Shortly before the 2014 elections, Narendra Modi—at that time practically a novice in foreign affairs—stated in an interview that “my Hindutva face will be an asset when dealing with foreign affairs with other nations.” This statement might have been indicative of a strict ideological, assertive foreign policy posture that put India first in all her future engagements.
Ashok Gulati has been Infosys Chair Professor for Agriculture at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) since March 2014. He is currently also on the Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), and National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX).
Millennials—individuals born between 1980-99—are constantly scrutinized as Generation Me. They are misrepresented, stereotyped, and unappreciated. Millennials—often referred to as irresponsible and lazy young persons—have recently received a lot of media attention in India, from speculations about their spending habits to whether they are the most depressed of all generations.
Dr. Radhika Khosla is the Research Director of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development and Research Fellow at Somerville College; and Associate Professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, School of Geography and the Environment, at the University of Oxford. She works on examining the productive tensions between urban transitions, energy services consumption, and climate change, with a focus on developing country cities.
Amongst the many initiatives to end the Afghan conflict, the one led by the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, is critical for it has given the Taliban a direct hotline of sorts to America. In fact, the US is doing precisely what it had refused to do in 2002 when the Taliban had assured a “discussion to turn over Osama bin Laden” if America stopped bombing Afghanistan.
In the last five years, there has been a slow but growing international consensus around the withdrawal of financial capital from the coal industry. Large sovereign wealth funds and pension funds, as well as multi-national aid agencies like the World Bank have undertaken this virtue signalling exercise by announcing their exit from coal financing. While coal-based generators in the West were already on the back foot because of rising regulatory costs, most of the coal expansion in the 2010s has come from Asia, particularly India and China.
