Western Balkans Report: Countering Cybercrime
By Jeffrey D. Bean and Bruce W. McConnell
By Udaibir Das
Ubuntu economics does not invoke moral claims. It advances a structural argument: Africa’s demographic momentum, mineral endowments and ecological assets are central to global prosperity, and instability in the region imposes system-wide costs. The reform frameworks are now primarily in place. The question is whether the political and institutional conditions of 2026 permit their implementation.
By Piyush Verma and Telmen Altanshagai
Mongolia is not just a customer or supplier—but a co-partner in building new regional supply-chains, new corridors and new resource-alliances. It speaks to a future where India is not simply plugged into global energy markets, but co-creating them.
By Udaibir Das
While stability prevails in institutional titles, resilience prevails in policy content. This shift influences the oversight and allocation of approximately $470tn in global financial assets. This has structural implications and affects public accountability.
By Dhruva Jaishankar and Ammar Nainar
Once a quiet backstage function of the armed forces, defence diplomacy has emerged as one of India's sharpest tools of statecraft. From joint exercises and training missions to disaster relief and maritime surveillance, India's military now operates far beyond the battlefield: building trust, shaping partnerships, and projecting the country's strategic interests on a rapidly shifting global stage.
By Julianne Smith and Lindsey Ford
American allies are rapidly transforming their relationships whether Washington likes it or not; these networks can either serve or undermine U.S. interests depending on how Washington engages with them. If the United States fails to reset ties with Asian and European partners, it risks being left on the sidelines of a rapidly changing world order.
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.
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.
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.
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.
By Dhruva Jaishankar
For India, navigating U.S. export controls remains a challenge 20 years since the civilian nuclear agreement was signed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This special report explores the opportunities of a U.S.-India Strategic Energy and Industrial Partnership.
Special Report
By Aditya Ramji
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.
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.
By Dhruva Jaishankar
Learnings from Delhi’s past should help in shaping the future as India bets big on new critical technologies.
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.
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