Asad Mirza

Friday, September 11, was technically the “pre-summit” day of BRICS 2026 - the leaders’ sessions proper begin Saturday - but it did more to set the tone of this year's gathering than any single...

New Delhi is hosting the 18th BRICS Summit at a combustible moment - Xi Jinping’s first India visit in seven years, Putin’s fresh arrival, a Congress spat over BRICS’s worth, and an unresolved Iran...

The Makkah Pact’s early significance lies less in the institutions it has already created than in the strategic questions it has raised. Is it a collective-defence arrangement, a platform for regional crisis management, an...

India’s emerging space companies took centre stage at Bengaluru Space Expo (BSX) 2026, presenting technologies aimed at improving satellite imaging, secure communications, Earth observation and access to space. The event brought together startups, established...

Bengaluru Space Expo 2026 placed India’s rapidly expanding private space sector at the centre of a broad international conversation, bringing together governments, space agencies, manufacturers, startups, investors and research institutions. The event’s central message was...

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was founded in 2001, evolving out of the "Shanghai Five" security dialogue among China, Russia and three Central Asian states formed after the Soviet collapse. The SCO gives India...

In late August 2026, China's J-16s dogfought Egyptian Rafales in a first-of-its-kind exercise, Russia revived its Su-57 pitch to India even as New Delhi signalled the deal was dead, and Turkish and Chinese transport...

On August 20, 2026, India and Japan signed their first-ever defence-only joint statement and a landmark maritime security pact. It's not just paperwork - it's a signal that two of Asia's biggest democracies are...

Words matter in diplomacy, and Bangladesh's foreign affairs adviser Humayun Kabir chose his carefully. Asked whether Dhaka would join the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement - the pact Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed on...

Nearly six months into the US-Israel war on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz has become less a shipping lane than a rhetorical battlefield. This week that theatre reached a new pitch: Donald Trump posted...

Adecade ago, India was grouped among the "Fragile Five" emerging markets, battered by inflation and a weak rupee. That narrative has been rewritten. India's nominal GDP has roughly tripled from ₹106.57 lakh crore in...

Eighty years ago, on August 15, 1947, India woke up to a freedom it had to build almost from scratch - a fractured economy, a freshly drawn and bloody border, and a place in...

Every great trade route in history has rewarded whoever mapped, secured and normalised it first - Venice on the spice routes, Britain on Suez and the United States on the post-war Pacific. China now...