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< Back Dr Ajith Balasooriya Dr. Ajith Balasooriya is a senior lecturer at the Department of International Relations in University of Colombo. He obtained his Doctoral degree from Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation (IDEC), Hiroshima University, Japan in 2013. Dr. Balasoorioya is a more filed oriented researcher who currently conducting a research on Human Security at A Contested Land: Nexus between Political Security and Economic Security in Northern Sri Lanka. Publications

< Back Ms Aarshi Tirkey Aarshi Tirkey is an Associate Fellow in the Strategic Studies Programme, at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. She holds an LLM in International and Comparative Law, from the National University of Singapore. She has published several research articles, monographs and book chapters for ORF, with her research focusing on international law, its relevance and application to Indian foreign policy, such as security, trade, bilateral relations and multilateral engagements. Publications Minilaterals and The Impact on Indo-Pacific Security: https://futureshub.anu.edu.au/minilaterals-and-their-impact-on-indo-pacific-security/ Minilateralism: Weighing the Prospects for Cooperation and Governance: https://www.orfonline.org/research/minilateralism-weighing-prospects-cooperation-governance/ There’s a new front in the US-China trade and tech war: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/theres-a-new-front-in-the-us-china-trade-and-tech-war/

< Back Dr Gazala Fareedi Gazala Fareedi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Southfield College, Darjeeling. She holds a PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, on the topic, ‘Mediatization of Diplomacy: A Study of India’. She has authored several articles focusing on Indian Public Diplomacy and Soft Power, in journals such as World Focus, and the International Journal of Research. She has also published numerous online commentaries focusing on diplomacy, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, and India-Nepal relations. Publications Challenges to the Realist Perspective During the Coronavirus Pandemic: https://www.e-ir.info/2020/05/06/opinion-challenges-to-the-realist-perspective-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic//

< Back Dr Ramya Panuganty P S Ramya is currently working as an Assistant Manager and Research Lead, at ARSLAN SRS. She completed her PhD from South Asian University, New Delhi, and is a former Research Fellow at the International Strategic and Security Studies Programme, National Institute of Advanced Studies. Focused on Pakistan, Myanmar, and India’s economy and geopolitics, her research has been published in several journals including the International Journal of Geopolitics, World Focus, and ISSSP Reflections. Her specific research interests include governance and legislative development in South and Southeast Asia, and institutionalism and its relation to authoritarianism. Her upcoming book chapter in Northeast India and India’s Act East Policy: Identifying the Priorities, published by Routledge, is titled, ‘Understanding Myanmar’s Perspective on India’s Act East Policy: An Analysis’. Publications China’s Myanmar Conundrum: https://thediplomat.com/2015/04/chinas-myanmar-conundrum/ Myanmar: Under the Jackboot Again: https://www.deccanherald.com/specials/sunday-spotlight/myanmar-under-the-jackboot-again-948445.htmll Could Chinese Expansionism Push South Korea and Japan Closer Together?: https://www.statecraft.co.in/article/could-chinese-expansionism-push-south-korea-and-japan-closer-together

< Back Md. Nahiyan Shajid Khan "Md. Nahiyan Shajid Khan is Research Officer of Bangladesh Institute for International and Strategic Studies (BIISS). His research interests draw on his background of being a student of International Relations, developed through his academic activities and his engagement with various youth activism. He is currently engaged in studying the diplomatic engagements of Bangladesh in various multilateral platforms and the changing dynamics in the geopolitical landscape of Indo-pacific region. He has done his bachelor’s and master’s thesis on respectively on “Belt and Road Initiative: Security Implications on Bangladesh” and “Free & Open Indo-Pacific Strategy and Bangladesh: Opportunities and Implications for Bangladesh.” He worked as rapporteur in previously with Japan embassy funded seminar on “Geopolitics of Indo-Pacific and Reconnecting the Bay of Bengal Littorals”, “Exploring Korea-Bangladesh Relations in the last five decades and beyond”, joint program of BIISS and Bangabandhu Centre for Bangladesh Studies, Canada on “Rohingya Exodus in Bangladesh: Regional and Global Security Implications.” He was speech writer in EU’s Indo-Pacific Special Envoy’s Eminent person lecture series. He also worked as rapporteur, guest communicator, concept note developer and speech writer in different seminars. He has editorial experience with the book on “Militancy and National Security of Bangladesh: Policy Options and Strategic Outlook” and “Bangabandhu and Bangladesh: An Epic of a Nations Emergence and Emancipation”. He wrote a book review on “The Rohingya Crisis: A Moral, Ethnography and Policy Assessment.” He worked as a research assistant in the book chapter on “Development Trajectory and Imperatives for Vision 2041” for “Bangabandhu and Bangladesh: An Epic of a Nations Emergence and Emancipation.” Md. Nahiyan Shajid Khan obtained his Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) and Master of Social Science from the Department of International Relations, Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP). He has been serving at BIISS since April 2021." Publications

Dr. Christian Wagner is a Senior Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin. Formerly, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Development Research, University of Bonn. christian.wagner@swp-berlin.org < Back Dr. Christian Wagner Christian Wagner is Senior Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. He obtained his M.A. and PhD from Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg. From 1996 to 2001 he was Assistant Professor at the Institute of Political Science and Administrative Studies at Rostock University. From 2001 to 2002 he was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Development Research at the University of Bonn. He is a member of the European Association for South Asian Studies (EASAS) and the German Association for Asian Studies (DGA) where he was of the board of directors from 2007 to 2013. From 2007 to 2014 he was head of the Research Division Asia at SWP. In 2015/16 he was a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute for Advanced Studies (JNIAS) and at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in New Delhi. In 2019, he was Visiting Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2019. Since 2018 he is a member of the International Research Committee (IRC) of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS) in Colombo. His main areas of interest are India, South Asia and the Indo-Pacific with a special focus on foreign policy and security issues. christian.wagner@swp-berlin.org

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8dec8e74-9ee5-402c-9624-5e2d38d1d2e3 < All op-eds Towards a Fragile State: Economic Crisis in Sri Lanka Dr Hasith Kandaudahewa Over the last 74 years, Sri Lanka, formerly known as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean, has governed through the principle of democracy while promoting non-alignment as the gravity of its foreign policy. During the President Mahinda Rajapaksa (2005-2015) era, Sri Lanka ended 30 years of long internal war. Nevertheless, the root causes of conflict were left untouched by the country's political administration. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka demonstrated a more enigmatic foreign policy than its previous practices - non-alignment and initiating strong ties with China while endangering the stability of the Indian Ocean Region. The people of Sri Lanka are typically considered a friendly and peaceful community who belong to a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious group Yet, two weeks ago, the people of Sri Lanka reached their threshold of patience. Why did this sudden change happen, and what caused it? This article will help to explore the pressing issues behind increasing public demands for the immediate resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (known as Gota) and his close family members from the current political administration. In the recent past, Sri Lanka encountered a host of multifaceted issues due to a lack of efficient political decisions on the part of President Gotabaya Rajapaksae since his inauguration in 2019. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Sri Lanka lost its primary foreign revenue from labour service exports, tourism, and commodity exports. Thousands of migrant workers returned to Sri Lanka with shattered dreams and an uncertain future. To face the forex challenge, Sri Lanka imposed served import restrictions, which directly led to the shortage of essential commodities in the market. While incurring the loss of foreign revenue, Gota has granted tax haven to his top political cohorts, letting them gain massive income from day-to-day commodities while consumer inflation raised from 5.7% in September 2021 to 17.5% in March 2022. Additionally, his policy on organic fertiliser s has worsened the country's food insecurity. On the other hand, Sri Lanka has already taken massive loans without considering repayment abilities or sustainable applications. While a portion of the loans were spent on unsolicited projects across the island, the remaining was used for day-to-day consumption. In late August 2021, the Gota regime reached the point where there was no option but to seek foreign loans to manage the resettlement of existing debt and day-to-day activities. Not only that, Sri Lanka's foreign reserves have reached its lowest, nearly 1 billion USD in March 2022, where its debt liability is USD 7 billion for 2022. In short, Gota has left the country with the question of whether the government should prioritise debt repayments or essential commodities for the people. During the troubled period, President Gota reached out to the trio - the US, China and India – to overcome the financial turmoil. China came forward immediately, granting some debt restructuring opportunities and credit-lines, yet Sri Lanka’s strategic action called Hedging,* where resources were given to India and the US as well has angered China. India and US came forward later to offer the opportunity where India has granted the USD 1-2 billion for essential items, including rice and medicine, and a USD 500 million credit-line to import the fuel, urgent needs of the public. However, India’s aid and resources come with a cost for future Sri Lanka, where overnight drafted agreements were signed to hand over strategic resources, including Sampur Power Plant and the port of Trinco, a naturally sheltered harbour in the Indian Ocean Region. In March 2022, the public encountered hour-long power cuts that prolonged into 13-hours, day-long fuel, food, medicine, milk and gas queues where the survival of the public was threatened. Instead of resolving the public needs, President Gota has worsened the economic situation by neglecting his duties to the people by ignoring the early signs of the crisis and supporting corruption, nepotism and printing money. Using political and religious extremism to defend his action, Gota - a former military man, has pushed the general public beyond their threshold of tolerance. Peaceful public protests started with the famous slogan called #GoHomeGota quickly reached the hearts of millions of Sri Lankans. The non-partisan protestors demanded the immediate resignation of President Gota, which later extended to the resignation of his brother Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and close family members of Rajapaksa's in political power. The government has taken extreme measures to crush the public spirit of the protest by imposing a curfew, social media ban and emergency laws, yet all of those decisions were reversed (as Gota is famous for reversing his decisions). Supporting the great cause, the overseas Sri Lankan diaspora held peaceful protests in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the US, UK and France. Due to the domestic and international pressure on President Gota, except himself and his brother, all other cabinet members and top Rajapaksa supporters in government, including the Central Bank Governor, resigned. This reaction to public protests has energised the public, expanded protest slogans, and demanded a change in the political system in Sri Lanka. Even though President Gota’s regime was shattered, the main opposition in the Parliament failed to seize the political opportunity and bring a sustainable political solution through the Parliamentary democracy. Youth have taken the political revolution into their hands, deciding to camp outside the President's Secretariate, continuing to hold the protests, day and night, and renaming their campsite‘GoGotaGama’ (GoGotaVillage) to inspire the public revolution. Even though local and international specialists have proposed numerous ways to overcome the financial difficulties in Sri Lanka, the government is not ready to make political stability by resigning. Sri Lanka, a country without a Cabinet, has declared its inability to pay all external debt, including the USD 1 billion International Sovereign Bond repayment in July, a few days ago, which has further raised the uncertainty of the future of 22 million Sri Lankans. *When it comes to state foreign policy strategies, here is a term called hedging where states show a mix of cooperative and confrontational elements towards other states. This is a mixture of balancing and bandwagoning policies. Previous Next LATEST OP-EDS Dr Dhanasree Jayaram Intersectionality As The Key To Indo-Pacific Climate Action The Indo-Pacific is a dynamic region that faces a multitude of climate vulnerabilities. These climate vulnerabilities intermingle with the region’s social, economic, ecological, political, and cultural fault lines, thereby exacerbating the systemic crisis that the region’s populations are currently facing and will be facing in the future. Applying an intersectional framework is critical for developing a comprehensive understanding of varying vulnerabilities and capacities (that influence the agency of those affected) across societies. Read More Purvaja Modak 2024: Brazil’s G20 Year While Indonesia and India made some progress on negotiations on climate action, inclusion of the African Union in the G20 and the reform of multilateral development banks (MDBs), much more action is essential. Read More Abhivardhan An Indo-Pacific Perspective on AI Safety Analysing varied approaches to AI regulation in key countries, this article explores the challenges and opportunities of AI Safety in the Indo-Pacific region and discusses the need for a coordinated approach to addressing these issues. Read More

a0defbd1-e7df-4987-91d0-e2473ad1ef26 < All op-eds "Seeing" the Indo-Pacific and Questions of Strategic Judgement Dr. Medha Bisht How does one ‘see’ the Indo-Pacific amidst the multiple strategic configurations that the Ocean is witnessing? This is a question that India is/will be grappling with, in the near future. Given the salience of the issue, which is dynamic and indeed wrought with competing narratives, interests, and versions, it is important that one reckons with some essential building blocks for debating the Indian approach. I offer three building blocks for revisiting the Indian strategic approach- which perhaps need some reflection. These are partnerships, principles, and purpose. Partnerships : It is increasingly clear that multiple network-based alliances are emerging in the Indo-Pacific. Termed as minilaterals and plurilaterals and driven by issue-based interests, India needs to focus on how these multiple issue-based alliances can be translated from mere declarations to substantive diplomatic action, both for itself and South Asia. New Delhi needs to go beyond the comfort-zone of believing that these partnerships alone will ensure stability in the region. On its part, the US perceives these as the building blocks as a part of its grand strategic design where the primary end goal of these partnerships is to build a deterrence against China. While India has shied away from endorsing this view, it nevertheless has accepted the idea of a broader Asia, which started from the narrative of bringing together the “seas of freedom and seas of prosperity”, but over a period of time has transformed into a broad Indo-Pacific partnership. While Ambassador Shivshankar Menon has emphasized on the term Asia-Pacific rather than Indo-Pacific, India needs to recognize that the costs for India and East Asian countries could be potentially high. Deterrence to China will be a tall order, given its well-entrenched economic networks in the region, particularly Southeast Asia. Besides, China will respond to this issue by distracting concerned partners in these alliances, as has been well evident in her claims around South and East China Sea and Northern borders of India. China can also open multiple fronts to exercise psychological pressure on ‘Asian states’, creating increased emphasis on bilateral engagements, which can impede multilateral spirit for cooperation in the region. Given that India is China’s immediate neighbour, it is important that it refrains from walking a tight rope and is flexible and adaptive in responding to the emerging situation. Facilitating its own interest demands that the principles around which it frames its position is aligned to its ideational values. Principles : One approach which India has chosen to respond to the uncertainty and unpredictability in the Indo-Pacific is the articulated position of Prime Minister Modi expressed through the Security and Growth for All (SAGAR) speech delivered in 2015 at Mauritius. In recent years this discussion has centred on order, rule of law and multilateralism - terms that are not alien to traditions associated with India’s strategic thought. Significantly, in the last two decades with the rise of Asia, academic debates on alternate ways of thinking have gained steam in IR. It would be useful to dwell on the meanings of ‘order’ and how it can be evolved/interpreted, particularly given the distinct insights from the cosmovision of ‘dharma,” a distinct aspect associated with the syncretic Indian tradition! Such ideational positioning and theoretical conceptualization have been clearly missing. If India wants to become an Asian power of some reckoning, it is high time that such ideational discourses are foregrounded in the vocabularies of not just academic journals but the broader International Relations & foreign policy communities. Purpose: John Lewis Gaddis has noted athat a strategist needs to be both a fox (a tactician who is opportunistic and pro-active) and a hedgehog (a grand strategist who is driven by achieving goals) – i.e., one who can see both the forest and the trees together. For India, the quintessential question is therefore, what is the purpose of our engagement and what implications does this have both for India and its neighbours? Is it just stability in the Indo-Pacific (or Asia Pacific), or is it strengthening its efforts towards climate diplomacy, sustainable development, preservation of marine resources and fight against piracy and terrorism? Some of these interests have found expression in its projects such as Project Mausam, Deep Ocean Mission amongst other. Given that these concerns overlap with other South Asian neighbours, India should see the imperative of taking the South Asian states along. There is perceptible shift from a land-centric understanding of South Asia to maritime South Asia. Within this understaning is an expressed desire to emphasise ‘connected histories’ of South Asian ports and strategic choke points. Given this, India should start investing in the idea of maritime South Asia, where ways of emancipating the agency of SAARC nations should be weaved into the Asian regional vision. India will have to walk through South Asia to become a power of diplomatic reckoning. The purpose of a maritime South Asia serves the Indian concerns well. South Asia is an interconnected ecological space, located at the networked confluence where the Himalayas meet the Ocean. James Alex Michel noted, perceptions (i.e., the way we see things) determine how we act. It is rather high time, as he points out, that we call ourselves islanders, and go beyond land-centricity. In fact, rather than ‘seeing the land bordered by sea, one should see the sea with land interspersed.’ This is a statement that resonates well with the idea of maritime South Asia. * Dr. Medha Bisht teaches International Relations at South Asian University, New Delhi, India Previous Next LATEST OP-EDS Dr Dhanasree Jayaram Intersectionality As The Key To Indo-Pacific Climate Action The Indo-Pacific is a dynamic region that faces a multitude of climate vulnerabilities. These climate vulnerabilities intermingle with the region’s social, economic, ecological, political, and cultural fault lines, thereby exacerbating the systemic crisis that the region’s populations are currently facing and will be facing in the future. Applying an intersectional framework is critical for developing a comprehensive understanding of varying vulnerabilities and capacities (that influence the agency of those affected) across societies. Read More Purvaja Modak 2024: Brazil’s G20 Year While Indonesia and India made some progress on negotiations on climate action, inclusion of the African Union in the G20 and the reform of multilateral development banks (MDBs), much more action is essential. Read More Abhivardhan An Indo-Pacific Perspective on AI Safety Analysing varied approaches to AI regulation in key countries, this article explores the challenges and opportunities of AI Safety in the Indo-Pacific region and discusses the need for a coordinated approach to addressing these issues. Read More

< Back Mr A.S.M. Tarek Hassan A.S.M. Tarek Hassan Semul is a Research Fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS). He has over nine years of research and policy analysis experience in foreign policy, international security and strategic studies. He has worked on power asymmetry among the great powers and small states in South and Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific region, particularly Bangladesh, Myanmar and other Bay of Bengal littorals. Mr Hassan is interested in understanding small states' dilemmas and responses to the brewing geostrategic rivalry among the great powers in the Indian Ocean region. Nationalism and populism’s reemergence as the response to the neoliberal and globalized world is another field of his research interest as he is interested to see if there are any common patterns or differences in such responses in the Western societies and the post-colonial states of South and Southeast Asia (i.e. Myanmar, India). With the rapid advancement in technology, both state and non-state actors are adapting to the evolving nature of warfare. Their coping strategies are another area of research interest for Mr Hassan. Before joining BIISS, Mr Hassan worked at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) as a Program Associate on a CPD-Christian Michelsen Institute, Norway research project on parliaments and political parties of Bangladesh. Before that, he completed his internship at the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) on Counter-Terrorism in Bangladesh. Mr Hassan obtained his MSS and BSS in International Relations from the University of Dhaka. He has participated in the Kautilya Fellowship program 2020, India, which was jointly organized by the India Foundation and India’s Ministry of External Affairs. He has participated in numerous conferences both at home and abroad as well as presented and published articles, and book chapters on topics related to international security, geopolitics, foreign policy, globalization and radicalization. Publications

3a876e67-e23f-4169-a908-d0b8533173d1 < All op-eds Indo-Pacific Framework: Bridging the divide between the Global South and Global North Dr Gazala Fareedi Since its independence, India with its meagre resources at that point in time rose to become a voice for the Global South as it focused on anti-colonialism, anti-racism, non-violence, Panchsheel and the Non-Aligned Movement. Since the last decade, its foreign policy has made a departure from the leader of third-world rhetoric to that of great power politics. However, with the recent transfer of the G20 Presidency from Indonesia to India, there has been a renewed focus on the Global South. On the 1 st of December, in an editorial published in many Indian newspapers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote, “Our G20 priorities will be shaped in consultation with not just our G20 partners, but also our fellow travellers in the global South, whose voice often goes unheard.” Similar attention to the Global South was given in External Affairs Minister, Dr S Jaishankar’s speech at the G20 University Connect programme. With India having resumed the baton for being a voice for the developing countries, how does it seek to wield the Indo-Pacific platform to bridge the divide between the Global North and Global South? Can the Indo-Pacific framework create a future where such a divide becomes inconsequential? Contemporarily states hold membership in various organisations across the spectrum. Overlapping membership has become the new norm and convergence at the multilateral level, the new ethic, as no state wants to be left out. However often these organisations or frameworks might not have been founded on similar logic/principles and goals. The Global South nowadays broadly refers to those people who are impacted negatively by Neo-liberal policies. The concept historically underlines the core and periphery debate starting from colonialism and neo-imperialism leading to gross inequalities in the standards of living and underdevelopment. Based upon the typology of international orders as outlined by Kyle M. Lascurettes and Michael Poznansky (2021), the Global South framework is neither a hegemonic order nor a centralised order. Since power is dispersed, the order would come under the category of a negotiated order. At the same time, it does posit the developing countries in a state of friction with the developed countries, albeit for pertinent positive ends of economic and political justice. The Indo-Pacific Framework is in the process of setting a new narrative and building a new foundation. It is also not a hegemonic or centralised order where power is concentrated in the hands of a few actors. All countries have espoused their own understanding of the Indo-Pacific and there are certain shared foundational principles to all these visions. The common denominator is the standard of ‘rules-based international order’ and ‘free and open Indo Pacific’. Since it includes the members of both the developed and the developing countries, another common agenda for the framework should be to become a platform to bridge the divide between the Global North and Global South. The action plan should consciously focus on not only providing inclusive solutions to solve this state of friction on the ground but also creating a new narrative where the divide gets diminished. Concrete steps to reduce inequality should become the backbone for cooperation and friendship. The agenda of immediate concern and long-term issues for the developing countries in the Indo-Pacific vary in a number of ways from that of the developed countries. For example, as highlighted by Darshana M. Baruah , the small island states in the Indo-Pacific emphasise the importance of focusing on “non-traditional security threats” with climate change and the blue economy becoming one of the many areas of immediate concern. For these countries, these issues become life-threatening, unlike other countries. This is in contrast to the developed big countries-the great powers, who prioritize geo-strategic traditional security issues like the containment of Chinese power. The island states do not want to be part of the increasing great power competition between the United States and China. This is true for African states whose “leaders have continuously voiced apprehensions about getting caught in between great power contestations” ( Mishra 2021 ). At the same time, they respect the goal of a rules-based international order as they are most vulnerable to any other kind of anarchic order. Hence the Indo-Pacific framework should highlight and focus on the differing goals of both developing and developed countries in order to become a platform where everyone’s interests are given equal importance. An inclusive vision for sustainable economics should be the predominant operation and narrative in order to move beyond the ‘dependency’ [theory] in practice that is the bedrock for the division between the Global North and Global South. As a voice for the Global South as well as a member of the Indo-Pacific framework, India ought to up the ante regarding manoeuvring the structuring of the framework to suit not only its national interests but also to promote a more equitable international order. Concerns of geopolitics can hardly be divorced from sustainable economy and social development, especially for developing countries. As stated by Happymon Jacob , “the world still, albeit occasionally, looks up to us [India] for moral leadership or as a peace-builder”. With India starting its presidency for the G20, along with being the chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), it shares an even greater responsibility for steering the increasing geo-political tensions. Jacob has even called “India as a pole” and written that “India is a pivotal power in the Indo-Pacific and beyond, with an ability to help tackle security, climate and other challenges of global consequence.” The Indo-Pacific framework should not be narrow and constrained to only the geo-strategic objectives of a few developed countries. Neither should it be hijacked as a pawn for the increasing rivalry between the United States and China. Rather its true success lies in promoting a shared platform and vision for implementing a just and economically equal world order. Previous Next LATEST OP-EDS Dr Dhanasree Jayaram Intersectionality As The Key To Indo-Pacific Climate Action The Indo-Pacific is a dynamic region that faces a multitude of climate vulnerabilities. These climate vulnerabilities intermingle with the region’s social, economic, ecological, political, and cultural fault lines, thereby exacerbating the systemic crisis that the region’s populations are currently facing and will be facing in the future. Applying an intersectional framework is critical for developing a comprehensive understanding of varying vulnerabilities and capacities (that influence the agency of those affected) across societies. Read More Purvaja Modak 2024: Brazil’s G20 Year While Indonesia and India made some progress on negotiations on climate action, inclusion of the African Union in the G20 and the reform of multilateral development banks (MDBs), much more action is essential. Read More Abhivardhan An Indo-Pacific Perspective on AI Safety Analysing varied approaches to AI regulation in key countries, this article explores the challenges and opportunities of AI Safety in the Indo-Pacific region and discusses the need for a coordinated approach to addressing these issues. Read More

Capt Sarabjeet S Parmar was commissioned into the Indian Navy on 01 July 1987 and retired on 30 June 2023. He has been a Research Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and worked in the Indian Navy’s strategic apex level offices. He has written and spoken extensively on maritime security and strategy issues at various national and international conferences and his main areas of research include national and maritime strategy and security related aspects in the Indo-Pacific, piracy, HADR, and international maritime law with a focus on lawfare. < Back Capt. Sarabjeet S Parmar Capt Sarabjeet S Parmar was commissioned into the Indian Navy on 01 July 1987 and retired on 30 June 2023. He has commanded two ships and a frontline anti-submarine warfare and anti-shipping helicopter squadron. He was member of the XI Indian Antarctic Summer Expedition in 1991, attended the Management Defence Course Conducted by the British Government at Colombo in 2005, and represented the Indian Navy in the first international HOSTAC (helicopter operations from ships other than aircraft carriers) conference held at Norfolk, USA in 2008. He has been a Research Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and worked in the Indian Navy’s strategic apex level offices where, as Director Strategy was part of the core team published the Indian Navy’s unclassified maritime security strategy document titled Ensuring Secure Seas: Indian Maritime Security Strategy in 2015, carried out regional maritime assessments and completed the doctrine development plan. He was the Executive Director and Senior Fellow at the National Maritime Foundation prior retirement. He has written and spoken extensively on maritime security and strategy issues at various national and international conferences and his main areas of research include national and maritime strategy and security related aspects in the Indo-Pacific, piracy, HADR, and international maritime law with a focus on lawfare. His writings can be accessed at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Captain-Sarabjeet-Parmar and https://independent.academia.edu/sarabjeetparmar