Comments
Short commentary by ORF America experts on current issues. These comments represent the views of the author(s). ORF America does not hold institutional positions on any issues. Comments from previous years can be found here.
By Ashita Jain
The India-UK FTA reflects a significant shift in India’s digital trade approach. The commitments it makes, particularly on customs duties on electronic transmissions, data flows, and source code protection, will serve as benchmarks in India’s ongoing negotiations with the EU and the United States.
By Lindsey Ford
There is much that feels reassuringly familiar about the joint statement that came out of the July 1 Quad meeting in DC, which maintains significant continuity in its overall tone and content. However, a close review also points to notable shifts that could erode the group’s regional influence over time.
By Ammar Nainar
Despite trade and tariff wars and continuing security tensions in Europe, the Middle East, and Indian subcontinent, Quad cooperation continues. But the trends this year also reflect a new and more focused agenda for Quad cooperation in the second Trump administration, including maritime, economic, and technology security, as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
By Elsa Debargue and Jeffrey D. Bean
The Pall Mall Process is a work in progress, and only time will tell if it proves durable and successful. However, it does hint at a potential turning point in current cyber governance efforts by adapting to the realities of a decentralized, privatized, and often invisible marketplace of digital intrusion.
By Lindsey Ford
The ongoing crisis in the Middle East — which involved Israeli and then U.S. strikes on Iranian targets, including nuclear facilities, as well as Iranian retaliation against Israel and U.S. bases — carries some important lessons for potential crises between India and Pakistan.
By Anit Mukherjee and Caroline Arkalji
In the run up to the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, countries are reevaluating the role of biofuels in supporting efforts to accelerate the clean energy transition, particularly in the transportation sector, which accounts for nearly one-quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.
By Katherine Salinas
The repercussions of unregulated AI are unfolding in real time, with potentially life-altering consequences for millions of people.
By Dhruva Jaishankar
The sudden whiplash in public sentiment in some quarters in India is notable and will moderate the appetite in New Delhi for cooperation with Washington.
By Marta Bengoa
What emerges from the London talks is not a coherent policy framework but rather a series of tactical compromises that fail to address underlying strategic challenges.
By Jeffrey D. Bean
All in all, the United States’ oscillating policy on AI diffusion reflects an ongoing struggle in how best to simultaneously retain U.S. leadership in semiconductors and advance compute for AI at both a market level and in national defense applications, while blocking adversaries’ access to advanced AI chips and the capability to manufacture them.
By Dhruva Jaishankar and Medha Prasanna
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) — at the center of the United Nations system — faces twin crises. One is a crisis of legitimacy. The second is a crisis of effectiveness and relevance.
By Caroline Arkalji
While India is globally recognized for its highly skilled engineering talent, it lags behind its peers in terms of a large, technically trained labor force needed to attract manufacturing investment at scale. To compete, India must align its technical education more closely with industry needs and emphasize skills critical to modern manufacturing.
By Lindsey Ford
Trump’s eagerness to claim credit for defusing the India-Pakistan crisis, and his follow-on offer of facilitating broader talks between the two sides, kicked off a renewed debate about the bounds of Washington’s ability to play peacemaker in South Asia.
By Dhruva Jaishankar
Relations between India and Pakistan had been in deep freeze since 2019: there will now be fewer constituencies than ever in India in favor of normalization.
By Dhruva Jaishankar and Ammar Nainar
As observers struggle to make sense of Trump’s second presidential term, it is worth considering three parallel debates that are shaping these outcomes.
By Neeraj Jain
Artificial Intelligence must be deployed in Open Transaction Networks (OTNs) to ensure scalable and equitable digital participation across socio-economic segments.
By Udaibir Das
Amid rising financial instability, slowing growth, trade wars, and persistent inequality, the Global South faces growing vulnerabilities yet remains pivotal to the world economy’s future.
By Mandeep Rai
In an evolving tech landscape, India and the United States are strengthening their space alliance — blending diplomacy, AI, and frontier innovation.
By Dhruva Jaishankar
A sufficiently strong response by New Delhi would send a clear message to Pakistan – and to the world – that a resumption of indiscriminate terrorist attacks is unacceptable.
By Udaibir Das
Whether governments seek to phase out energy subsidies, reform pensions, or expand tax bases, success now hinges on how well reforms are explained, sequenced, and backed by credible commitments.
By Anit Mukherjee
How will policymakers rebalance their economies where the three pillars of globalization — free trade, free markets, and free movement of capital — have been affected almost at the same time and what does this mean for the Global South?
By Urmi Tat
The United States and India must work together to balance AI innovation with sustainability by focusing on energy efficiency, transparent emissions reporting, and renewable-powered AI infrastructure.
By Marta Bengoa
As the global trade conflict intensifies, we must consider not just the direct costs of tariffs but also their profound secondary effects on America's long-term fiscal sustainability.
By Divyansh Kaushik
A secure AI initiative within IMEC could counter digital dependency, strengthen strategic ties, and safeguard national security in an ever-evolving contemporary tech world.
By Dhruva Jaishankar
Trump’s April 2 announcement has already roiled financial markets, and the global economy will continue to be adversely affected both by the implementation of tariffs and by uncertainty as negotiations proceed. But while there will be no immediate winners, some parties appear relatively better off.
By Marta Bengoa
The most problematic aspect of the newly announced Trump tariffs may be the deliberate ambiguity around how countries might negotiate lower rates.
By Jeffrey D. Bean and Andreas Kuehn
Looking ahead, as the Department of Defense strives to incorporate and utilize more AI chips, it will need to secure access to leading nodes for edge chips and the confidence in pathways to use greater allocations of secure cloud services for advanced computing.
By Marta Bengoa
The fundamental contradiction in the Trump administration’s approach to trade policy remains unresolved: a strong economy cannot be built on weak economic thinking. Tariffs are not a strategy; they are a symptom of strategic absence.
By Caroline Arkalji
Policymakers in remittance-dependent nations must consider the broader, long-term effects of U.S. immigration and taxation policies.
By Ammar Nainar
In a signal of the United States’ burden-sharing efforts, the Indian Ocean region was featured eight times in the latest U.S.-India joint statement between Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and U.S. president Donald Trump. To India and the United States, the Indian Ocean remains vital for trade and energy flows, for security competition given China’s growing naval activity, and for connectivity between Asia, Africa, and Europe.