Background Paper No. 34
By Anit Mukherjee and Caroline Arkalji
Indo-Pacific Digital Networks for the Future
By Anit Mukherjee
The Indo-Pacific’s future will be shaped by secure, interoperable digital systems that advance public service delivery, expand financial inclusion, and foster cross-border collaboration.
The Nimble Power
By Dhruva Jaishankar
In its diplomacy, India has reprioritized its near neighborhood, extending financial, developmental, and trading benefits to other South Asian countries and revitalizing more productive regional institutions.
IBSA+Indonesia Energy Transitions: Mapping Shared Ambitions and Challenges
A Strategic Wake-Up Call: Insights from South Asia for Taiwan’s Defence Posture
By Hsiao-Chen Lin
The evolving scenario between India and Pakistan also serves as a timely analytical lens through which Taiwan can assess its own strategic vulnerabilities and prepare more robustly for future contingencies in the Indo-Pacific theatre.
Do debt swaps deliver on development finance?
By Udaibir Das
While financial institutions promote debt swaps as ‘win-win’ solutions that address both debt distress and development financing, borrowing countries report a systematic failure in achieving both objectives, revealing an inversion of development finance principles.
Navigating Export Controls in U.S.-India Relations
By Dhruva Jaishankar
For India, navigating U.S. export controls remains a challenge 20 years since the civilian nuclear agreement was signed.
How developing countries are turning climate risk into economic opportunity
By Udaibir Das
If climate finance is to support transitions that are durable and inclusive, it must evolve to accommodate precisely these kinds of interventions: institutionally grounded, locally designed and systemically significant.
Bridging the AI Divide: A BRICS Strategy for Inclusive Innovation, Sovereignty, and Capacity Building
By Anit Mukherjee
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes a key enabler of economic and social transformation, the BRICS grouping — comprising both emerging and influential economies — has a unique opportunity to shape the trajectory of AI development through a Global South lens.
The Rise of Stablecoins and How to Regulate Them
By Udaibir Das
As private digital tokens gain ground, existing oversight and payment monitoring frameworks are struggling to keep pace. While regulators debate their response, the market—driven mainly by U.S.-based technology and market actors—is moving ahead.
Energy Transition and Global South Cooperation: Case of Biofuels
The arc of ascent of China’s financial system
By Udaibir Das
China must build on its institutional progress and the policy suggestions noted in the 2025 FSSA while adapting to a more fragmented global financial landscape. The shift from insulation, as pointed out by the IMF in 2010, as well as the shift to sensible integration, as outlined by the IMF in 2025, stays unfinished.
A Blueprint to Advance the U.S.-India Energy Security Partnership
This special report explores the opportunities of a U.S.-India Strategic Energy and Industrial Partnership.
Special Report
By Aditya Ramji
China’s Critical Mineral Export Controls: Background & Chokepoints
Capital crunch stifles entrepreneurs in low-income economies
By Udaibir Das
As concessional finance declines, vulnerabilities mount and aid priorities shift, vulnerable low-income countries must increasingly rely on domestic sources of funding. Efficient capital markets are not a luxury – they are foundational infrastructure for economic growth.
The Road Ahead for U.S. Policy on Artificial Intelligence
Navigating the Entanglements in the U.S.-China Quantum Technology Race
By Linda Nhon and Andreas Kuehn
Trump 2.0’s overall policy directions in critical and emerging technologies will likely hew to common expectations. The details, however, of what technologies the new administration will prioritise and how actions, such as tariffs and export controls for example, will affect the United States’ (US) innovation and technology leadership remains underexplored.
India’s uneven quest to master technology
By Dhruva Jaishankar
Learnings from Delhi’s past should help in shaping the future as India bets big on new critical technologies.
What happens when global donors shy away from aid
By Udaibir Das
The key question is not whether the decline in aid and external assistance will push these economies towards more debt – it already does – but rather what kind of debt they will incur and what long-term implications it will bring.
Why New Delhi and Brussels must reset bilateral ties
By Dhruva Jaishankar
The EU and India both have apprehensions about China’s economic and manufacturing supremacy threatening employment and businesses at home.