminder of how quickly the global semiconductor map is changing while India is attempting to establish its own place within it. The Memory-Chip Race Is Getting Serious DRAM is the working memory used by computers, smartphones, servers and
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India Is Becoming the Global Office Behind the World’s Biggest Companies Walgreens’ Chennai move highlights how India’s Global Capability Centres are evolving from back offices into strategic engines of global business A few decades ago, when a multinational company moved work to India, the conversation was usually about one thing: cost. Today, that explanation is becoming increasingly incomplete. The latest example comes from Chennai, where US-based healthcare and pharmacy company Walgreens plans to establish its first Global Capability Centre (GCC) in India, with more than 250 jobs expected in the centre’s first year. The facility will focus on technology and business services and is planned for DLF Downtown in Taramani. On the surface, 250 jobs may look modest against India’s enormous employment market. But the more interesting story is what those jobs represent. India’s GCC industry has moved far beyond the traditional image of an offshore back office. According to the latest NASSCOM-Zinnov GCC Landscape Report, India had 2,117 GCCs operating across 3,728 units and employing about 2.36 million professionals in FY2026. The ecosystem generated an estimated $98.4 billion in revenue. That is no longer merely an outsourcing story. It is a story about where global companies choose to build
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The Global Business Opportunity Waiting for Indian Entrepreneurs For decades, one of the most familiar descriptions of India’s economic rise was remarkably simple: India provides talent to the world. Engineers, software developers, accountants, doctors, consultants and technology professionals built careers serving international companies. But something more interesting is happening now. The question is slowly changing from “How can Indians work for global companies?” to: “How can Indian companies build products and services that the whole world wants to buy?” That may be one of the biggest business opportunities of the next decade. The idea is not particularly complicated. Build in India. Use India’s talent, engineering capability, digital infrastructure and growing entrepreneurial ecosystem. Then sell to customers in America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. The internet has already removed much of the old geographical barrier. But removing geography does not remove competition. And that is where the real story begins. India is no longer merely the back office The rise of Global Capability Centres, or GCCs, offers perhaps the clearest evidence of India’s changing role. According to India’s Economic Survey 2025–26, India had more than 1,700 GCCs employing over 1.9 million professionals as of FY24. These centres increasingly
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Asian Games 2026: India’s First Gold, 11 Medals and the Stories Behind the Tally India has its first gold medal of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026—and it came from a team that has rapidly become one of the most successful forces in Asian women’s cricket.…
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OTT Releases This Week: The fourth week of September is bringing something increasingly familiar to Indian viewers: there is no shortage of things to watch, only a shortage of time to watch them. From a missing-child mystery featuring Parineeti Chopra to a courtroom thriller led…
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Is America’s Skilled-Worker Door Getting Narrower? For years, the H-1B visa has been one of the most important bridges between India and the United States. An engineer could study in India, build a career, receive an opportunity from an American company and eventually move across the world to work on technology, finance, healthcare or research. For thousands of Indian professionals, that journey became almost routine. In 2026, it is anything but routine. The United States has tightened the H-1B system through higher costs, greater scrutiny and a new wage-weighted selection process. At the same time, visa-stamping backlogs in India have created another problem: even professionals with approved status can face uncertainty when they need to travel and obtain a visa stamp. The result is not simply a visa-policy story. It is becoming a story about India’s skilled workforce, American competitiveness and the future of global technology talent. H-1B Visa Changes and Indians The answer is simple: Indians are the largest group of H-1B beneficiaries. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data, 71% of approved H-1B petitions in FY2024 were for beneficiaries born in India, compared with about 12% for China. That does not mean 71% of every H-1B application
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How Indian-Origin Academics Are Shaping World Universities When people talk about India’s global influence, the conversation usually arrives at familiar destinations: technology companies, doctors, entrepreneurs, CEOs, engineers and scientists. There is, however, another Indian export that rarely gets the same attention. Ideas. Across universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and other countries, academics of Indian origin are teaching students, conducting research, supervising doctoral scholars and, in some cases, helping run some of the world’s most prestigious institutions. The interesting part is that this influence is not always visible. A professor does not necessarily make headlines every morning. There is no stock ticker for a successful research paper and no breaking-news alert when a scholar mentors a brilliant student. Yet universities are where tomorrow’s scientists, doctors, engineers, business leaders, policymakers and researchers are trained. And that makes academic influence rather important. From students to academic leaders Perhaps one of the clearest examples comes from Harvard. Srikant M. Datar, an alumnus of the University of Bombay and IIM Ahmedabad, became the 11th dean of Harvard Business School in January 2021. Harvard’s own current profile lists him as dean from 2021 to the present. His research has covered management control, strategy,
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The Remarkable Story of India’s Population at Home and Around the World How many Indians are there in the world? It sounds like a question with a simple answer. India has roughly 1.48 billion people in 2026. Then there are tens of millions of Indians and people of Indian origin living outside the country. Put the numbers together and you arrive at something extraordinary: roughly 1.51 billion people when India’s current population estimate is combined with the Government of India’s latest overseas-Indian estimate. But there is an important catch. There is no single official number called “the global Indian population” because Indian citizens living abroad and people of Indian ancestry who hold foreign citizenship are not the same demographic category. And that distinction makes the story much more interesting. India itself is approaching 1.5 billion The latest 2026 population estimate based on United Nations data puts India’s population at approximately 1.477 billion. That represents about 17.8% of the world’s population. In simple terms, almost one out of every six people on Earth lives in India. That number is astonishing enough without adding anyone else. But millions of people with Indian citizenship or Indian ancestry live beyond India’s borders. The Ministry
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The H-1B Era Quietly Creating a New Opportunity at Home? For decades, one of the most familiar career routes for an ambitious Indian technology professional looked something like this: Study or work in India → get an opportunity in America → obtain an H-1B → build a career in Silicon Valley, Seattle, New York or another U.S. technology centre. That model is not disappearing overnight. But it is changing. The combination of tighter U.S. immigration rules, higher costs, changing technology demand and the expansion of India’s own technology ecosystem is producing an interesting reversal. Increasingly, global companies are asking a different question: Why move all the talent to America when an enormous amount of the work can be done in India? And that question is helping transform India’s technology hubs. The H-1B route is becoming less central The shift did not begin with the latest H-1B restrictions. Data reported in 2026 shows that major Indian IT companies had already reduced their dependence on new H-1B workers, while increasing local hiring in the United States and moving more delivery work offshore. The Economic Times reported that new H-1B approvals for seven major Indian IT firms had fallen substantially from their 2015
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How the New System Changes the Odds for Indian Applicants For years, the H-1B visa lottery had one particularly frustrating feature: the computer did not care how much a candidate was being paid. A highly paid technology specialist and a lower-paid entry-level worker could effectively enter the selection process on equal footing. That changed for the FY2027 H-1B cap season. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has introduced a wage-weighted selection system, under which higher-paid positions receive more entries in the selection pool. The rule became effective on February 27, 2026, and USCIS implemented it for the FY2027 registration season. For Indian professionals—who make up a very large share of H-1B beneficiaries—the change is particularly important. But there is a catch: a higher salary improves the mathematical odds; it does not buy a visa. From one ticket to four Under the previous beneficiary-centric random selection model, eligible beneficiaries essentially had the same chance of being selected. The new system keeps the selection process random but introduces different weights according to the Department of Labor’s Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) wage levels for the occupation and intended employment area. The four levels work like this: OEWS wage level Lottery entries
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Beyond Remittances: How India’s Global Diaspora Could Become an Economic Superpower for Viksit Bharat For years, the economic story of Indians living abroad has been told mainly through one impressive number: remittances. Money earned in Dubai, London, New York, Toronto, Singapore and elsewhere travels back to India, paying for education, homes, healthcare, family expenses and investments. But there is a much bigger story developing. It is increasingly a source of capital, professional expertise, technology, international networks and global credibility. And that could make the diaspora an important partner in India’s ambition to become a developed nation by 2047. $730 billion is an impressive number—but it needs context A 2026 report by Indiaspora estimates that more than 35 million people of Indian heritage live across more than 200 countries. It estimates that the diaspora earns more than $730 billion annually from formal employment. That figure should not be misunderstood as $730 billion flowing into India. It is an estimate of the income earned by the diaspora in the countries where they live and work. The more interesting question is therefore not, “How much money do Indians abroad earn?” It is: How much of that economic power can become productive engagement with
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India and Singapore: The Relationship You Can Now See, Spend and Travel Through More than 600,000 Indian visitors in six months is impressive. But the more interesting India-Singapore story is what happens after the plane lands. Singapore has long been one of India’s most important partners in Southeast Asia. The relationship has traditionally been discussed in the language of diplomacy: trade, investment, technology, finance, infrastructure and strategic cooperation. But increasingly, the relationship can be experienced in much simpler ways. An Indian family lands at Changi Airport. A student begins university. A professional attends a business meeting. A tourist pays for lunch. An entrepreneur meets an investor. And increasingly, the Indian visitor can use a digital payment system without treating an international transaction like a small banking expedition. That is the fascinating part of the India-Singapore story in 2026. The bilateral relationship is becoming increasingly visible in everyday life. More than 600,000 Indian visitors India remains one of Singapore’s most important tourism markets. More than 600,000 Indian visitors travelled to Singapore during the first half of 2026, according to figures reported from Singapore Tourism Board data. The number is significant because Singapore is not simply benefiting from India’s enormous population. It
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Indian Students Are Rewriting the Study-Abroad Map: From Big-Four Prestige to Career ROI For years, the international education decision for an Indian family could be remarkably simple. USA. UK. Canada. Australia. Pick a country. Pick a university. Arrange the funds. Get the visa. And, hopefully, find a job after graduation. That formula increasingly looks incomplete. The overseas education market is entering a more complicated phase in 2026. Indian students and their families are asking questions that would once have appeared almost secondary: How much will the degree actually cost? What salary can I realistically expect? Can I work after graduation? For how long? What happens if I don’t get a job immediately? And perhaps the most uncomfortable question of all: What if the degree is prestigious but the career outcome isn’t? This is the emerging ROI mindset in Indian study abroad. It does not mean the traditional destinations are finished. Far from it. The US, UK, Canada and Australia continue to attract large numbers of international students. But the assumption that they are automatically the best choices is weakening. The degree is no longer the whole product An overseas degree was once viewed almost like a premium passport to a
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Ireland After Graduation: What Indian Students Really Need to Know About Staying and Working For an Indian student, getting admission to an Irish university is only the beginning. The more important question is what happens after the degree. Ireland has become an attractive destination for international students because it combines English-language higher education with access to a European labour market. But the popular version of the story — study in Ireland, work part-time, graduate and automatically stay — is dangerously incomplete. Ireland does provide a structured route from study to graduate employment and, for eligible graduates, employment permits. But every step has conditions. For an Indian student considering Ireland in 2026, understanding those conditions may be more valuable than another glossy university brochure. First: the visa and the immigration permission are not the same thing Students planning to study in Ireland for more than three months generally need a long-stay ‘D’ study visa if they are from a visa-required country. The application is made through Ireland’s AVATS system, and the Irish authorities advise applying up to three months before travel. But the visa gets you to Ireland. It is not the same thing as your ongoing immigration permission. After arrival,
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Indian Diaspora Global Influence: How Indians Abroad Are Becoming a Strategic Asset for India For most of modern history, the Indian diaspora was discussed in fairly simple terms. People left India. They built careers abroad. They sent money home. Families prospered. India benefited from remittances. That story is still true—but it is no longer the whole story. In 2026, India’s global diaspora has become something much more complicated and potentially much more valuable. Indian-origin people are now present in governments, parliaments, universities, technology companies, hospitals, financial institutions and global businesses. They are not merely living abroad. They are participating in the institutions that shape the countries in which they live. And that gives India an unusual form of global influence. From diaspora to global network Indiaspora’s 2026 report estimates that more than 35 million people of Indian heritage live in more than 200 countries, with estimated annual income of around $730 billion. It argues that the diaspora’s contribution is moving beyond traditional remittances toward capital, capability and credibility. That last word—credibility—is particularly interesting. Money can be transferred. Skills can be hired. But relationships and trust take years to develop. An Indian-origin scientist working in a major research institution, an entrepreneur
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Rupee at 95.46: What a Weak Indian Currency Really Means for NRIs and India The rupee’s slide toward ₹95.46 against the US dollar has produced a familiar headline: the Indian currency is weakening. But behind that number is a much bigger story—one involving oil, global capital, imports, exports and millions of Indians earning money overseas. There is a number that has become increasingly difficult for Indians to ignore: 95.46. That was the rupee’s recent closing level against the US dollar in one trading session, after the currency weakened by 38 paise. For someone travelling abroad, buying an imported product or paying an international bill, the number can look rather unpleasant. For an Indian living overseas and sending dollars home, however, the same number tells a very different story. One dollar now buys substantially more rupees. And that is the strange dual personality of a depreciating currency. For one person, it is an expense. For another, it is an advantage. Why is the rupee under pressure? There is no single villain sitting in a dark room responsible for the rupee’s weakness. Several forces are working together. The first is the US dollar itself. When global investors prefer dollar-denominated assets, emerging-market currencies
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India and Singapore: When a Bilateral Relationship Becomes a People-to-People Partnership From a Tricolour ceremony attended by thousands to a digital payment crossing borders in seconds, India-Singapore relations are increasingly being experienced not just by governments, but by ordinary people. Singapore is only a few hours away from India by air. Yet the relationship between the two countries has become much bigger than tourism. In August 2026 alone, the connection could be seen in several very different places: at an Independence Day gathering of more than 2,500 members of the Indian community, at a new diaspora-led leadership forum in Sentosa, in Singapore’s tourism numbers and even inside the payment systems used by travellers and businesses. Taken together, these developments tell an interesting story. India-Singapore relations are moving from diplomatic partnership to everyday connectivity. A Tricolour thousands of kilometres from home On August 15, 2026, more than 2,500 members of the Indian diaspora joined India’s 80th Independence Day celebrations at the Indian High Commission’s Chancery in Singapore. Indian High Commissioner Shilpak Ambule hoisted the national flag, while students from Indian schools presented cultural performances. The celebrations also included a community initiative highlighting India’s handloom and textile traditions. But the day was
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Why America’s Crackdown Matters to Indian Professionals For thousands of Indian technology professionals, the American dream has traditionally arrived in a familiar format: a job offer, an H-1B petition, a move across the Atlantic and a career built around specialised skills. But there is another side to the employment-visa system that is now receiving much greater attention in Washington. Fake jobs. Sham employers. False applications. Wage kickbacks. Worker exploitation. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General has launched a nationwide investigation into suspected fraud and abuse involving the H-1B and PERM employment-visa systems. The agency says its investigations are targeting employers, labor brokers and other actors suspected of submitting fraudulent applications or exploiting foreign workers. For Indian professionals, the development deserves attention because Indians occupy an unusually large share of the H-1B system. But there is an important distinction. The crackdown is about alleged abuse of the visa system — not about Indian workers as a nationality. Why India is at the centre of the conversation USCIS reported 399,395 approved H-1B petitions in fiscal year 2024. Computer-related occupations accounted for about 63.9% of beneficiaries in the report. Beneficiaries born in India accounted for approximately 71% of approved H-1B
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From Kerala to King’s College: How Dr. Agimol Pradeep Turned Nursing Into a Global Mission There are awards that recognise a successful career. And then there are awards that recognise what a person has done with that career. For Dr. Agimol Pradeep, the distinction is important. On September 12, 2026, the UK-based Indian nurse was named the winner of the Aster Guardians Global Nursing Award 2026 at a ceremony in Kochi, receiving a prize of US$250,000. She was selected from more than 134,000 registrations spanning 214 countries and economies. Dr. Pradeep works as a Senior Transplant Coordinator at King’s College Hospital in London and is also an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Salford. Her recognition, however, is not simply for working inside a major British hospital. It is for taking a difficult healthcare problem outside the hospital walls—and trying to change it at community level. Her particular focus has been the shortage of suitable organ and stem-cell donors among South Asian communities in the UK. And that is where the story becomes considerably bigger than one nursing award. The problem she decided not to ignore Organ transplantation depends on a deceptively simple word: Match. A patient may need
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US Student Visa Rule Blocked at the Last Moment: What the Court’s Decision Means for Indian Students For thousands of Indian students dreaming of an American degree—and for parents watching every immigration announcement with the intensity usually reserved for cricket scores—there was a major development on September 14. Just one day before a controversial new U.S. immigration rule was scheduled to take effect, a federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the Department of Homeland Security’s plan to replace the long-standing “Duration of Status” system for international students and exchange visitors with fixed admission periods. The ruling means the planned September 15 change does not take effect for now. For Indian students already in America under F-1 status, that is significant relief. But it is important not to misunderstand the headline. The judge has paused the rule; he has not permanently struck it down. The legal battle is still alive. What was supposed to change on September 15? The Department of Homeland Security published the final regulation in July, replacing the nearly 50-year-old Duration of Status (D/S) framework with a fixed admission system. The rule was scheduled to become effective on September 15, 2026. Under the proposed system, F-1 students would
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When Ganga Aarti Reached the Thames: London Witnesses a Historic Indian Cultural Moment For centuries, the evening glow of oil lamps on the banks of the Ganga has been one of India’s most recognisable expressions of faith, gratitude and reverence for nature. On Sunday, September 13, that tradition acquired a distinctly London setting. Thousands of people gathered beside the River Thames at Greenwich for what organisers described as the first-ever Ganga Aarti on the Thames. Held at the historic Old Royal Naval College, the event brought an ancient Indian ritual of light to one of Britain’s most important riverside landmarks. The event was organised by Chinmaya Mission UK in collaboration with the Totally Thames Festival, as part of celebrations marking 75 years of the Chinmaya Mission. And there was an interesting twist to the story: while the ceremony celebrated a tradition associated with India’s sacred Ganga, the organisers were careful not to treat the Thames as a ceremonial dumping ground. That may ultimately be the most important part of the story. From the Ganga to Greenwich The programme began at around 4 pm with an afternoon of Indian culture, including food, community stalls, music, dance, family activities and exhibitions. The
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US OPT Fee Proposal Moves Closer to Reality A potentially dramatic change is moving through the U.S. immigration rulemaking system—and Indian students are watching closely. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has been developing a proposal that could introduce a new fee for Optional Practical Training (OPT), the post-study work programme used by eligible international students on F-1 visas. The proposal has now completed review by the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). But there is a very important line between “moving closer” and “becoming law.” The proposed fee is not currently payable. And despite widespread reporting about a possible $100,000 charge, the official regulatory record does not yet confirm that amount. The OIRA record identifies the proposal as “Optional Practical Training Fees”, submitted by ICE on August 20 and reviewed on September 11, but it does not disclose the proposed fee amount or who would be responsible for paying it. For Indian students, that distinction is critical. What exactly is OPT? Optional Practical Training allows eligible F-1 international students to obtain temporary employment authorisation for work directly related to their field of study. A student generally may receive
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From Civil Engineering Graduates to a $20 Million AI Legacy: The Sinha Couple’s Bet on America’s Next Generation When Anuradha and Vikas Sinha left India after completing their engineering education, there was no obvious indication that decades later their names would be attached to a major American academic institution devoted to artificial intelligence. Today, there is. The Indian-origin couple has committed US$20 million to the University of North Texas (UNT) to create the Anuradha and Vikas Sinha College of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics. The new college will bring together education and research in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data science, advanced analytics, health informatics and other information-related disciplines. It is an unusually large philanthropic investment in a field that is rapidly becoming central to almost every part of the economy. But the most interesting part of this story isn’t the $20 million. It is where the money came from, where it is going, and why the couple chose education. A journey that began with engineering in India Anuradha and Vikas Sinha both earned bachelor’s degrees in civil engineering from Sri Venkateswara University in India before moving to the United States for further education. Both subsequently earned graduate degrees from Florida Atlantic
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What the Latest Action Means for Indians Canada’s campaign against organized crime and extortion has entered a significant new phase, with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) confirming that 111 individuals have been removed from the country as part of an enforcement effort targeting foreign nationals linked to extortion and organized criminal activity. As of September 3, the agency had issued 188 removal orders under the initiative. The latest update, released September 14, also detailed four recent cases involving foreign nationals of Indian origin: Palwinder Singh, Jasmer Singh, Amitoz Bajwa and Sahibjot Singh. The figures are significant not simply because they involve Indian nationals. They reveal something larger about Canada’s approach to a growing public-safety problem: immigration enforcement is increasingly being used alongside police investigations to disrupt criminal networks. And for India’s large community in Canada, there is another important message. A person’s nationality should not become confused with the behaviour of a criminal network. That distinction matters. 111 removals—and 188 orders According to the CBSA, as of September 3, 188 removal orders had been issued on various inadmissibility grounds and 111 people had actually been removed. The regional breakdown is revealing: Pacific Region: 91 removal orders, 58 removals Prairie
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From the UAE to India: Know India Programme Opens a Two-Week Journey for Young Indian Diaspora Professionals For a young Indian-origin professional growing up or building a career in the United Arab Emirates, India can sometimes become an idea before it becomes a lived experience. There may be family stories, festivals, food, films, social media and frequent conversations about the country. But experiencing India as a rapidly changing economy, a technological power, a democratic system and a society balancing ancient traditions with modern ambitions is something else entirely. That is the idea behind the Know India Programme (KIP), a flagship initiative of India’s Ministry of External Affairs. And in October 2026, the programme is offering another small group of young members of the Indian diaspora an unusually concentrated introduction to contemporary India. The 90th edition of KIP will be held from 18 to 31 October 2026 and is specifically designed for the Young Professionals cohort, aged 24–28. The programme has been restructured so that Young Professionals and Scholars & Innovators have separate editions, with each edition limited to 25 participants. For Indian-origin youth in the UAE, that makes the opportunity particularly relevant. What Is the Know India Programme? KIP was
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US Green Card Rules Change September 18: What Indian Applicants Need to Know About the New Public-Charge Test For thousands of Indians pursuing permanent residence in the United States, September 18, 2026 is an important date to remember. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is scheduled to implement a new public-charge rule that gives immigration officers broader discretion to examine an applicant’s overall circumstances when deciding whether the person is likely to become a public charge. At the same time, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is introducing a new edition of Form I-485, the principal application used by people inside the United States seeking adjustment of status to permanent residence. And there is no comfortable paperwork grace period. USCIS says that applications submitted on or after September 18 must use the 09/18/26 edition of Form I-485. Older editions submitted on or after that date will not be accepted. For Indian applicants—particularly those navigating the long employment-based green-card process—the change deserves careful attention. But it also deserves careful reporting. A headline suggesting that “using government benefits means your Green Card will be rejected” would be inaccurate. The new framework is broader and more discretionary than the 2022 rules, but the
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Russian Oil, US Tariffs and India: Why Energy Security Is Becoming a Foreign-Policy Test For India, crude oil is never just a commodity. It is transportation, manufacturing, electricity, logistics, inflation and household economics — all rolled into one barrel. That is why the latest U.S. legislation targeting countries that continue buying Russian oil has created an unusually complicated problem for New Delhi. The U.S. Congress has approved legislation that would give the American president authority to impose additional tariffs of up to 100% on countries meeting specified conditions related to Russian oil and gas purchases. The House passed the measure on September 16, following Senate approval, and the legislation has been sent to President Donald Trump. That does not mean India has already been hit with a new 100% tariff. It means a potentially powerful tariff instrument now exists. And India is one of the countries most exposed to it. Why Russian oil matters so much to India India is the world’s third-largest crude oil importer and has substantially increased its purchases of Russian crude since the disruption of Russia’s traditional European markets following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Reuters reported that Russian crude represented 50.83% of India’s total crude
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UK Immigration Rules Change on October 8 The United Kingdom is preparing for an important change in its relationship with European student mobility. From 8 October 2026, amendments to the UK Immigration Rules will create specific provisions for students participating in Erasmus+ programmes at participating UK sponsors. For Indian students, the development is worth watching—but perhaps not for the reasons suggested by some early descriptions of the change. The most important point is that the UK is not introducing a special Erasmus+ visa system for Indian students. Nor do the published rules create a new “mobility marker” on the Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS), an “Authorized Mobility Leave” category, or a blanket exemption from UK financial requirements. What is actually happening is more technical—and potentially useful. The changes are part of the UK’s preparation for its formal association with Erasmus+ from 2027, following the agreement between the UK and European Union. The programme is expected to reopen opportunities for UK learners and institutions to participate more fully in European educational mobility. For Indian students considering a UK education, that distinction matters. Britain Is Returning to Erasmus+ The UK and EU finalised arrangements in April 2026 for the UK to
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Canada Visa Wait Times for Indians: Work 10 Weeks, Study 5 Weeks, Visitor Visa 29 Days For Indians planning to study, work or visit Canada, the latest visa-processing figures provide a useful snapshot of how long applications are currently taking. As of the latest September update, Indian applicants are facing estimated processing times of: Application Current estimated processing time Work permit 10 weeks Study permit 5 weeks Visitor visa 29 days The figures come from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), whose temporary-residence processing estimates are updated regularly. The latest data puts India’s work-permit wait at 10 weeks, unchanged from the previous update; the study-permit estimate remains at 5 weeks; while the visitor-visa estimate has improved from 31 to 29 days. For someone planning a Canadian university intake, starting a new job or booking a family holiday, those numbers are obviously more than statistics. They are calendar dates. And when an international journey involves university deadlines, flights, accommodation and employment start dates, calendars suddenly become very serious things. The current numbers in simple terms A 10-week work-permit estimate works out to approximately 70 days. A 5-week study-permit estimate is approximately 35 days. And a 29-day visitor-visa estimate is just under
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iPhone 17 After the iPhone 18 Launch: Is the Older iPhone Now the Smarter Buy in India? The iPhone 18 generation has arrived—but if you are an Indian consumer looking for an iPhone today, the most interesting question may not be “Which new iPhone should I buy?” It may be: “Do I actually need the new one?” Apple’s September 2026 launch changed the company’s usual iPhone cycle. The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max have arrived, alongside Apple’s new foldable iPhone Duo, while the standard iPhone 18 is being held for a later launch expected in spring 2027. That creates an unusual situation for buyers. The latest Pro models offer Apple’s newest technology, but they also come with premium pricing. Meanwhile, the iPhone 17 remains a current model with a 6.3-inch ProMotion display, A19 chip, 48MP dual-camera system and Apple Intelligence support. So, in September 2026, should Indian buyers look backward before looking forward? The iPhone 18 launch created an unusual gap For years, Apple’s September launch effectively gave consumers a simple choice: buy the new iPhone or take advantage of lower prices on the previous generation. This year is different. Apple has split the iPhone launch cycle.
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From Sriharikota to 36,000 Km Above Earth At 2:55 in the morning on September 4, 2026, while most of India was either asleep or negotiating with the snooze button, a 51.7-metre rocket rose from Sriharikota. The rocket was GSLV-F17, and its passenger was EOS-05, an Earth-observation satellite that represents a significant new capability for India’s space programme. But the most interesting part of this story is not simply that India launched another satellite. It is where EOS-05 is designed to operate and what that means for the way India can watch its own territory. The mission has also arrived at an interesting moment for India’s space programme. On one side, ISRO is demonstrating increasingly sophisticated space capabilities. On the other, India is deliberately bringing private companies deeper into the space economy. And suddenly, a question that sounds almost philosophical becomes very practical: Can India expand its space industry without making ISRO smaller? The answer, at least according to ISRO, is yes. The morning India put a new eye in the sky ISRO’s GSLV-F17 mission was the 19th flight of India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle. The rocket successfully injected the approximately 2,367-kg EOS-05 into a Sub-Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit after launch from
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Container Rooms, Comebacks and a New Generation Ready to Take the Fight to Asia India’s preparations for the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026 have entered an unusual final stretch. There are elite athletes, world champions, Olympic medallists and defending champions. There are also — rather surprisingly — shipping containers. Yes, containers. As India prepares to send a 768-member delegation to Japan, the country’s sports establishment has gone beyond conventional training. Athletes have been sleeping in specially modified container-style accommodation in India to experience the sort of living arrangements they may encounter in Japan. If this sounds like an elaborate reality show called Bigg Boss: Athlete Edition, there is actually some serious science behind it. And that strange preparation is only one part of a much bigger story. India is arriving at the 20th Asian Games with a large contingent, several established stars, a few painful absences and a growing group of athletes who are beginning to believe they belong on the biggest stages in Asia. 768 Indians, 36 sports and one complicated mission The Sports Ministry has cleared a 768-member Indian contingent, comprising 503 athletes, 246 officials/support staff and 19 contingent staff. The Games will be held in Aichi-Nagoya from September
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Its Athletes for an Unusual Asian Games in Japan Imagine preparing for the biggest sporting competition in Asia and discovering that your bedroom may look more like a shipping container than an athletes’ village. Now imagine your country’s sports authorities deciding that the best response is to build a similar container back home—and actually make athletes sleep in it. That is exactly what India has been doing. As the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games approach, Indian athletes are preparing not only for opponents, venues and pressure but also for an unusual living environment in Japan. The Games run from September 19 to October 4, 2026, bringing together more than 11,000 athletes and 6,000 officials from 45 countries and regions. And there is no conventional, single athletes’ village. Instead, organisers are using a mixture of hotels, a cruise ship and temporary container-style accommodation. India has decided that its athletes should not discover this surprise after landing in Japan. So it has created its own little version of Japan at home. Welcome to India’s “Little Japan” At Sports Authority of India (SAI) centres in Bengaluru and Patiala, athletes have been spending nights in specially prepared container-style rooms. The Bengaluru units are based on approximately
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India at Asian Games 2026: 503 Athletes Carry a Bigger Sporting Ambition to Japan From established champions to more than 300 Asian Games debutants. A new generation of Indian sport is heading to Aichi-Nagoya with experience to gain, expectations to manage and a rather large scoreboard waiting in Japan. When India walks into the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games this September, the number itself will be worth noticing. 503 athletes. That is the final number representing India across 36 sports, with 269 men and 234 women. The Games will take place in Japan from September 19 to October 4, bringing together athletes from across Asia for one of the continent’s biggest sporting gatherings. But the most interesting number may not be 503. It may be 300-plus. More than 300 members of India’s athlete contingent are competing at the Asian Games for the first time. That changes the character of the team. This is not simply a collection of India’s established sporting stars. It is also a large-scale introduction of younger or less experienced athletes to the pressure of continental competition. From 492 to 503 The final contingent is larger than the original list approved by the Sports Ministry. The initial approval covered
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Sethuraman Panchanathan Makes History With NAE’s Bueche Award A child standing in a queue outside the American Center in Chennai in 1969 could hardly have known that the small grey rocks behind a glass display would eventually influence the direction of his life. Those were pieces of the Moon brought back by the Apollo 11 mission. For Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan, the fascination was not simply with the rocks. It was with the extraordinary engineering, science and human collaboration that had made their journey possible. More than five decades later, that curiosity has become a career spanning computer science, engineering, university research, technology policy and the highest levels of American scientific administration. Now, Panchanathan has reached another landmark. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has named him the recipient of the 2026 Arthur M. Bueche Award, making him the first Indian American to receive the honour in its more than four-decade history. The award is scheduled to be presented at the NAE Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., in October. For the Indian-origin community, it is an achievement worth noticing. But the deeper story is not simply that an engineer born in Chennai has won another American award. It is about how
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India’s Semiconductor Moment: From Chip Design Powerhouse to Global Manufacturing Hub For decades, India was exceptionally good at designing technology — but much of the physical hardware powering that technology was manufactured somewhere else. That equation is beginning to change. India’s semiconductor strategy is moving from design and engineering capability toward fabrication, assembly, testing, packaging and eventually a more complete domestic supply chain. The transition is being driven by government incentives, multinational investment, Indian companies, a large engineering talent base and a global effort to diversify semiconductor manufacturing. The timing is significant. Artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, smartphones, defence systems, data centres, telecom networks and industrial automation are all increasing demand for chips. At the same time, geopolitical tensions have exposed how vulnerable the world can be when critical components are concentrated in a relatively small number of manufacturing locations. India wants to become one of the places the world can turn to. But becoming a semiconductor power is considerably harder than announcing one. From consumer to creator A May 2026 NITI Aayog roadmap describes semiconductors as strategically important not only for economic growth but also for national security and technological autonomy. The report estimates that India’s semiconductor market could reach
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India’s Army Chief in Russia: Why General Dhiraj Seth’s Three-Day Visit Matters When India’s Army Chief travels to Russia, the significance extends beyond a ceremonial military visit. General Dhiraj Seth, Chief of the Army Staff, began a three-day official visit to Russia on 16 September 2026, with engagements scheduled through 18 September. The visit is aimed at strengthening India’s longstanding defence relationship with Russia and expanding Army-to-Army cooperation. The itinerary covers Moscow and Saint Petersburg and includes meetings with senior Russian military and defence officials, discussions on professional military cooperation and training, and visits to important military institutions. For India, however, the most interesting part may be what sits underneath the diplomatic language: how to maintain, modernise and adapt a long-established military relationship in a rapidly changing defence environment. Moscow: Military Cooperation at the Centre General Seth’s Moscow programme includes a ceremonial Guard of Honour and a tribute at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, before substantive military discussions begin. He is scheduled to meet Colonel General Andrei Nikolayevich Mordvichev, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Land Forces. According to India’s Ministry of Defence, their discussions will cover matters of mutual interest, including professional military cooperation and training. That makes the meeting
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Can a House Really Be Built in Three Days? Imagine replacing a construction site full of bricks, shuttering, scaffolding and dozens of workers with a giant robotic printer. Instead of ink, it extrudes specially formulated concrete. Instead of paper, it follows a digital CAD design. Layer by layer, a building begins to appear. This is no longer science fiction. India has already demonstrated that 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP) can move from laboratory experiments into real construction projects. One of the most striking examples came from AJAX Engineering, which unveiled its APX 1.0 3D concrete printer and demonstrated the technology by constructing a 350-square-metre structure in three days. Conventional construction of a comparable building can take considerably longer, although direct comparisons depend on what stages of construction are included. The headline is impressive. But the real story is bigger than three days. What exactly is a 3D-printed building? The basic idea is surprisingly simple. A computer model tells a robotic printing system where to place concrete. A specialised mixture is pumped through a nozzle, which deposits material in controlled layers. The printer essentially turns a digital building design into physical walls. There is no need to imagine a robot carefully laying
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Bharat Innovates 2026: Can India Turn Deep Research Into Global Technology? The harder problem has often been what happens after the invention. Bharat Innovates 2026 is attempting to tackle precisely that gap—taking research-born technologies out of laboratories and connecting them with investors, industry and international markets. For decades, India’s technology story was often told through software. Then came startups. Now another chapter is becoming increasingly visible: deep tech. Semiconductors. Biotechnology. Quantum computing. Defence systems. Space technology. Advanced materials. Robotics. Clean energy. These are technologies that cannot always be built in a weekend with a laptop, a pitch deck and a motivational quote. They require laboratories, specialised equipment, intellectual property, patient capital, engineering talent and, very often, years of experimentation before a commercial product emerges. That is the problem Bharat Innovates 2026 is trying to address. What is Bharat Innovates? Bharat Innovates is an initiative of India’s Ministry of Education, operating with strategic guidance from the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser. Its purpose is straightforward but ambitious: identify promising research and technology emerging from India’s higher-education and research ecosystem and help connect it with the resources required to reach the market. The programme is designed around technologies emerging from institutions
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Working for a New York Boss From Pune: The Real Rules of India, US Remote Work At 8:30 in the morning, Manhattan is waking up. At the same moment, Pune is already well into its evening. For an Indian professional working remotely for a New York-based employer, the international border may be invisible—but the clock certainly isn’t. This is the new reality of global work. A developer in Pune can attend a New York product meeting without ever boarding a flight. A designer in Mumbai can send a finished project to Manhattan while the client is asleep. An accountant in Bengaluru can start work on an American business day before most of the company’s New York office has finished its first coffee. The technology is easy. The human coordination is harder. And working successfully across India and the United States requires considerably more than having a good laptop and fast Wi-Fi. First problem: the clock Pune operates on India Standard Time (IST), UTC+5:30. New York operates on Eastern Time, switching between Eastern Daylight Time (EDT, UTC−4) and Eastern Standard Time (EST, UTC−5). That means the difference isn’t always the same. During New York’s daylight-saving period, Pune is 9½ hours ahead.
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When AI Gets a Wallet: Is India Ready to Let Agents Shop, Book and Pay? The next big step in artificial intelligence may not be another chatbot. It may be an AI that actually does things for you—including spending your money. Imagine telling an AI assistant: “Find me the cheapest flight to Dubai next Friday, book a suitable hotel, and keep the total below ₹60,000.” Instead of returning ten search results and asking you to complete everything yourself, the AI could compare options, make decisions according to your preferences, complete the booking and eventually make the payment. That sounds futuristic. For India, however, parts of that future are already being built. The country’s enormous digital-payment ecosystem, particularly UPI, gives India an unusual foundation for agentic commerce. The question is no longer simply whether AI can understand what consumers want. It is whether Indians will trust an AI enough to let it act on their behalf. And perhaps more importantly: who is responsible when the AI gets it wrong? From answering questions to taking action Traditional AI assistants largely operate as conversational systems. You ask something; they provide an answer. Agentic AI is different. An AI agent can potentially interpret a
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Ganesh Chaturthi 2026: How Canada’s Indian Community Is Celebrating Bappa Across Generations Ganesh Chaturthi 2026 begins today, September 14, bringing one of India’s most beloved festivals into homes, temples and community spaces across Canada. For the Indian diaspora, the celebration is more than a religious observance—it is also a remarkably effective way of keeping language, food, music, family traditions and community connections alive thousands of kilometres from India. The festival is traditionally associated with the installation and worship of Lord Ganesha, followed by immersion of the idol. While September 25, Anant Chaturdashi, is the principal 10-day culmination in 2026, there is no single compulsory immersion date for every family or temple. Some devotees perform Visarjan after 1.5, 3, 5 or 7 days, depending on family tradition and local arrangements. Toronto’s Sri Maha Ganapathy Temple, for example, lists several possible immersion dates through September 25. A festival that travelled well Ganesh Chaturthi has travelled remarkably well across borders. In India, the festival can transform neighbourhoods into enormous public celebrations. In Canada, the scale naturally varies according to the city, venue and local community. Yet the basic ingredients remain familiar: an idol, puja, aarti, devotional music, food, family gatherings and, increasingly, cultural
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What the Numbers and Arabian Sea Collision Reveal The question has returned to the headlines after an unusual incident in the Arabian Sea: Can the Indian Navy defeat the Pakistan Navy? The immediate trigger is not a war. It is a collision. On the evening of 15 September 2026, an Indian Navy frontline warship and the Pakistani naval vessel PNS Hunain collided in the northern Arabian Sea. India subsequently summoned Pakistan’s chargé d’affaires and lodged a formal protest. Pakistan, in turn, also protested, giving a different account of the incident and describing the Indian ship’s manoeuvres as provocative. The incident did not become a naval battle. But it has revived the larger question of comparative naval power. And here the answer requires considerably more nuance than an internet AI summary saying that India is “vastly stronger” and could “easily” win. India Has a Clear Numerical Advantage There is little controversy over the broad direction of the numbers. The exact fleet totals differ between open-source databases because researchers classify patrol craft, auxiliaries, support vessels and operational status differently. Global Firepower’s 2026 comparison lists: Naval capability India Pakistan Fleet strength 343 120 Aircraft carriers 2 0 Submarines 18 8 Destroyers 13 0
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Indians in Australia 2026: A Growing Community Living Between Opportunity and Reality Good universities. A strong economy. Professional opportunities. A multicultural society. A large Indian community. And, for many migrants, the possibility of building a long-term life in a country very different from India. But the Australia of 2026 is not the Australia of five or ten years ago. Migration is becoming more selective. Housing is expensive. Competition for desirable jobs is real. Student visas are being scrutinised more closely. And the Indian community itself has become so large that newcomers increasingly arrive not in an unfamiliar country, but in a place where someone is probably already selling samosas within walking distance. That combination of opportunity and pressure defines much of the Indian experience in Australia today. India has become Australia’s largest overseas birthplace The scale of the community is remarkable. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, at 30 June 2025 there were 971,020 people born in India living in Australia. India narrowly overtook England to become Australia’s largest overseas country of birth for the first time. England had 970,950 residents, while China was third with 732,000. (abs.gov.au) The figure is particularly striking because India’s Australia-born population has grown
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Indian Culture in America: How a Community Is Preserving Its Roots While Shaping American Life Walk through parts of New Jersey, Texas, California, Illinois or New York and it is possible to encounter an India that exists thousands of kilometres from the subcontinent. There may be an Indian grocery store, a temple or gurdwara, a restaurant serving regional cuisine, a Bharatanatyam class, a Hindi-speaking family or a community preparing for Diwali. But Indian culture in the United States is no longer simply an immigrant culture preserved behind closed doors. It has increasingly become part of the wider American cultural landscape. The scale of the community helps explain why. The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey counted approximately 5.56 million people of Asian Indian origin, alone or in combination with another race in the United States. The community is large, but its cultural identity is anything but uniform. One community, many Indias Indian Americans do not represent a single language, religion or regional tradition. Pew Research Center data shows that among Indians aged five and older, Hindi, Telugu, Gujarati and Tamil are among the leading languages spoken at home. At the same time, 84% are proficient in English. Religion is
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How Indian-Origin Leaders Reached the Top of Global Business A boy growing up in Chennai becomes the head of one of the world’s most influential technology companies. An engineer from Hyderabad rises to lead Microsoft. A woman from Kolhapur reaches the top of Chanel. A Kanpur-born engineer helps shape the future of semiconductors. These are not isolated success stories anymore. Indian and Indian-origin executives now occupy some of the most influential positions in global business. Their companies span artificial intelligence, cloud computing, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, cybersecurity, fashion and enterprise software. Investopedia’s list of 10 prominent Indian CEOs, updated in March 2026, illustrates how far this transformation has travelled. But the more interesting story is not simply the names on the list. It is how talent educated or shaped in India has become part of the leadership architecture of the global economy. From Hyderabad to Microsoft Satya Nadella is perhaps the most recognisable example. Born in Hyderabad, Nadella became Microsoft’s CEO in 2014 and subsequently chairman. His tenure has been strongly associated with Microsoft’s expansion in cloud computing and artificial intelligence. His education included electrical engineering, computer science and an MBA, while his career developed over many years inside Microsoft. His story
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Depiction of Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin A map normally sits quietly on a wall, in a textbook or inside a geography application. But sometimes a map becomes foreign policy. That is exactly what has happened after India raised concerns over the way Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin appear on a recently published United Nations world map. The controversy is particularly interesting because it comes only days after India supported a United Nations General Assembly resolution promoting greater use of equal-area world maps. At first glance, that may look contradictory. India supports a new approach to mapping the world—and then objects to a UN map. But the two issues are not actually the same. And that distinction is at the heart of the story. What does the UN map show? The United Nations Geospatial section published its latest Map of the World on July 1, 2026. The UN’s own page identifies UN Geospatial as the author and lists the publication date. The map uses the Equal Earth projection, a system designed to represent the relative areas of continents and countries more accurately than projections such as Mercator. However, the treatment of disputed India-China territory has attracted attention in India. According
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Global South Ambition and Practical Cooperation On September 12 and 13, New Delhi will become one of the most closely watched diplomatic addresses in the world. The occasion is the 18th BRICS Summit, hosted by India at Bharat Mandapam during its 2026 BRICS chairship. But this is not simply another diplomatic gathering where leaders arrive, pose for photographs, shake hands and return home with a folder full of declarations. The timing makes this summit particularly important. BRICS is now a much larger grouping than the original Brazil-Russia-India-China configuration. It has 11 members, including South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. Together, the members account for nearly half of the world’s population and around 40% of global GDP, according to Indian government figures. And 2026 marks another milestone: BRICS is 20 years old. For India, therefore, this summit is both a diplomatic responsibility and a test. Can New Delhi turn an increasingly diverse group into a more useful instrument of economic and technological cooperation? Or will BRICS remain a fascinating collection of countries that agree on some things, disagree on others—and occasionally manage to agree on the punctuation? India’s four-word BRICS message India’s presidency has
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The Countries Giving India Its Strongest Global Ratings India’s global image is often discussed through the language of diplomacy: strategic partnerships, trade agreements, defence cooperation, technology, the Global South and geopolitical influence. But there is another, quieter measure of India’s place in the world. What do ordinary people in other countries actually think about India? The latest 2026 Global Attitudes Survey from the Pew Research Center offers an unusually useful snapshot. Surveying more than 42,000 adults across 36 countries between February and May 2026, Pew found that a median of 45% had a favorable view of India, compared with 41% who had an unfavorable view. And the geographical differences are fascinating. In some countries, India is viewed remarkably positively. In others, the picture is considerably more complicated. That makes the story much more interesting than simply announcing that “the world loves India.” Sri Lanka: 79% and a remarkable turnaround At 79%, Sri Lanka recorded the highest favorable rating for India among all 36 countries surveyed. Only 11% expressed an unfavorable opinion. The number becomes even more interesting when viewed historically. In 2024, 65% of Sri Lankans surveyed had a favorable view of India. By 2026, that had increased by 14
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West, the Global South and a Battle of Narratives The geopolitical map is becoming increasingly complicated—and India appears determined not to read it like a school timetable. One day, New Delhi is deepening strategic cooperation with the United States and its partners. On another, India sits at the same table as Russia, China and Iran in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. At the same time, it is speaking increasingly loudly about the concerns of developing countries and advocating a larger voice for the Global South. This is not necessarily a contradiction. It may actually be the central feature of India’s contemporary foreign policy. The recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek offered a particularly revealing example. The SCO moment: India signs, but India does not simply align At the 26th SCO summit in Bishkek on August 31–September 1, 2026, Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined leaders of the organisation’s member states for discussions covering security, terrorism, regional stability, connectivity and economic cooperation. The summit adopted the Bishkek Declaration. The declaration expressed deep concern about developments around Iran and condemned military strikes on Iranian territory, describing their consequences as a threat to international peace, security and stability. It called for the conflict to
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Why Lawrence Wong’s Message Matters Beyond Social Media A few ugly social-media posts can sometimes reveal something much larger than the people who wrote them intended. Singapore is discovering that again. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has publicly condemned racist and xenophobic online remarks targeting the Indian community, warning that prejudice against any community must never be allowed to become accepted or normalised. His intervention came after a fresh wave of inflammatory online discussion linked to two sensitive subjects: the recent Nepal-Tibet disaster, in which Singaporeans were among those missing, and Singapore Airlines’ investment in Air India. According to Singapore’s authorities, some of the online discussion crossed from legitimate debate into anti-Indian abuse. For India’s global diaspora, the episode deserves attention—not because Singapore is suddenly an unsafe country for Indians, but precisely because its political leadership has chosen to confront racial hostility publicly rather than pretend that online abuse is harmless. When criticism becomes something else Singapore is no stranger to vigorous debate. Questions about immigration, foreign workers, employment, economic competition and the role of foreigners in Singaporean society are legitimate subjects for public discussion. But there is a line between criticising a government policy and blaming an entire ethnic community.
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El Niño Is Strengthening: What the Pacific Warming Means for India and the World There is a vast stretch of ocean thousands of kilometres away from India that can influence weather patterns across the planet. That ocean is the tropical Pacific. And right now, scientists are watching it particularly closely. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported on 3 September 2026 that El Niño is firmly established and is expected to strengthen into a very strong event in the coming months, potentially peaking towards the end of 2026. WMO forecasts give an exceptionally high, nearly 100%, likelihood that the phenomenon will persist through February 2027. So what exactly is El Niño—and why should Indians care? What is El Niño? El Niño is a naturally occurring climate phenomenon associated with unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It is part of the larger El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, a recurring pattern involving interactions between the tropical Pacific Ocean and atmosphere. The name has a surprisingly human origin. “El Niño” is Spanish for “the Christ Child”. The term was historically used by fishermen along the coast of Peru because the unusually warm ocean conditions often appeared around Christmas.
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The World Map Is Being Rethought: Why India Backed the UN’s ‘Correct the Map’ Resolution For generations, millions of schoolchildren have looked at the same familiar world map and assumed that what they saw was an accurate picture of the planet. It was not. On September 4, 2026, the United Nations General Assembly took an unusual but significant step towards correcting that perception. It adopted a resolution titled “Correct the Map: Rebalancing Global Cartographic Representation and Promoting Equitable Representation of the World’s Regions, Particularly Africa.” The resolution received 164 votes in favour, one against and six abstentions. India voted in favour. The United States was the only country to vote against, while Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine abstained. But this is not quite the story of the United Nations simply replacing one world map with another. The more interesting story is about how maps shape our understanding of the world — and why India believes geographical representation should be more accurate. Why is the Mercator map controversial? The familiar Mercator projection was developed by Gerardus Mercator in 1569. Its great strength was navigation: it preserves angles and directions in a way that made it extremely useful for maritime
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Indus Waters Treaty: The Hague Ruling Creates a New Legal and Diplomatic Test for India-Pakistan Water has always been more than a natural resource in South Asia. It is agriculture, electricity, food security and, increasingly, a matter of national strategy. That is why the latest development surrounding the Indus Waters Treaty deserves attention well beyond the courtroom. On August 31, 2026, a Court of Arbitration constituted under the 1960 treaty issued an award declaring that the agreement remains fully in force, despite India’s April 2025 decision to place it in abeyance. The tribunal also issued interim measures concerning the Ratle Hydroelectric Plant in Jammu and Kashmir. India has rejected the tribunal’s authority and maintained that its decision to hold the treaty in abeyance remains in force. The result is not simply another India-Pakistan diplomatic disagreement. It is a clash between two fundamentally different positions: one centred on the treaty’s dispute-resolution mechanism and the other on India’s sovereign and security concerns. What exactly did The Hague tribunal decide? The tribunal examined India’s decision of April 2025 to place the treaty “in abeyance” following an attack in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Its unanimous conclusion was that the grounds cited by India did
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Rising Seas, Rising Stakes: Why India Cannot Treat Sea-Level Rise as a Distant Problem The sea does not need to arrive as a giant wave to change a city. Sometimes the danger comes gradually—through higher tides, more frequent coastal flooding, saltwater entering freshwater systems and land that is slowly sinking. That makes rising sea levels one of the most difficult environmental risks to communicate because much of the damage develops quietly, long before it becomes a dramatic headline. A new United Nations report has put that risk into sharper focus. It warns that sea levels are rising faster than at any point in recorded history and that hundreds of millions of people living in low-lying coastal areas face growing risks to homes, infrastructure, livelihoods and basic services. For India, this is not simply an international climate story. It is already a coastal-development question. Why the numbers matter According to the UN, around 770 million people—roughly one in every ten people globally—live in coastal areas less than five metres above the high-tide line and are exposed to significant risks. The report says average ocean levels are rising because warming seawater expands while glaciers and ice sheets lose mass. In 2024, the
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India–Bangladesh Relations: A Neighbourhood Story Built on History, Trade and Shared Rivers India and Bangladesh share one of South Asia’s most complicated relationships—and perhaps one of its most consequential. The two countries are neighbours separated by a border, but connected by much more than geography. Their relationship has been shaped by the history of the 1971 Liberation War, Bengali language and culture, cross-border rivers, trade, transport links, energy cooperation and millions of people whose lives are influenced by what happens on either side of the frontier. The interesting question today is not whether India and Bangladesh have differences. They clearly do. The more important question is whether the depth of their practical interdependence can continue to provide a foundation for cooperation despite political changes. A relationship larger than politics According to India’s Ministry of External Affairs, India and Bangladesh share historical, cultural and linguistic ties and have developed cooperation across political and security matters, trade, development, connectivity, energy and people-to-people exchanges. That breadth matters because governments can change, but geography does not. Bangladesh occupies a strategically important position for India’s Northeast, while Bangladesh itself benefits from access to Indian markets, infrastructure and connectivity. The relationship therefore has a practical dimension
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Nepal Floods: Hundreds of Children Still Missing as India Joins the Search for Hope A disaster can destroy a road, a bridge or a building in minutes. But when children disappear in that destruction, the meaning of the disaster becomes much larger. Ten days after the devastating flash floods that swept through Nepal’s Bhote Koshi and Trishuli river corridors, hundreds of families are still waiting for answers. Approximately 600 students remain unaccounted for in the districts of Rasuwa and Nuwakot, according to figures compiled by local education authorities, municipalities and educational institutions. Communication failures and damaged infrastructure are making verification particularly difficult. The tragedy began on August 26, when a powerful flash flood surged through northern and central Nepal. Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says the disaster caused extensive destruction to homes, roads, bridges, hydropower facilities and other critical infrastructure in Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading and surrounding areas. Search and rescue operations were still continuing on September 4. When a school becomes part of the disaster story The most painful dimension of the crisis is unfolding around schools. Reports from Rasuwa and Nuwakot indicate that educational institutions were directly affected, with some schools completely destroyed and others rendered unusable. For children
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When the Gulf Shakes, India Feels It: The Jobs, Money, Oil and Families Behind India’s Gulf Relationship A conflict thousands of kilometres away can begin with a headline about missiles, oil facilities or shipping routes. In India, its consequences can end somewhere much closer: in a family’s bank account, a petrol bill, a delayed flight—or a WhatsApp group waiting for one reassuring message from a relative abroad. That is the part of Middle Eastern geopolitics that is often missing from strategic analysis. For India, the Gulf is not simply a region of oil producers and geopolitical alliances. It is also a workplace, a source of remittances, an energy supplier, a trading partner and, for millions of families, the place where a son, daughter, husband, wife or parent lives and works. The Ministry of External Affairs’ January 2026 figures put the Indian population across the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries at approximately 9 million. The largest communities are in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, followed by Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. That makes the India-Gulf relationship unusually personal. The Gulf begins with jobs For generations, Indians have travelled to the Gulf in search of employment. The workforce is diverse. There are
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Where Do Indians Live Around the World? The Countries With the Biggest Indian Communities For a country of more than a billion people, India has an interesting paradox. One of the world’s largest populations is also one of the world’s most geographically dispersed communities. From the Gulf to North America, from Britain and Australia to Southeast Asia and Africa, people with connections to India have built homes, businesses, careers and communities thousands of kilometres from the country their families once called home. And the map is much bigger than the familiar destinations of the Indian overseas population. The Indian presence stretches across the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Oman, Kuwait, Singapore, Qatar, South Africa, New Zealand and many other countries. This is not simply a story about migration. It is a story about how an Indian community became a global network. First, an important distinction: Who counts as an Indian abroad? This question sounds simple but isn’t. An Indian citizen living overseas is not necessarily the same thing as a person of Indian origin who holds another country’s citizenship. For example, someone born in India and working in Dubai may be an
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UPI Is Going Global: What India’s Digital Payment Revolution Means for Indians Abroad For Indians travelling, working or living overseas, one of India’s most familiar digital habits is beginning to cross national borders. UPI is no longer only an Indian payment story. It is becoming part of a wider experiment in connecting India’s real-time payment infrastructure with other countries. The scale behind that ambition is enormous. In August 2026, India’s Unified Payments Interface processed 24.509 billion transactions, worth approximately ₹29.82 lakh crore, according to National Payments Corporation of India data. That works out to roughly ₹29.8 trillion in a single month. At the same time, UPI’s international footprint has expanded to 11 foreign countries for merchant acceptance and/or cross-border remittances. The Government of India says Cambodia, Greece and the Maldives joined the expanding international network during 2026. For Indians abroad, this could eventually mean something very practical: fewer payment headaches when travelling, easier transfers home and potentially lower friction when moving money across borders. But the phrase “UPI is global” needs a little unpacking. Eleven countries—but not eleven identical UPI experiences The headline number is impressive, but travellers should not interpret it as meaning that an Indian UPI app will
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How India’s Diaspora Became a Worldwide Network of Capital, Talent and Ideas For decades, the easiest way to describe India’s diaspora was with a number: remittances. An Indian working in Dubai sent money home to Kerala. A software engineer in California helped pay for a family’s house in Hyderabad. A doctor in London supported parents in Punjab. A worker in Singapore financed education back home. The money mattered enormously. But it no longer tells the whole story. Today, India’s global diaspora is increasingly visible in boardrooms, laboratories, universities, startup ecosystems, government institutions, cultural organisations and philanthropic networks. The transformation is important because the diaspora is no longer simply a financial pipeline running from overseas workers to Indian households. It is becoming a global network connecting Indian talent, capital, knowledge and influence with the rest of the world. And, perhaps fittingly, the biggest export may not be money at all. It may be people and ideas. The money is still enormous Let us begin with the part nobody should underestimate. India remains the world’s largest recipient of remittances. World Bank data shows India received approximately US$137.7 billion in personal remittances in 2024. Its latest 2025 dataset records approximately US$150.7 billion. So
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Germany and India in 2026: Why Nearly 70,000 Indian Students Are Choosing Europe’s Economic Powerhouse With 69,816 Indians enrolled at German universities, a more welcoming skilled-migration framework and new travel facilitation measures, the relationship is becoming a much larger story about education, employment and talent. There was a time when an Indian student saying “I am going abroad” usually meant one of a familiar group of countries. The United States. The United Kingdom. Canada. Australia. Germany was there, of course—but often somewhere further down the conversation. That is changing. The latest numbers from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) show that 69,816 Indian students were enrolled at German universities in the Winter Semester 2025/26. The number increased by 17.5% in one year, adding almost 10,400 students. Indians are now the largest international student group in Germany. That is not a niche trend anymore. It is a major education corridor. Why Germany? The attraction is partly financial. Many state-funded German universities generally do not charge tuition fees for Bachelor’s programmes, although students still face semester contributions, living expenses and, depending on the state and institution, other charges. For an Indian family comparing the enormous cost of studying in some traditional destinations,
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India Is Growing Faster Than China, But.. For years, the comparison between India and China was almost painfully simple. China was bigger. China grew faster. China manufactured more. China exported more. China built infrastructure at a speed that often made the rest of the world look as if it were still waiting for the planning committee to find the stationery. In 2026, something important has changed. India is now growing faster than China. That is a genuine achievement. But it is also where the real economic story begins—not where it ends. Because there is a huge difference between growing faster and being richer. India has the growth-rate advantage Recent comparisons show that India’s economic growth has outpaced China’s over much of the current decade. India Today notes that India crossed China in growth rates from 2020 onward when looking at decadal performance. China’s economy, meanwhile, is going through a structural transition. The IMF’s July 2026 forecast puts China’s real GDP growth at 4.6% in 2026, following 5% growth in 2025. The IMF says China’s weaker domestic demand, demographic pressures and slowing productivity are among the challenges facing the economy. India’s current growth outlook remains substantially stronger, although estimates vary according
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Indians in Canada: From Immigration Story to Economic and Cultural Powerhouse Today, that description is far too small. From doctors and technology professionals to entrepreneurs, students, researchers and business leaders, the Indian community has become deeply woven into Canada’s economic and social landscape. And the relationship is evolving again. The latest evidence suggests that the India–Canada connection is no longer simply about Indians moving to Canada. It is increasingly about businesses moving capital, companies creating jobs, professionals transferring skills and two economies building commercial links around one of the world’s largest Indian-origin communities. That is a considerably bigger story. How large is the Indian community? The Global Indian estimates that the Indian-origin population in Canada is approaching 2 million in 2026. But the number needs some careful explanation. The latest official Canadian census counted 1.347 million people reporting Indian ethnic or cultural origin in 2021, representing 3.7% of the population measured in that census table. Meanwhile, Statistics Canada counted 2.57 million South Asians, or 7.1% of Canada’s population. The Canadian government now describes the community more broadly as more than 1.8 million Canadians of Indian origin. So the safest conclusion is not to argue about whether the number is exactly
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India and Ireland in 2026: A Relationship Moving From Friendship to Partnership India-Ireland relations are entering a more practical phase — one where diplomacy is increasingly being measured not only by handshakes, but by trade, students, businesses, communities and the ability to deal honestly with problems. At first glance, India and Ireland might seem like an unlikely pair. One is a population giant in South Asia. The other is a relatively small European nation. Yet the relationship between them has been quietly expanding for decades — through education, technology, pharmaceuticals, business, culture and, increasingly, through the Indian community living and working in Ireland. Today, more than 80,000 Indians are estimated to live in Ireland, while more than 8,000 Indian students were studying there in 2023, according to Ireland’s official international website. Two-way trade in goods and services has also grown substantially, with Ireland reporting annual trade of more than €16 billion. The interesting question is no longer whether India and Ireland have a relationship. It is what that relationship can become next. From diplomatic friendship to economic opportunity India and Ireland established diplomatic relations in 1949, and Ireland opened its embassy in New Delhi in 1964. The relationship has historical
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Reusable Boosters and the NGLV Race For decades, India’s space story was built around one remarkably simple principle: build a reliable rocket, launch the satellite, and move on to the next mission. That formula worked. But the economics of space are changing. Today, the world’s leading space programmes are increasingly interested in three things: more payload, lower launch costs and greater reusability. India is now pushing into all three. The Indian Space Research Organisation is developing a 200-tonne-thrust semi-cryogenic engine, testing technologies for recovering rocket boosters through Vertical Take-off and Vertical Landing (VTVL), and working on a partially reusable Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV) powered by liquid oxygen and methane. And in September 2026, one of those programmes crossed an important testing milestone. ISRO successfully conducted a hot test of its semi-cryogenic engine power-head test article at the full 200-tonne thrust level at the ISRO Propulsion Research Complex in Mahendragiri, Tamil Nadu. This is not yet a reusable rocket. It is something more fundamental: the machinery needed to build India’s next generation of rockets. The 200-tonne engine: the heavy lifter’s new heart The semi-cryogenic programme is centred on the SE2000, a 2,000-kilonewton-class engine. ISRO is developing a semi-cryogenic propulsion stage
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Asian Games 2026: Where Can India Win Its Medals in Aichi-Nagoya? India arrives in Japan with a record to defend, new stars to discover and a few uncomfortable questions to answer. Wrestling, hockey, shooting, athletics, boxing and archery could shape the medal story—but the biggest challenge may be replacing some of the names India expected to rely on. There is a peculiar moment before every major sporting event. The medals have not been won yet, but everyone has already started counting them. India’s Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games campaign is no different. After producing a historic 107-medal haul at Hangzhou, India’s sporting establishment and fans naturally want more. The question is whether the 2026 contingent has enough depth to repeat or surpass that achievement. The answer is promising—but it is not straightforward. Wrestling: perhaps India’s most intriguing medal battleground Wrestling remains one of India’s most dependable Asian Games sports, and the 2026 squad contains several athletes capable of creating major moments. Antim Panghal is among the leading names in the women’s competition, while Aman Sehrawat and Sujeet Kalkal are important men’s medal prospects. But the word prospect is important. Asian wrestling is brutally competitive. Japan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other wrestling nations
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EOS-05: ISRO Puts a New Eye in the Sky as India Expands Its Earth-Observation Capability At 2:55 a.m. on September 4, 2026, the night sky over Sriharikota lit up as India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV-F17, lifted off carrying EOS-05, an advanced Earth-observation spacecraft. The successful mission was more than another rocket launch. It marked the arrival of a new kind of observation capability for India: an imaging satellite designed to operate from geosynchronous orbit, allowing it to repeatedly observe a large geographical region for extended periods. ISRO describes EOS-05 as India’s first imaging satellite from geosynchronous orbit. What happened at Sriharikota? The GSLV-F17 mission launched from the Second Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. ISRO confirmed that the vehicle successfully placed EOS-05 into a Sub-Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (Sub-GTO). The spacecraft will subsequently perform orbital manoeuvres to reach its operational geosynchronous orbit. The mission was the 19th flight of the GSLV. GSLV is a three-stage launch vehicle combining solid, liquid and cryogenic propulsion. Its indigenous cryogenic upper stage provides the capability to place roughly two-tonne-class spacecraft into high-energy transfer orbits. EOS-05 is therefore not simply a passenger launched into space. The mission demonstrates India’s ability to combine
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How Indian Communities Are Bringing Ganpati Bappa to Britain On Monday, 14 September 2026, something very familiar to millions of Indians will begin happening thousands of kilometres away from Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and other Indian cities. Homes will welcome Ganesha. Community halls will fill with prayers. Temples will organise darshans. Modaks will appear. And somewhere, inevitably, someone will discover that a perfectly respectable British kitchen is suddenly being asked to produce enough food for an entire neighbourhood. Ganesh Chaturthi has become part of Britain’s multicultural calendar. In 2026, Hindu communities across the UK will celebrate the festival from September 14, with the ten-day observance concluding around Anant Chaturdashi on September 25. Leicester’s local Hindu calendar, for example, confirms September 14 as Ganesh Chaturthi and September 25 as the main visarjan date. But Ganeshotsav in Britain is not simply an Indian festival transplanted overseas. It is evolving into something distinctly British-Indian. Ganpati arrives in Britain Ganesh Chaturthi commemorates the birth of Lord Ganesha, revered in Hindu tradition as the deity associated with wisdom, prosperity and the removal of obstacles. In India, the festival can transform entire neighbourhoods. In Britain, the scale is naturally different. But the emotion is familiar. Indian families
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Indian Stand-Up Goes Global: How India’s Comedians Are Making the World Laugh in Their Own Voice There was a time when an Indian comedian travelling abroad usually meant one thing: a diaspora audience gathering somewhere to hear jokes about Indian parents, arranged marriages, relatives, weddings and the mysterious ability of an aunty to ask about your salary within 30 seconds of meeting you. Those jokes still work. But something much bigger is happening now. Indian stand-up comedy is increasingly travelling beyond the Indian diaspora and entering the mainstream international comedy circuit. Indian comedians are performing in major theatres, appearing at established festivals and building audiences overseas long before their aircraft lands at the destination. The Indian comedy scene has, in other words, discovered something airlines have known for decades: people will travel surprisingly far for something they really want. From comedy clubs to iconic international stages One of the clearest markers of this transformation came in August 2025, when Zakir Khan became the first Indian comedian to headline a Hindi stand-up show at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The performance was reported as sold out, with an audience of around 6,000. That is significant not simply because Madison Square Garden
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Bharat Innovates 2026: Can India Turn Deep Research Into Global Technology? The harder problem has often been what happens after the invention. Bharat Innovates 2026 is attempting to tackle precisely that gap—taking research-born technologies out of laboratories and connecting them with investors, industry and international markets. For decades, India’s technology story was often told through software. Then came startups. Now another chapter is becoming increasingly visible: deep tech. Semiconductors. Biotechnology. Quantum computing. Defence systems. Space technology. Advanced materials. Robotics. Clean energy. These are technologies that cannot always be built in a weekend with a laptop, a pitch deck and a motivational quote. They require laboratories, specialised equipment, intellectual property, patient capital, engineering talent and, very often, years of experimentation before a commercial product emerges. That is the problem Bharat Innovates 2026 is trying to address. What is Bharat Innovates? Bharat Innovates is an initiative of India’s Ministry of Education, operating with strategic guidance from the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser. Its purpose is straightforward but ambitious: identify promising research and technology emerging from India’s higher-education and research ecosystem and help connect it with the resources required to reach the market. The programme is designed around technologies emerging from institutions
Working for a New York Boss From Pune: The Real Rules of India, US Remote Work At 8:30 in the morning, Manhattan is waking up. At the same moment, Pune is already well into its evening. For an Indian professional working remotely for a New York-based employer, the international border may be invisible—but the clock certainly isn’t. This is the new reality of global work. A developer in Pune can attend a New York product meeting without ever boarding a flight. A designer in Mumbai can send a finished project to Manhattan while the client is asleep. An accountant in Bengaluru can start work on an American business day before most of the company’s New York office has finished its first coffee. The technology is easy. The human coordination is harder. And working successfully across India and the United States requires considerably more than having a good laptop and fast Wi-Fi. First problem: the clock Pune operates on India Standard Time (IST), UTC+5:30. New York operates on Eastern Time, switching between Eastern Daylight Time (EDT, UTC−4) and Eastern Standard Time (EST, UTC−5). That means the difference isn’t always the same. During New York’s daylight-saving period, Pune is 9½ hours ahead.
When AI Gets a Wallet: Is India Ready to Let Agents Shop, Book and Pay? The next big step in artificial intelligence may not be another chatbot. It may be an AI that actually does things for you—including spending your money. Imagine telling an AI assistant: “Find me the cheapest flight to Dubai next Friday, book a suitable hotel, and keep the total below ₹60,000.” Instead of returning ten search results and asking you to complete everything yourself, the AI could compare options, make decisions according to your preferences, complete the booking and eventually make the payment. That sounds futuristic. For India, however, parts of that future are already being built. The country’s enormous digital-payment ecosystem, particularly UPI, gives India an unusual foundation for agentic commerce. The question is no longer simply whether AI can understand what consumers want. It is whether Indians will trust an AI enough to let it act on their behalf. And perhaps more importantly: who is responsible when the AI gets it wrong? From answering questions to taking action Traditional AI assistants largely operate as conversational systems. You ask something; they provide an answer. Agentic AI is different. An AI agent can potentially interpret a
Ganesh Chaturthi 2026: How Canada’s Indian Community Is Celebrating Bappa Across Generations Ganesh Chaturthi 2026 begins today, September 14, bringing one of India’s most beloved festivals into homes, temples and community spaces across Canada. For the Indian diaspora, the celebration is more than a religious observance—it is also a remarkably effective way of keeping language, food, music, family traditions and community connections alive thousands of kilometres from India. The festival is traditionally associated with the installation and worship of Lord Ganesha, followed by immersion of the idol. While September 25, Anant Chaturdashi, is the principal 10-day culmination in 2026, there is no single compulsory immersion date for every family or temple. Some devotees perform Visarjan after 1.5, 3, 5 or 7 days, depending on family tradition and local arrangements. Toronto’s Sri Maha Ganapathy Temple, for example, lists several possible immersion dates through September 25. A festival that travelled well Ganesh Chaturthi has travelled remarkably well across borders. In India, the festival can transform neighbourhoods into enormous public celebrations. In Canada, the scale naturally varies according to the city, venue and local community. Yet the basic ingredients remain familiar: an idol, puja, aarti, devotional music, food, family gatherings and, increasingly, cultural
What the Numbers and Arabian Sea Collision Reveal The question has returned to the headlines after an unusual incident in the Arabian Sea: Can the Indian Navy defeat the Pakistan Navy? The immediate trigger is not a war. It is a collision. On the evening of 15 September 2026, an Indian Navy frontline warship and the Pakistani naval vessel PNS Hunain collided in the northern Arabian Sea. India subsequently summoned Pakistan’s chargé d’affaires and lodged a formal protest. Pakistan, in turn, also protested, giving a different account of the incident and describing the Indian ship’s manoeuvres as provocative. The incident did not become a naval battle. But it has revived the larger question of comparative naval power. And here the answer requires considerably more nuance than an internet AI summary saying that India is “vastly stronger” and could “easily” win. India Has a Clear Numerical Advantage There is little controversy over the broad direction of the numbers. The exact fleet totals differ between open-source databases because researchers classify patrol craft, auxiliaries, support vessels and operational status differently. Global Firepower’s 2026 comparison lists: Naval capability India Pakistan Fleet strength 343 120 Aircraft carriers 2 0 Submarines 18 8 Destroyers 13 0
Indians in Australia 2026: A Growing Community Living Between Opportunity and Reality Good universities. A strong economy. Professional opportunities. A multicultural society. A large Indian community. And, for many migrants, the possibility of building a long-term life in a country very different from India. But the Australia of 2026 is not the Australia of five or ten years ago. Migration is becoming more selective. Housing is expensive. Competition for desirable jobs is real. Student visas are being scrutinised more closely. And the Indian community itself has become so large that newcomers increasingly arrive not in an unfamiliar country, but in a place where someone is probably already selling samosas within walking distance. That combination of opportunity and pressure defines much of the Indian experience in Australia today. India has become Australia’s largest overseas birthplace The scale of the community is remarkable. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, at 30 June 2025 there were 971,020 people born in India living in Australia. India narrowly overtook England to become Australia’s largest overseas country of birth for the first time. England had 970,950 residents, while China was third with 732,000. (abs.gov.au) The figure is particularly striking because India’s Australia-born population has grown
Indian Culture in America: How a Community Is Preserving Its Roots While Shaping American Life Walk through parts of New Jersey, Texas, California, Illinois or New York and it is possible to encounter an India that exists thousands of kilometres from the subcontinent. There may be an Indian grocery store, a temple or gurdwara, a restaurant serving regional cuisine, a Bharatanatyam class, a Hindi-speaking family or a community preparing for Diwali. But Indian culture in the United States is no longer simply an immigrant culture preserved behind closed doors. It has increasingly become part of the wider American cultural landscape. The scale of the community helps explain why. The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey counted approximately 5.56 million people of Asian Indian origin, alone or in combination with another race in the United States. The community is large, but its cultural identity is anything but uniform. One community, many Indias Indian Americans do not represent a single language, religion or regional tradition. Pew Research Center data shows that among Indians aged five and older, Hindi, Telugu, Gujarati and Tamil are among the leading languages spoken at home. At the same time, 84% are proficient in English. Religion is
How Indian-Origin Leaders Reached the Top of Global Business A boy growing up in Chennai becomes the head of one of the world’s most influential technology companies. An engineer from Hyderabad rises to lead Microsoft. A woman from Kolhapur reaches the top of Chanel. A Kanpur-born engineer helps shape the future of semiconductors. These are not isolated success stories anymore. Indian and Indian-origin executives now occupy some of the most influential positions in global business. Their companies span artificial intelligence, cloud computing, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, cybersecurity, fashion and enterprise software. Investopedia’s list of 10 prominent Indian CEOs, updated in March 2026, illustrates how far this transformation has travelled. But the more interesting story is not simply the names on the list. It is how talent educated or shaped in India has become part of the leadership architecture of the global economy. From Hyderabad to Microsoft Satya Nadella is perhaps the most recognisable example. Born in Hyderabad, Nadella became Microsoft’s CEO in 2014 and subsequently chairman. His tenure has been strongly associated with Microsoft’s expansion in cloud computing and artificial intelligence. His education included electrical engineering, computer science and an MBA, while his career developed over many years inside Microsoft. His story
Depiction of Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin A map normally sits quietly on a wall, in a textbook or inside a geography application. But sometimes a map becomes foreign policy. That is exactly what has happened after India raised concerns over the way Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin appear on a recently published United Nations world map. The controversy is particularly interesting because it comes only days after India supported a United Nations General Assembly resolution promoting greater use of equal-area world maps. At first glance, that may look contradictory. India supports a new approach to mapping the world—and then objects to a UN map. But the two issues are not actually the same. And that distinction is at the heart of the story. What does the UN map show? The United Nations Geospatial section published its latest Map of the World on July 1, 2026. The UN’s own page identifies UN Geospatial as the author and lists the publication date. The map uses the Equal Earth projection, a system designed to represent the relative areas of continents and countries more accurately than projections such as Mercator. However, the treatment of disputed India-China territory has attracted attention in India. According
Global South Ambition and Practical Cooperation On September 12 and 13, New Delhi will become one of the most closely watched diplomatic addresses in the world. The occasion is the 18th BRICS Summit, hosted by India at Bharat Mandapam during its 2026 BRICS chairship. But this is not simply another diplomatic gathering where leaders arrive, pose for photographs, shake hands and return home with a folder full of declarations. The timing makes this summit particularly important. BRICS is now a much larger grouping than the original Brazil-Russia-India-China configuration. It has 11 members, including South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. Together, the members account for nearly half of the world’s population and around 40% of global GDP, according to Indian government figures. And 2026 marks another milestone: BRICS is 20 years old. For India, therefore, this summit is both a diplomatic responsibility and a test. Can New Delhi turn an increasingly diverse group into a more useful instrument of economic and technological cooperation? Or will BRICS remain a fascinating collection of countries that agree on some things, disagree on others—and occasionally manage to agree on the punctuation? India’s four-word BRICS message India’s presidency has