India

The European Commission and the EU's High Representative adopted a Joint Communication presenting a package of proposals for a ‘New Strategic EU-India Agenda' on 17 September 2025. The EU and India appear ready to take their strategic partnership of 20+ years to the next level amid geopolitical shifts. Together, they set out to "boost shared prosperity, strengthen security, and tackle major global challenges". Developing such an agenda constitutes an opportunity, yet not without its own challenges. Thus, Dr. Katharina Emschermann asked 3 questions about the EU-India relationship status to Jochen Luckscheiter, director of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung's India office in New Delhi.

The article outlines how India's proactive foreign policy and strategic diplomatic efforts are shaping its national and international political status.

Electoral politics is driven by demands not needs, and voters can push for inclusion of environmental concerns on the agenda of political parties.

How India navigates the many competing forces and interests at play in the social media landscape will be critical in determining the future and health of its democracy.

Given the steep rise in their participation in elections, women have become a sought after constituency for those running for power.

As India, the world’s largest democracy, heads towards its 2024 general elections, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under the leadership of Narendra Modi seeks another five year term amidst collective mobilisation by opposition forces.

Consecutive G20 presidencies – Indonesia, India and Brazil – indicate Global South’s expanding influence but it may bring in problems of diluting existing targets for global action at local levels.

It is important to recognise the role and knowledge of indigenous communities and make them active partners in drafting and implementing India’s water policies.

From New Delhi to Bangkok to Seoul, Asia is facing the world’s most serious air pollution catastrophe.  Experts say this poor air quality becomes fatal with the onset of heat waves and drought from climate change, but citizens are coming up with their own solutions to tackle the dirty air.

From New Delhi to Bangkok to Seoul, Asia is facing the world’s most serious air pollution catastrophe.  Experts say this poor air quality becomes fatal with the onset of heat waves and drought from climate change, but citizens are coming up with their own solutions to tackle the dirty air.

Assam in Northeast India has become more vulnerable than ever as millions have been displaced by floods due to excess pre-monsoon rains followed by a rain deficit. Aiding this vulnerability is a large infrastructure push in these regions primarily by the Central Government. In this article, we report the 2022 floods as the disaster unfolded in the state.

India’s northeast has had a chequered history of youth movements and has been home to some of the recent strong pro-democracy movements in the country. Being young in India’s northeast necessitates acts of social interventions of various kinds. In this conversation, Dr. Kaustubh Deka and Dr. Soibam Haripriya reflect on the locality of youth movements and the long history of the culture of protest in the region, as well as its larger resonance.

India has entered a new age of hot extremes that will get worse if we fail to limit global warming.

Sagari Ramdas shows how agribusiness use big tech and big data to fulfil their ‘sustainability goals’ from indigenous Adivasi farmers of Andhra Pradesh, India. It turns out to be a case of exploitation in the name of sustainability.

Increase in domestic violence, lay-offs, care responsibilities, restrictions on domestic and international movement, economic insecurities, psychological burdens - these are just a few of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in Asia in the last two years. The gendered nature of COVID-19 impacts is obvious and has sparked large feminist responses in the region.

Over the past few years, there has been a drive towards the digitisation of healthcare in India. Though policy frameworks have begun taking cognizance of this increasing datafication of health, they are responding to it within frameworks, which incentivise further datafication by considering health data to be a commodity. Recognising the intimate interconnections between our bodies and data through a feminist lens, an analysis of the health datafication in India through emerging developments under the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) ecosystem is done, with a focus on private health insurance companies, and the implications for the bodies and rights of patients.

K.M. Gopakumar speaks to Shalini Yog Shah about global vaccine monopoly, TRIPS Agreement and hurdles in vaccine production

Last year, even as the coronavirus ambushed India, disrupting the economy and wreaking untold suffering on millions of its citizens, many saw in it a godsend opportunity to hit the reset button and build back a green and just economy. More than a year later, as we crawl out of the horrifying abyss of the second wave, green fantasies have given way to the more urgent task of quickly vaccinating everyone and reviving a battered economy.

For nearly a decade, India has been deploying various iterations of its ambitious broadband expansion plan, looking to bring those in the country’s remotest areas online. While private sector expansion and proliferation of cheap smartphones gave it a boost, the recent double whammy of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and escalating territorial tensions with key trade partner China has put a spanner in the works of the project that has already suffered several delays. Updates to the project now must consider alternative sources of equipment, while ensuring that those at the margins don’t miss the digital bus.

On 24 March 2020, the central government declared a nationwide lockdown to deal with the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which caused the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in India. The lockdown, implemented without the necessary social and economic support by the state, represented a harsh ‘tradeoff’ in favour of public health. The country’s already sluggish economy took a massive hit due to the global pandemic and the near complete closure of international and domestic trade of goods and commodities. However, when the government began its unlocking efforts, it relied on incentivising highly environmentally damaging extractive projects to stimulate the economy. This article analyses the environmental and mining sector reforms and the key legal amendments proposed by the government as part of its post-COVID-19 economic recovery plans. The process, timing and content of these legal changes show that the government used the COVID-19 lockdown as an opportunity to push through undemocratic legal changes that would result in more long term environmental and social costs to society.