India’s Multi-Alignment: How New Delhi Tries to Have Friends Without Choosing a Camp In international politics, friendship is complicated. It becomes even more complicated when your friends do not particularly like one another. India has spent much of the 21st century learning to operate precisely in that uncomfortable space. New Delhi buys defence equipment and energy from Russia, deepens technology and strategic cooperation with the United States, maintains an unusually close defence relationship with France, works extensively with Israel, negotiates with Europe, and participates in the Quad alongside the US, Japan and Australia. There is an obvious question. How does India manage all of this without becoming dependent on one major power? The answer increasingly lies in what analysts call multi-alignment, underpinned by the older Indian foreign-policy concept of strategic autonomy. It is not neutrality. It is not isolation. And it certainly isn’t having five best friends who all promise not to talk about each other at dinner. It is the attempt to preserve freedom of choice. Strategic autonomy is the principle India’s strategic autonomy has historical roots in the Non-Aligned Movement, but today’s environment is very different. During the Cold War, non-alignment was largely associated with refusing to formally

The Ocean Beside India Is Also the Highway Beneath Its Economy Why the Indian Ocean is central to India’s security, energy and global ambitions Look at a map of India. The country’s geography appears almost to point southwards into the sea. The Arabian Sea lies to the west. The Bay of Bengal stretches to the east. The Indian Ocean opens directly below the peninsula. That shape is not merely a geographical curiosity. It is a strategic advantage. And increasingly, it is also a strategic responsibility. India sits beside one of the world’s most important maritime theatres, connecting the energy-producing Middle East and Africa with the manufacturing and consuming economies of Asia. The Indian Ocean region is estimated to carry around two-thirds of the world’s oil shipments and more than one-third of global bulk cargo traffic. For India, therefore, the ocean is not “somewhere outside the coastline.” It is part of the country’s economic infrastructure. India’s coastline is an economic asset India has more than 7,500 kilometres of coastline, and its dependence on maritime routes extends across energy, trade, fishing, tourism and commercial shipping. Carnegie’s analysis describes India as the resident naval power in the Indian Ocean and notes that the

Can the World Really Become One Family? Imagine a family dinner where everyone agrees on the menu, nobody argues about money, nobody fights over the remote control and, most importantly, nobody asks who is paying the bill. Sounds wonderful. It also sounds slightly unrealistic. That is precisely why one of India’s oldest philosophical ideas has acquired such an interesting new life in international politics. “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” — the world is one family. The Sanskrit phrase has travelled an extraordinary distance: from an ancient Indian philosophical text to modern diplomatic speeches, international conferences and the vocabulary of global governance. India made it particularly visible during its 2023 G20 presidency, choosing “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam — One Earth, One Family, One Future” as the presidency’s theme. But there is an important question beneath the beautiful phrase: Can an idea about universal human unity actually work in a world where countries compete for security, technology, resources, markets and influence? The answer is neither a simple yes nor a cynical no. It is much more interesting. An ancient idea with a very modern message The expression appears in the Maha Upanishad, where the broader verse contrasts narrow-minded thinking — “this is mine, that is theirs” —

Argentina Will Stop at the 10th Minute for Messi: A Football Farewell Beyond the Scoreboard Football normally rewards movement. Goals change matches, referees keep the clock running and supporters expect the game to continue until the final whistle. But this weekend, Argentine football will deliberately stop. Across Argentina, matches are scheduled to pause in the 10th minute for a minute of applause in honour of Lionel Messi, following his retirement from international football. The choice of the 10th minute is unmistakable: it represents the number Messi made synonymous with his career for Argentina. The Argentine Football Association has also asked stadiums with screens to show a commemorative video before matches. It is an unusually simple tribute to an unusually complicated football story. From disappointment to redemption Messi’s international career did not begin as the perfect story that hindsight sometimes creates. He made his Argentina senior debut in 2005 and, for years, carried enormous expectations. There were painful defeats, including major-final disappointments, and his relationship with sections of Argentine football supporters was far more complicated than his extraordinary club career might suggest. He even announced an international retirement in 2016 before returning to the national team. The second half of his

The Technology Battle Behind the Aircraft India can build satellites. It can launch spacecraft. It can design and manufacture sophisticated missiles, warships, helicopters and increasingly capable fighter aircraft. So why does one particular machine continue to cause so much trouble? The fighter-jet engine. It is one of the most demanding engineering challenges in the world—and India’s long-running Kaveri engine programme provides an unusually revealing case study of just how difficult it is to move from designing an aircraft to mastering the machine that makes it fly. The easy version of the story is: India tried, the Kaveri failed, and foreign engines had to be imported. The real story is considerably more complicated—and much more interesting. An engine is not simply a powerful motor A modern fighter engine has to operate under extraordinary conditions. It must compress enormous quantities of air, burn fuel at extremely high temperatures, withstand intense mechanical stresses, deliver enormous thrust, remain reliable through repeated acceleration and deceleration, and fit within very tight limits of weight and dimensions. And it has to do all of this repeatedly, safely and predictably. The difficult part is not merely designing the broad architecture. It is mastering the hot section—the compressor, combustor

India Online: When AI, Viral Videos and Real Behavior Begin to Shape a Nation’s Image A country can now be judged by a video lasting less than a minute. It may show a street, a tourist, a food vendor, a public celebration—or something that never happened at all. For India, this creates a complicated new challenge. The country’s image abroad is no longer shaped only by newspapers, television, films, diplomacy and tourism campaigns. It is increasingly shaped by algorithms, influencers, viral clips and artificial intelligence. A recent controversy illustrates the problem. An AI-generated video showing a supposed Indian street-food vendor rolling rotis on his bare stomach while sitting among garbage circulated widely online. American content creator Kristen Fischer, who lives in India, publicly challenged the clip and said it was fabricated. Reports said the original video had accumulated around 28 million views. The incident was subsequently recorded by the OECD.AI incident monitor as an example of AI-generated content that can contribute to harmful stereotypes and reputational damage. The disturbing part is not simply that artificial intelligence can manufacture an absurd scene. It is that the absurd can look real enough to become somebody’s first impression of an entire country. When

Rakesh Gangwal’s ₹400 Crore IIT Kanpur Commitment: How an Indian-American Entrepreneur Is Investing in India’s Next Generation of MedTech IndiGo co-founder and IIT Kanpur alumnus Rakesh Gangwal has committed a total of ₹400 crore to his alma mater’s medical school, including a new ₹300-crore matching-grant pledge. The initiative offers a revealing example of how successful Indians who built careers abroad are helping create technology-driven institutions in India. From an Indian engineering campus to global aviation When Rakesh Gangwal graduated from IIT Kanpur with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1975, the institution was already establishing itself as one of India’s leading centres for science and engineering. Nearly five decades later, Gangwal is helping expand that engineering legacy into a completely different domain: medicine. On August 24, 2026, IIT Kanpur announced that Gangwal had committed another ₹300 crore toward the development of the Gangwal School of Medical Sciences and Technology (GSMST). The new commitment comes on top of the ₹100 crore he donated in 2022, taking his contribution to the project to ₹400 crore. Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur The latest commitment is particularly significant because it is structured as a matching grant. Gangwal will match contributions from other supporters up

The Indian Talent Behind 205 Unicorns Abroad: What $560 Billion Really Says About the Global Diaspora Indian founders who grew up in India are behind 205 current and former unicorns outside the country, with about $560 billion in founder-share-attributed company value. The extraordinary number celebrates the global Indian entrepreneurial network—but it also raises a harder question: why has so much of this value been built outside India? There is a number that makes India’s startup story look much bigger than its borders: 205. That is the number of current and former unicorns outside India that have at least one founder who grew up in India, according to the new Indian Diaspora Index from Prosus and Dealroom. The companies collectively represent about $560 billion in founder-share-attributed company value. The list includes technology companies such as Zscaler, Rubrik, Nutanix, Palo Alto Networks, Astera Labs, Perplexity and others. But the statistic needs to be read carefully. The $560 billion is not the total value of the 205 companies. It is not the personal wealth of Indian-origin founders. And it is not money that has left India. Dealroom divides each company’s value equally among its founders and counts the portions belonging to qualifying founders

From Yoga to Ayurveda: How India’s Ancient Wellness Traditions Became a Global Conversation Yoga is now practised across continents, while Ayurveda has moved from Indian households and specialist centres into the international wellness economy. The bigger question is whether India can turn that cultural reach into credible, evidence-based global influence. India’s influence on the world is increasingly visible in places that have little to do with Bollywood, cricket or information technology. It can be seen in a yoga class in New York, an Ayurveda centre in Europe, meditation programmes in universities, Indian-inspired wellness retreats in Southeast Asia and growing international interest in plant-based and traditional approaches to health. What began as ancient Indian knowledge systems has become part of a much larger global conversation about well-being, prevention, healthy ageing and holistic health. But there is an important distinction between cultural popularity and medical credibility. India’s next challenge is not simply to persuade more people around the world to practise yoga or buy Ayurvedic products. It is to ensure that the international growth of these traditions is accompanied by standards, evidence, qualified practitioners, consumer protection and respect for the knowledge from which they originated. That is where India’s cultural diplomacy story

BharatGen: How India Is Building AI That Speaks to Its Diaspora India’s BharatGen is moving beyond the idea of a single home-grown chatbot. With multilingual foundation models, speech, document intelligence and India-specific datasets, the government-supported initiative is attempting to build an AI layer that understands the country’s languages and social context — with potential implications far beyond India’s borders. Artificial intelligence is becoming global. The data, however, is not equally global. Many of the world’s most powerful AI systems were developed primarily around languages, datasets and cultural contexts in which English dominates. That does not make them incapable of serving Indian users, but it can leave important gaps when the task involves India’s many languages, scripts, administrative documents, cultural references and local knowledge systems. That is the problem BharatGen is attempting to address. Led by IIT Bombay through the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS), with support from India’s Department of Science and Technology and the IndiaAI Mission, BharatGen has developed a family of sovereign, multilingual and multimodal AI models. The initiative was launched in June 2025 and is now part of India’s wider push to develop domestic foundational AI capabilities. For Indians living overseas, however, BharatGen is more

India’s 5G Equipment Makers Want to Go Global. Can They Compete with the World’s Telecom Giants? Tejas Networks, HFCL and Dixon Technologies…

India’s Spice Power: How Masala Became a Global Export Business From chilli and cumin to turmeric, cardamom, curry powders and spice oils, India remains the world’s leading spice-exporting nation. But the next chapter is not simply about shipping more spices—it is about proving that Indian spices can consistently meet the increasingly demanding standards of global consumers. There are few Indian products that need no introduction anywhere in the world. Spices are one of them. You can travel thousands of kilometres from India and still find turmeric in a supermarket, cumin in a restaurant kitchen, chilli on a food label and curry powder on a shelf. India’s relationship with spices is ancient. Its modern spice-export business, however, is increasingly sophisticated. According to the Spices Board of India, the country exported 17.34 lakh tonnes—about 1.734 million tonnes—of spices and spice products in FY2025–26, worth approximately $4.43 billion. That was lower than the previous year’s 1.799 million tonnes and $4.72 billion, but India retained its position as a leading global exporter. So the story in 2026 is not simply India exports lots of spices. It is: India has built a global spice industry—and now quality, traceability and value addition are becoming just as