ORF Global Quarterly: Navigating Megatrends For 2026

Editors: Sharon Stirling and Eszter Karacsony
Authors: Dhruva Jaishankar, Anit Mukherjee, Anirban Sarma, Mannat Jaspal, Nilanjan Ghosh, and Sunaina Kumar

FOREWORD

The year 2026 arrived burdened with the weight of unfinished transitions. The global order, already fraying at the edges, today confronts a convergence of forces that are reshaping power, prosperity, and purpose.

At the heart of this moment lies a paradox: Even as technological acceleration promises efficiency and abundance, it has intensified strategic rivalry and societal anxiety. Artificial Intelligence, data dominance, and digital infrastructure have become instruments of state power, blurring the lines between economic competition and national security. The return of geopolitics is not a throwback to the twentieth century; it is a recalibration of interdependence, albeit under conditions of mistrust.

Equally consequential is the reordering of global economics. Supply chains are being redesigned in the name of resilience, yet often at the cost of efficiency and inclusiveness. The language of globalization has given way to that of friend-shoring and strategic autonomy. For emerging powers—India, foremost among them—this moment presents both opportunity to shape norms and institutions, and danger—that of being caught between rival blocs.

Climate change, no longer a distant threat, now functions as a systemic disruptor, amplifying inequalities, fuelling migration, and putting governance capacity to test. Meanwhile, demographic shifts—ageing societies in the West and East Asia, youthful populations in the Global South—are altering labor markets and political priorities, with profound implications for stability and growth.

This collection of essays by ORF scholars engages with these megatrends not as abstract futures but as lived realities—contested, uneven, and deeply political. Megatrends do not unfold in isolation; they are mediated by leadership, institutions, and ideas. The choices made in state capitals today will determine whether 2026 will be remembered as a waypoint toward fragmentation, or a pivot toward pragmatic cooperation. In interrogating these trends, this volume seeks not predictions, but perspectives—a valuable compass in an era defined by uncertainty.

The launch of ORF Global Quarterly marks a milestone in the evolution of the Observer Research Foundation's global engagement. Conceived in 2025, ORF Global is a virtual centre that brings together ORF's intellectual capital across its India offices in Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata, as well as its overseas affiliates in North America and the Middle East. Its purpose is both practical and strategic: to deepen collaboration across regions, shape ORF's international research and convening agenda, and curate ideas that speak to a rapidly changing global order. The purpose of ORF Global is not merely to aggregate research across locations, but to curate it in ways that speak to the most pressing international debates of our time. This publication is the most visible expression of that ambition.

At a time when global debates are increasingly fragmented, ORF Global Quarterly seeks to foreground perspectives from the Global South—regions whose demographic weight, economic relevance, and strategic agency are growing, yet whose voices remain insufficiently reflected in forward-looking global analyses. The contributors to this volume share a common commitment to examining global challenges through lenses rooted beyond the traditional centres of power. In this sense, ORF Global Quarterly is intended to be more than a periodic journal; it is envisioned as a platform that reflects ORF's growing role as a bridge between regions, disciplines, and perspectives that are too often siloed in contemporary global discourse.

As we shaped the purpose and scope of this publication in late 2025, we chose to begin with a wide-angle assessment of the global landscape in 2026. The six domains covered in this inaugural issue—geopolitics, defense and security; geoeconomics and trade; technology; climate and energy transitions; agriculture, health, and urbanization; and education, skills, labor, and immigration—together capture the major fault lines and forces shaping international politics and domestic transformations alike. These are arenas where power is being contested, norms are being rewritten, and long-term structural shifts are already underway.

It is our aim to offer insights that are distinctive and actionable, sharpening understanding of the forces shaping the year ahead and informing the strategic choices that 2026 will inevitably require.

Harsh V. Pant
Vice President
Observer Research Foundation

CONTENTS: 

Observer Research Foundation America, 1100 17th St. NW, Suite 501, Washington DC 20036 USA