Research Articles

How China’s Cartographic Aggression Undermines the Rules-Based Order in the Indo-Pacific

2025, Blog, Research Articles / Shruti Kapil

Author: Shruti kapil, researcher – Security and mutual dependence desk. “Maps are the product of power, and they produce power,” as stated by Geographer J Brian Harley. In 2023, the release of a new “standard map” by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources drew strong reactions from at least six or seven countries due to its expansive territorial claims. The map particularly angered China’s neighbours, as it included not only Taiwan but also portions of the maritime zones of the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia, as well as disputed land belonging to India and even territory belonging to Russia, so-called China’s ally. This is not the first time China has used cartography to project power and assert control in this region. Beijing has been doing so over the years through repeated visual dash lines, massive island-naming campaigns, repeated toponymy of borderland/ethnic regions, artificial-island reclamation, and renaming. These are not random incidents, but systemic, iterative changes used as part of a broader strategy to create facts and justify subsequent administrative or coercive steps. This is psychological warfare, as maps serve as critical instruments in shaping global public opinion on territorial disputes. They function as ideological tools for educating populations, shaping perceptions, and fostering a collective national consciousness. By changing the map, one can change how the world is viewed. Repeated map publications condition domestic and foreign audiences to perceive Chinese claims as legitimate, an effect explained by the illusory truth effect in Psychology. Figure 1 : The standard map released by China in 2023, claiming maritime zones and territories belonging to several countries as its own. Legal, Economic and Security Implications China’s cartographic aggression is a strategic weapon with legal, security, and economic implications, challenging the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific. Legally, it undermines international law by disregarding the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the binding 2016 Hague Tribunal ruling that invalidated the nine-dash line. On the security front, China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea and its assertion of control over disputed territories create potential flashpoints in the Indo-Pacific region. Economically, the region is extremely significant as it accounts for 65 percent of the world’s population, 63 percent of the world’s GDP, and 46 percent of the world’s merchandise trade and 50 percent of the world’s maritime trade. Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea position it to control or choke supply chains, potentially impacting all key players in the Indo-Pacific region. Figure 2: Official reactions to China’s 2023 standard map by multiple countries directly affected by its claims. Blind spot in the Western Strategy While China’s standard map received sharp reactions from countries directly affected by it, the response from the West was limited, unclear, and insufficient, highlighting a blind spot in Western strategy in the Indo-Pacific region. The territories claimed by this map in the Himalayas and the South China Sea are part of China’s expansionism, which has implications for all key stakeholders in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. gave the clearest legal rejection of the map’s maritime claims. Most European governments (UK, France, Germany, EU institutions) framed their responses around coercive conduct, safety and UNCLOS, rather than issuing a single-sentence legal denial of the 2023 map itself. None of the countries, including the US condemned China’s territorial claims in the Himalayas. Often, territorial disputes in the Himalayas are viewed separately from the issues in the South China Sea, a perspective that is rapidly changing. Figure 3: Territories in Himalayas (Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh) illegitimately claimed by China in the 2023 map. Source: Reuters If India, emerging as a net security provider in the Indo-Pacific, is embroiled in border disputes and militarisation due to China’s territorial claims, it will remain occupied in the Himalayas while instability continues in the South China Sea. In essence, flashpoints in the Himalayas (Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh in Fig. 3), particularly the India-China border tensions, constrain India’s Indo-Pacific strategy, forcing it to prioritise border security. This hinders India’s ability to project its influence in the Indo-Pacific and introduces uncertainty and complexity into broader regional dynamics. Preserving a Free, Open, and Rules-Based Indo-Pacific A multifaceted approach that raises the legal, reputational, economic, and technical costs of unilateral changes to maps is necessary, as cartographic aggression thrives on cheap repetition, amplification and adoption by neutral third-party. There is an urgent need to introduce a form of regulation that governs the usage of maps and the consequences for not adhering to such regulation at the international level. Firstly, countries such as the US, UK, and the EU, which advocate for a free, open, and rules-based Indo-Pacific, should openly condemn China’s unilateral actions and reject the map entirely. This is crucial because claims in the South China Sea and the Himalayas significantly impact the Indo-Pacific strategy, and a clear rejection, free from ambiguity, is necessary to prevent unilateral map changes from becoming a future norm. Current silence especially in the Himalayas allows China to solidify its claims without consequence. Secondly, condemnation alone is insufficient to counter China’s grey-zone tactics in the Indo-Pacific region, as China’s interests outweigh the costs. Prioritising legal and reputational pressure on the international stage, through ICJ advisory opinions or UNGA resolutions concerning unilateral name changes and territorial claims by China, would set a precedent not only for China but for any country making such claims in the future. Thirdly, key stakeholders in the Indo-Pacific should advocate for a “Responsible Mapping Code of Conduct” to ensure tech platforms, publishers, and logistics firms do not become inadvertent vehicles for Beijing’s territorial claims. Also, introducing mandatory “disputed” markers and disclaimers on contested areas, thereby limiting their worldwide dissemination. Conclusion China’s cartographic aggression extends beyond mere lines on a map it represents the psychological shaping of the geopolitical battlefield. The result is a weakened rules-based order, and a dangerous precedent for unilateral territorial expansion. For the UK, US, and other Indo-Pacific partners, the question is no longer whether to respond, but how, because

How China’s Cartographic Aggression Undermines the Rules-Based Order in the Indo-Pacific Read More »

The Civilisational-State: An Alternative View on India’s Foreign Policy

2025, Blog, Research Articles / Pravar Petkar

Author: Pravar Petkar, Head of strengthening democracy desk For many, India is an enigma. It simultaneously styles itself the ‘Mother of Democracy’ whilst maintaining a close relationship with authoritarian Russia. Government Ministers proclaim that India’s Hindu cultural heritage lays the foundations for a secular democracy, yet India’s Prime Minister publicly inaugurated the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, near the birthplace of the deity Rama, on the site of a disused mosque – appearing to favour one community over the other. India has the cultural credentials to foster pluralism, yet there are growing concerns over polarisation between Hindus and Muslims. Navigating this complexity and India’s apparent contradictions cannot be reduced to a battle between autocratic nationalism and liberal democracy, or secular pluralism pitted against the influence of religion. It requires engagement with a wider range of ideas, starting with the concept of the ‘civilisational-state’. This reveals an India that is increasingly deploying its ancient past to sustain a contemporary identity that is beginning to shape its future engagement with the world. The idea of the civilisational-state has garnered greater attention as the international order has become increasingly multipolar, and as liberal democracy has appeared increasingly under challenge. Most often applied to Russia, China and India, it signals a challenge to the decades-long dominance of the model of the Western European liberal nation-state. In its place, each aspiring civilisational-state seeks to root its domestic and foreign policies not in universal liberal principles such as individual rights, freedom and the rule of law, but in a construction of a historical ‘civilisational’ culture. Thus, the CCP roots China in Confucianism, Putin’s war rhetoric is rooted in an idea of Russkiy mir (‘Russian world’) that is both nationalistic and rooted in Orthodox Christianity, whilst India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar claims India is “one of the few civilizational states that has survived the ravages of history.” Even the US State Department has, in May 2025, invoked a shared civilisational heritage with Europe rooted in the natural law traditions of medieval Christianity. Each represents a distinct identitarian moral landscape derived from that movement’s construction of the past. Though the governance practices of the civilisational-state vary from country to country, four key elements can be identified. First, it purports to represent a group defined not by territory, but by ethnicity, culture or religion – including members of the group located outside that state. Second, this group is often defined through cultural nationalist movements whose claims are then invoked by governments and the state apparatus. Third, civilisational-states challenge the dominant liberal and multilateral institutions, and the values and principles on which they are grounded. Finally, they assert that their political, social and economic thought is grounded in distinct ‘indigenous’ paradigms rather than the intellectual heritage of the West. Scholars such as the late Christopher Coker have suggested that India cannot be a civilisational-state because its cultural diversity prevents the cultural essentialism implicit in civilisational-state thinking. Yet an examination of India’s contemporary foreign policy and constitutional practice suggests otherwise. India’s claims to be a civilisational-state begin with the global presence of its diaspora – and in particular, those within the diaspora who identify as ‘Hindu’. The most obvious example of a policy that favours its diaspora is its Citizenship Amendment Act 2019. This provides an accelerated pathway to citizenship for certain religious minorities – Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians – from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who entered India without a visa on or before 31 December 2014. It aims to protect those facing religious persecution, yet has been criticised for communalising the basis of Indian citizenship; notably, this route is unavailable to Muslims, including the Rohingya and Ahmadiyyas persecuted in these countries. The Hindu diaspora – which for some includes Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains – is front and centre of the groups that benefit from this policy. This emphasis on the diaspora is carried over into India’s bilateral engagement elsewhere in the word. Around half of the population of Mauritius is Hindu. On state visits, both the Prime Minister of India and India’s External Affairs Minister have regarded the diaspora as the primary driver of the India-Mauritius relationship based on shared culture, heritage and kinship, as many Mauritian Hindus are descended from indentured labourers. A further emphasis on access to Hindu pilgrimage sites in India and the importance of the deity Rama in Mauritius point to a geopolitical relationship driven by cultural factors. On this view, India’s support for Mauritius’ claim to sovereignty over the Chagos Islands may be more than just a hedging strategy against Chinese influence. The cultural nationalist movements that feed the civilisational-state construct a ‘deep past’ that provides historical underpinning for an articulation of identity. References to an ancient Indic ‘deep past’ have been increasingly deployed over the last decade to frame India’s relationships with China and many of its Southeast Asian neighbours. On visits to China, India’s Prime Minister has invoked the journey of the seventh-century CE Buddhist monk Xuanzang from China to Nalanda University in ancient India to study Buddhism and carry manuscripts back to China. This establishes a ‘civilisational connect’ between two supposed civilisational-states alongside a contemporary economic relationship. Relations with Thailand have emphasised a centuries-old shared Hindu and Buddhist heritage and cultural tourism. India has promised to undertake restoration and conservation work at temples in Cambodia and Vietnam. Together with its focus on its diaspora, India’s foreign policy increasingly bears an identitarian cultural imprint. India has also used the principles associated with its ‘deep past’ to argue for a vision of international order that challenges the current balance of power. India has been pushing for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council for decades, under several governments – from Narasimha Rao in 1994 and Manmohan Singh in 2011 to Shashi Tharoor in 2013. The UK, France and the USA – under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden – have supported that claim. Behind this commitment to an international order where India plays a greater role, according to its

The Civilisational-State: An Alternative View on India’s Foreign Policy Read More »

Rooted Renewal: Hedgewar and the Indian Tradition of Progressive Conservatism

2025, Blog, Research Articles / Sachin Nandha

Author: Sachin Nandha, Director-General at the International Centre for Sustainability Keshav Baliram Hedgewar does not fit easily into the conventional categories of modern political analysis. He is the founder of one of the most successful grassroot organisations in the world – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which loosely translates to the National Volunteer Organisation, but a better and more meaningful rendition would be Volunteers for Serving the Nation. To some, he is the ascetic founder of a movement that reshaped India’s socio-political landscape by way of building community cohesion. To others, he remains a figure cloaked in suspicion. He is cast either as a cultural purist or a majoritarian ideologue. Yet both portrayals flatten a much more complex intellectual and historical figure. Director-General, Sachin Nandha, recently published a paper which offers an alternative frame: Hedgewar as a Progressive Conservative. In doing so, it argues that his project was neither reactionary nor revolutionary, but deeply constructive. Hedgewar was not primarily interested in political power or in contesting the state (rajya). His vision was for the rāṣṭra, or the nation understood as a living cultural and moral organism, not merely a geopolitical construct. The rāṣṭra as understood by Hedgewar was civilisational – a moral-cultural unity, composed of memory, rituals and the organic unity of people. This would be akin to what Robert Putnam may have described as a civic community sustained by bonding social capital – a dense network of shared traditions, mutual obligations and daily interactions that generate trust, cooperation, and a sense of collective identity. At the heart of this project lay a profoundly conservative instinct: to preserve and renew the moral and civilisational foundations of Indian society. Hedgewar believed that India’s decline under colonialism was not just the loss of sovereignty but the erosion of its civic fabric. This was marked by caste fragmentation, ritualism without meaning, and the collapse of social trust. His response was not to demand rights but to rebuild duties. He did not seek to capture state institutions, but to form individual character. He created shakhas: daily training grounds for cultivating self-restraint, physical vitality, and civic brotherhood. They were, in essence, laboratories of cultural repair. In this sense, Hedgewar stands in a philosophical lineage with figures such as Edmund Burke, who argued that true political reform must be guided by prudence and continuity, not abstract perfection. He shares affinity too with Theodore Roosevelt, whose Progressivism retained a strong moral nationalism and emphasis on civic virtue, and with Jonathan Sumption, the former UK Supreme Court Justice, who has warned that the decline of shared duty and restraint in liberal democracies leads not to liberation but to fragility. Read the full paper here

Rooted Renewal: Hedgewar and the Indian Tradition of Progressive Conservatism Read More »

India’s Climate Finance Taxonomy: A Blueprint for Mobilising Green Investment

2025, Blog, Research Articles / Matthew Watkins

Author: Matthew Watkins, research and Operations Intern. India lies at a crucial crossroads on its pathway to becoming a low-carbon economy. Over recent years, India has cemented itself as a leading climate player; in August 2022, it expanded its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets on GDP emission intensity under the Paris Agreement goals and according to the International Finance Corporation, remains the only G20 nation aligned with 2°C global warming targets. With this substantive progress, however, India resultantly lies at the heart of a financing gap, where over USD 2.5 trillion will be required to meet their updated commitments. To realise the country’s 2070 Net Zero goal and broader Viksit Bharat 2047 (developed India) initiative, India must now “enhance the availability of capital for climate adaptation and mitigation”, leveraging channels of public and private capital both domestically and from international actors alike. A robust climate finance ecosystem must simultaneously act as an enabler, leveraging clarity and transparency in championing climate goals. In this context, India’s draft Climate Finance Taxonomy framework represents a significant step forward. Published by the Department of Economic Affairs in May 2025, the framework seeks to facilitate greater resource flow to climate-friendly technologies and activities by formulating a methodology for identifying/classifying those that contribute to India’s climate commitments. In articulating what constitutes “climate-aligned”, it offers a rare chance for India to harness classifications to unlock finance at scale, especially if policymakers make design choices that link definitions to instruments, governance and performance measurement. What the draft proposes As figure 1 details, the draft frames climate-aligned activity across three distinct categories: mitigation, adaption and supporting transition for hard-to-abate sectors where eligibility is constrained. The framework follows eight principles to ensure credibility and impact. It aims to unlock capital, support innovation, and align investment with India’s Net Zero pathway, creating clear opportunities with preliminary sectoral coverage across clean energy, transport, building, and agriculture. Under the implementation blueprint, India will reinforce the framework through a “hybrid approach”, first applying qualitative criteria to broadly identify climate-aligned activities. Over time, the taxonomy will adopt quantitative thresholds for example, specific emissions savings targets to make alignment measurable and auditable. The taxonomy classifies activities into two main categories in aiming to direct public and private investment toward credible, measurable, and impactful climate solutions across India’s economy: Climate-supportive activities: Includes projects that reduce emissions, deploy adaptation solutions, or contribute to climate goals through research and innovation: Tier 1 – activities directly avoiding emissions like renewable energy. Tier 2 – those that lower emissions intensity with clear pathways for improvement. Climate transition activities: Projects in sectors where low-emission alternatives are not yet viable. The taxonomy provides a pathway for these sectors to decarbonise over time without disrupting their economic function. Crucially implementation is staggered, following the precedent of EU and ASEAN taxonomies. An initial phase focussed on qualitative criteria will be followed by the incorporation of numerical benchmarks for greater precision, with the framework acting as a living and dynamic document that adapts over time. Similarly, the framework incorporates specific provisions to ensure resource flows to agriculture and MSMEs aren’t adversely impacted, utilising simplified and proportionate criteria to address their resource constraints; this likewise recognises the diverse capacities within industrial organisations across sectors in India, allowing inclusivity and proportionality. This design dually preserves domestic flexibility but makes tightening predictable, thus enabling time-bound, target-driven transitional allowances for hard-to-abate sectors while protecting the taxonomy’s credibility. Why a taxonomy is vital to mobilising capital Current climate financing shortfalls in India – exacerbated by constrained domestic bank capacity, fragmented ESG practices, and widespread investor scepticism about green-washing – render the taxonomy as vital to credibly scaling capital. If effectively integrated alongside existing climate-related policy frameworks, a clear taxonomy could lower barriers and form bankable signals in three practical ways. First, it reduces transaction and due-diligence costs; investors and underwriters can use a shared classification to speed appraisal and standardise documentation across green bonds, project finance and blended-finance structures. Second, it leverages public capital to crowd in private investors; sovereign/sub-sovereign green bonds, concessional financing and first-loss/partial guarantees can all be tied to taxonomy alignment, reducing project risk and borrowing costs, whilst unlocking domestic finance and lending. Third, it builds investor confidence by reducing greenwashing risks; routine disclosure, public registries of labelled instruments, performance metrics tied to impact measurement and management reporting, and climate budget tagging. This allows capital providers to track outcomes through the financial system, ensuring fiscal pipelines are aligned to taxonomy-eligible projects. Dynamic interoperability will be a crucial enabler. Mutual-recognition clauses with EU, ASEAN and Gulf taxonomies and clear interoperability rules will reduce repeated verification and legal friction, enhancing accessibility for Indian projects to cross-border and institutional investment from foreign asset managers, sovereign wealth funds and multilateral development banks. With this, however, global precedents highlight true potential: the EU taxonomy helped mobilise large green-bond flows, while ASEAN, Singapore and the UAE have used taxonomy-consistent instruments to attract cross-border capital. In short: design choices – linkage to instruments, measurable metrics, governance and interoperability—will determine whether the taxonomy simply describes “good” projects or actually unlocks the billions India needs for a just, bankable transition. Limitations and Recommendations The draft is an important step, but two structural weaknesses already stand out. First, it remains a high-level framework, missing enhanced detail on sectoral annexures and activity-level definitions. It also explicitly states that “coal-based power will continue to play a role in ensuring energy security, particularly for meeting base-load demand”; such allowances could be a concern, especially if fossil-linked sectors (steel, cement, power) continue lobbying for generous transitional definitions from this anchor point. Together these create an ambiguous signal that risks confusing investors and exacerbating pre-existing implementation challenges. However, these limitations are manageable if the next stage of public consultation is used effectively. India must now also seek to maximise impact by prioritising adaptation finance, recognising that adaptation remains chronically under-funded despite recent momentum. The taxonomy should therefore explicitly ring-fence adaptation-eligible instruments to scale up bankable resilience projects. It should also be anchored within an

India’s Climate Finance Taxonomy: A Blueprint for Mobilising Green Investment Read More »

Open Code, Closed Democracy: Rethinking AI Platforms to Give Citizens A Voice

2025, Blog, Research Articles / Timsa Bajpai

Author: Timsa Bajpai, REsearch and Operations Intern Open code doesn’t always mean open democracy. Today, governments and civic organisations are increasingly using open-source AI platforms such as Pol.is and Decidim to scale citizen participation and deliberation where these tools enable large-scale collective engagement. From Taiwan’s vTaiwan consultations to Decidim Barcelona’s participatory budgeting, these tools bring government and community voices closer together and promise unprecedented reach, that is, anyone can, in theory, view the underlying code, adapt it, and join the process. This openness is designed to build transparency and trust while bringing more voices into policy conversations. However, open source does not mean the underlying code is accessible: making code public is not the same as making the platform, its algorithms, and its outputs understandable to participating citizens. Instead, “open” platforms risk reinforcing closed civic processes: rather than removing barriers, they shift gatekeeping from political elites to technical ones, a tension that remains at the heart of “civic AI.” The Innovation for the Future of Democracy The appeal of AI-facilitated citizen deliberation is clear. International organisations such as the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law have noted that combining AI with civic tech allows decision-makers to analyse vast volumes of citizen input, moderate harmful content, and map discussion themes at scale, which remain impossible to achieve through manual review alone. For instance, vTaiwan employed Pol.is to facilitate large-scale conversations and consensus building on contentious issues, such as Uber ride-sharing regulation. This approach led to the administration ratifying all the Pol.is-derived consensus items into new regulation that democratically shaped Taiwan’s taxi industry for the better. Similarly, Decidim is now deployed in over 477 instances across 32 countries and has mobilised more than 925,000 participants in nearly 428 participatory processes involving 120,000 proposals, ranging from topics like healthcare to climate change. The Problem with the Current Approach Yet despite these successes, in practice, “open” code only helps a narrow community of coders, not the average participant. Most citizens that actively engage with these platforms lack the technical literacy to inspect or meaningfully audit source code, understand the numerical values that determine algorithmic decision-making, or engage with the clustering algorithms that drive AI-based deliberation. According to the OECD, most citizens find such systems technically inaccessible and feel alienated unless those tools are designed for digital literacy levels. Researchers further warn that inadequate computer literacy can undermine the very aim of AI-based civic participation. Even experts at Yale have emphasised that transparency must be paired with clear, accessible communication to sustain public trust. This evidence suggests that when platforms summarise thousands of open-text responses into a few consensus statements, they can misrepresent community sentiment. This is because the process behind the machine learning algorithms and publicly available code is often opaque. Participants cannot see why certain comments were prioritised and others sidelined, or whether minority viewpoints were retained or discarded. This results in transparency in form but opacity in practice. The platform publishes its code, but participants still cannot trace whether their individual input was heard, how it shaped thematic clusters, or whether it ever reached a policymaker’s desk. Why this matters Sustaining democratic participation depends on trust, and trust depends on visible links between input and outcome. Without those links, even motivated participants can disengage. Although it is argued that open code allows for independent audits, a study by Cornell University claims that they often fail because they lack effective institutional design; expert-reviewed audits alone cannot guarantee accountability unless the system around them supports regular oversight and lasting transparency. Whilst these platforms can also broaden reach – and so claim to expand participation – a World Bank blog cautions that they simply amplify the voices of those who can already navigate the technical platform, consequently fragmenting representation. The risk: A New Era of Technocracy If these accessibility gaps remain unaddressed, we risk entering a new form of technocracy. Democratic decision-making will be mediated not by elected representatives alone but by a small group of coders, platform designers, and data scientists. In such a system, the ability to understand and influence outcomes will become tied to technical skill instead of civic status. That outcome would undermine the very promise that open-source civic AI was meant to deliver. Instead of dismantling barriers to participation, it would build new, more complex, harder to challenge barriers that are easier to justify as “transparent” simply because the code is available to the public. A Better Way Forward Making AI-facilitated deliberation genuinely democratic does not require reinventing the technology but embedding a set of governance and design principles that must be applied in concert to close this gap. Plain-language transparencyIn Germany, the Adhocracy+ platform builds in plain-language “how it works” pages for each participation module so that users know exactly what will happen to their input. It offers a multi-language interface, illustrated manuals, and free onboarding workshops. This could be adapted in current AI platforms by adding three tabs into every project section explaining: what data is collected how it is grouped what filters are applied (e.g. toxicity detection) with alternative options such as audio, video or infographic for inclusivity. Traceable implementationIceland has the Better Reykjavik digital participation platform, where citizens submit ideas, debate them in “pros and cons” columns, and vote. Every month, the top ideas are automatically forwarded to the City Council, which is required to post a public response explaining whether the idea is accepted, modified, or rejected. This visible feedback loop lets contributors trace their idea’s journey. A similar system in existing platforms could give each participant a private contribution ID to show real-time status updates and provide the participants with confidence in their inputs. Independent, recurring auditsIn Estonia, a Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI) blockchain guarantees the integrity of government records. Instead of storing personal data, KSI stores cryptographic “hash” or “fingerprint” of logs and documents to detect any tampering, making it verifiable by auditors and the public without needing to only read raw codes and datasets. Current participation platforms could apply this by

Open Code, Closed Democracy: Rethinking AI Platforms to Give Citizens A Voice Read More »

India’s Digital Leverage and the Future of Global Tech Valuations

2025, Blog, Research Articles / Sachin Nandha

Author: Sachin Nandha, Director-General at the International Centre for Sustainability Introduction India is now the world’s largest digital marketplace by users, with more than 850 million internet subscribers and 1.2 billion mobile connections (TRAI, 2024). This scale has made the country indispensable to the business models of the world’s largest technology companies. India accounts for 535 million WhatsApp users (23% of the global total), more than 500 million YouTube users (~20%), around 824 million Gmail accounts (~45%), 380 million Instagram users (17%), and 373 million Facebook users (17%) (Statista, 2024; Datareportal, 2024). Amazon Web Services already derives over 10% of its Asia-Pacific cloud revenues from India, with the domestic cloud market expected to reach USD 17.8 billion by 2027 (IDC, 2024). These numbers illustrate how Indian consumers underpin the user scale and revenue growth on which trillion-dollar U.S. valuations rest. Yet the financial returns accrue overwhelmingly to the United States, with most Indian user data hosted offshore in American-controlled data centres. This imbalance raises questions of digital sovereignty and global economic equity. What would happen if India sought to monetise its user base more directly, either through a levy on foreign platforms or through mandatory data localisation? What if Indian policymakers created the environment for domestic platforms to emerge as competitors to U.S. technology firms? This article considers these scenarios and their implications for India, U.S. technology valuations, and the broader global digital order. India as the Backbone of U.S. Tech Growth The commercial models of U.S. technology firms are based on scale. Advertising revenues, data analytics, and product development all depend on large and active user communities. In this respect, Indian users are central. When Meta crossed the USD 1 trillion market capitalisation threshold in 2021, analysts cited emerging market growth—particularly in India—as a decisive factor (Financial Times, 2021). Yet the average revenue per user (ARPU) in India is just $3.43 per quarter for Meta, compared with $56.44 in the United States and Canada (Statista, 2024). This disparity illustrates the paradox: Indian users drive the scale underpinning valuations, but the monetisation of that scale is realised elsewhere. At present, India functions as a low revenue but high-volume market. The contribution is systemic rather than marginal: without India’s hundreds of millions of active users, the valuation multiples of U.S. firms would look materially weaker. Scenario 1: Monetising Indian Users through Data Localisation and User Levies One possible path is the imposition of mandatory local data storage combined with a levy on foreign platforms monetising Indian user data. India has already moved in this direction. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act (2023) requires sensitive personal data to be processed in India, with strict conditions for cross-border transfers (Government of India, 2023). The Reserve Bank of India has separately required payment system operators to store payments data locally since 2018 (RBI, 2018). These measures have catalysed significant investment in domestic data centres. Market reports suggest India’s data-centre capacity could double by 2026, reaching almost 2 gigawatts as localisation rules drive infrastructure expansion (Cushman & Wakefield, 2023). If India were to formalise a User Revenue Service (URS), foreign platforms could be obliged to share a percentage of revenues attributable to Indian users. To illustrate, if Meta were required to repatriate even 5 per cent of estimated Indian user-related revenues (roughly $2–3 billion annually), that sum could be channelled into building digital infrastructure, supporting research and development, and financing skill development (Statista, 2024). For U.S. firms, compliance costs would rise due to both data localisation and revenue-sharing requirements. Margins could narrow, and in turn, market valuations may need to be repriced to account for new liabilities. However, there are also risks for India. Overly onerous rules could disincentivise investment, limit cross-border data flows essential for global trade and invite retaliatory measures from the United States or other jurisdictions (Carnegie Endowment, 2021). The policy challenge is to ensure fairer value capture without slipping into digital protectionism. Scenario 2: Building Domestic Alternatives The second scenario considers the development of indigenous digital platforms capable of competing with U.S. incumbents. India already has experience in creating robust domestic digital infrastructure. The Aadhaar biometric identity system covers over 1.3 billion people, while the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) now processes more than 10 billion transactions monthly, surpassing Visa’s global volumes in 2023 (NPCI, 2024). These Digital Public Infrastructures (DPIs) illustrate India’s capacity to deliver scalable, inclusive platforms at national scale. By extending this model into consumer-facing applications, India could nurture alternatives to global incumbents. The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) aims to create an open protocol for e-commerce, challenging the dominance of Amazon and Flipkart. A well-capitalised innovation fund such as the proposed INR 25,000 crore (c. $2.5 billion) for AI and advanced computing could similarly incubate competitive social media, cloud, or AI platforms (MeitY, 2024). If successful, such firms would not only serve domestic markets but also export services across the Global South, where affordability and inclusivity are paramount. The geopolitical implication would be a multipolar digital ecosystem, with India positioned as a third pole alongside the U.S. and China. For U.S. technology companies, this would mean intensified competition in markets they currently dominate. For India, it would translate into higher domestic retention of value, enhanced sovereignty over data, and leadership in shaping global standards. Implications for U.S.–India Relations and Global Digital Governance Both scenarios carry implications beyond economics. For the United States, recognising India’s centrality to technology valuations is becoming unavoidable. Digital trade is now a recurring issue in the U.S.–India Trade Policy Forum, and American policymakers must consider how to accommodate Indian demands for greater equity without triggering fragmentation of the global digital economy (USTR, 2023). For India, digital leverage can translate into negotiating power. By coordinating with other large digital markets, such as Indonesia (220m internet users), Brazil (180m), and Nigeria (130m)—India could spearhead a “Digital Users’ Equity Charter” at the G20 or United Nations Internet Governance Forum (Datareportal, 2024). Such a coalition would echo earlier efforts of resource-rich countries to demand fairer

India’s Digital Leverage and the Future of Global Tech Valuations Read More »

From Projects to Systems: Blended Finance and India’s Renewable Energy Transition

2025, Blog, Research Articles / Matthew Watkins

Author: Matthew Watkins, research and Operations Intern. India’s renewable energy (RE) transition is no longer just about ambition, but momentum. In the first half of 2025 alone, the country added a record 22 gigawatts (GW) of RE capacity, the highest six-month addition in its history. Solar and wind dominated the surge, driven significantly by government waivers on interstate transmission charges. While this reflects growing traction across both public and private sectors, its unprecedented scale does however bring its own challenges. For India to achieve its 2030 targets, it will require an estimated $233 billion in investment for solar and wind alone. Although international capital has been instrumental in financing RE projects to date, over half of India’s project debt continues to originate from foreign lenders, leaving developers vulnerable to currency fluctuations and shifts in global risk appetite. Whilst domestic public finance isn’t absent, it isn’t leading either and remains limited relative to private and external sources. If India is to develop more resilient RE systems, the public sector will need to play a more enabling role – not by spending more, but by unlocking deeper domestic capital flows that support long-term transition goals. Why Public Capital Isn’t Leading The Indian state faces a score of competing fiscal obligations; healthcare, food security, social protection, and infrastructure each lay claim to scarce budget capacity and whilst climate-related spending is increasing, by all accounts it still only forms a relatively small proportion of total public expenditure. Less than 10% of total public energy subsidies were allocated to clean energy initiatives in 2023, for instance. Fragmentation across ministries, states, and regulatory bodies further dilutes strategic focus, while bureaucratic inertia and low risk tolerance reduce appetite for innovative financial instruments. Whilst mechanisms such as credit guarantees and viability gap funding for instance, do exist, but are often limited in scope or implementation. Meanwhile, India’s clean RE project pipeline – though expanding – is undercapitalised and spatially uneven. High financing costs, especially outside high-priority regions, remain a persistent barrier and while RE capacity has grown rapidly, usage hasn’t kept pace; non-renewable sources still form over 64% of the country’s operating power capacity and another 30,0000 megawatts (MW) of coal-based capacity is in the pipeline. Rather than steering the transition, public finance has been reactive, failing to provide the early-stage risk cover or downstream signals needed to unlock institutional capital at scale. Addressing these gaps requires more than additional funding. It calls for financing models that better share risk and crowds in private capital at scale. The Case for Blended Finance India’s clean energy transition doesn’t just hinge on how much capital is available but on the kinds of risk it can absorb. Despite India ranking among the world’s most attractive emerging markets for clean energy investment, borrowing costs in such developing countries reach up to three times those in advanced economies, meaning even commercially viable projects often struggle to access affordable, long-term finance. The underlying challenge is structural; currency volatility, uneven infrastructure, and shallow domestic debt markets create a risk environment that deters institutional capital from investing at scale, particularly in early-stage technologies and emerging regions. This is where blended finance has begun to show promise. By using public or concessional capital to take on subordinated risk, governments can shift the risk-reward balance enough to draw in private investors, especially in nascent or underserved sectors; mechanisms including first-loss guarantees, subordinated equity and concessional loans could facilitate this. In India, interventions have already demonstrated how layered capital structures can help reduce tariffs, crowd in institutional players, and accelerate adoption in sectors that otherwise struggle to scale. Case Studies: The NIIF and Simpa Energy India’s preliminary experiences with blended finance offer a useful insight into what catalytic public capital can unlock and where it still falls short. In partnership with the UK government and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund – India’s flagship sovereign-backed platform – launched the Green Growth Equity Fund (GGEF) in 2021. As a $944.5 million RE platform that combines public equity with concessional GCF capital, it crowds in global pension and sovereign wealth funds, enabling risk-sharing across solar and wind projects, supporting lower tariffs in auctions, and attracting commercial co-investors, particularly into utility-scale projects. Whilst successful, its reach remains limited; smaller developers, early-stage technologies, and underserved regions still face significant barriers. Such models thus demand institutional replication and localised implementation. The case of Simpa Energy India offers a complementary model. With a $6 million concessional loan from the Clean Technology Fund, administered by the Asian Development Bank, Simpa was able to expand its off-grid solar home systems across rural India. The approach lowered the cost of entry for households, enabling repayment through electricity bills and recovery of installation costs within 1-2 years. The outcome provided a commercially viable business model that delivered green development co-benefits without relying on grid infrastructure, resulting in its acquisition by energy services group, ENGIE. Blended finance has proven versatile, supporting both large-scale utility infrastructure and decentralised solutions. Yet its application remains mostly tactical, concentrated at the project level. To unlock its full potential, the focus must shift toward system-wide transformation—using blended structures not only to bridge financing gaps but also to align with national climate and industrial strategies, mobilise domestic capital, and establish long-term investment pipelines where public capacity is weakest. Without this shift, even successful one-off interventions will struggle to change underlying risk dynamics or build scalable markets. How to scale the transition from Projects to Systems India’s next challenge lies in designing frameworks that embed projects within institutional ecosystems. Strengthening financial institutions like the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency will be key, utilising blended capital to expand affordable lending across states. Similarly, fund-of-funds platforms that pool risk and enable aggregation can provide impetus, particularly for smaller initiatives such as rooftop solar or rural mini-grids. Central and state government must also look beyond generation to de-risk upstream and downstream assets, ensuring system-wide transformation across the renewable energy supply chain. Bankable development of

From Projects to Systems: Blended Finance and India’s Renewable Energy Transition Read More »

How the UK Can Help the Himalayan Water Crisis

2025, Blog, Research Articles / Shruti Kapil

Author: Dr. Jagannath Panda, Head of SCSA-IPA, and Shruti Kapil, Head of Security and Mutual Dependence Desk Shruti Kapil, Head of our Security and Mutual Dependence Desk, has recently co-authored an article published in The National Interest entitled ‘How the UK Can Help the Himalayan Water Crisis’. In collaboration with Jagannath Panda, the article highlights how Britain is in a unique position to elevate the Himalayan Water Crisis from a regional concern to a priority on the global security agenda, aligning with the UK’s Indo-Pacific tilt. Exploring how melting glaciers, climate-induced weather events, and unregulated dam construction in the Himalayas are destabilising the vital river systems that sustain nearly two billion people across South Asia, they argue that Britain should urgently lead the drive for for transparent, cooperative transboundary water governance, greater scientific collaboration, and international oversight of mega-dam projects. Read the full article here.

How the UK Can Help the Himalayan Water Crisis Read More »

Votes at 16: A Significant Step Towards a Stronger British Democracy?

2025, Blog, Research Articles / Pravar Petkar

Author: Pravar Petkar, Head of strengthening democracy desk On 17 July 2025, the Labour Government officially announced that it would legislate to ensure 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in all UK elections. This implements one of its key manifesto commitments on democracy and harmonises the voting age across the UK. This is a sensible policy measure which can improve democratic participation in the UK at time of deep distrust. However, the success of ‘votes at 16’ relies upon a more robust civic education system than is presently in place, and this reform should be seen only as a stepping stone towards the aspiration of a more participatory democracy. The importance of harmonising policy across the UK The UK Government’s announcement means that 16- and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in every election managed by the UK Government, including local council and mayoral elections in England and Wales, and the UK General Election in 2029. This equalises the voting age across all UK elections: 16- and 17-year olds were given the right to vote for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, and in all other Scottish elections from 2015. In Wales, this age group has been able to vote in devolved elections since 2021. This has made England and Northern Ireland the outliers over the last decade. Scottish Government-funded research identified that one of the main drawbacks of introducing votes at 16 in Scotland was the inconsistency of the voting age across the UK, which this policy change rectifies. Allowing 16-year-olds in Scotland to vote resulted in higher turnout for first-time voters, and over time for those who first voted at that age. With a recent survey of public opinion on foreign policy by the British Foreign Policy group highlighting young people’s disillusionment with the current Government’s strategies, measures such as this are needed to politically re-engage young people. Harmonising ‘votes at 16’ across the UK is, with this context in mind, a sound and sensible policy that is well-placed to improve engagement with democracy. There is no guarantee that it will benefit Labour Some immediate responses to the Government’s announcement accused it of attempting to ‘rig’ the political system. However, recent polling by Merlin Strategy on the voting intention of 16 and 17-year-olds suggests otherwise: the two most popular parties are Labour (33% of respondents) and Reform (20%), with the Green Party third (18%). This is consistent with a wider split between the political opinions of young men and young women: in the UK, young women aged 18-29 are, as of 2024, 25 percentage points more liberal than their male counterparts. Sam Freedman highlights that young women are shifting leftwards politically, and towards parties such as the Greens. Assuming that 16- and 17-year-olds are likely to have similar voting preferences those aged 18-25, extending the franchise could leave Labour electorally vulnerable both to Reform on its right, and the Greens on its left. Votes at 16 requires more robust civic education The main critique of the Government’s announcement from campaigners, policymakers and academics is that there is insufficient focus on strengthening citizenship education. The APPG on Political and Media Literacy’s policy brief notes that young people must be equipped with practical skills to exercise their democratic rights effectively, such as being able to register to vote, decipher a manifesto and think critically about media content in an age of AI-driven misinformation. Research on the introduction of votes at 16 in Scotland and Wales suggests that the lack of citizenship education in Wales to accompany the expansion of the franchise led to lower turnout. In Scotland, secondary school students may be offered Modern Studies classes, which help young people understand how the political system works, but do not assist in helping them to participate in it. What is critical, according to Jan Eichhorn and Christine Huebner, is that citizenship education includes opportunities to deliberate about political issues. As a result, though the Government’s ‘votes at 16’ policy creates opportunities for participation, it fails to ensure the conditions for that participation. Research by the ICfS earlier this year has argued this is critical for effectively strengthening democratic participation. Given this, citizenship education across the UK is in urgent need of reform. Most pupils who entered secondary school in September 2024 will be eligible to vote in the 2029 UK General Election. The UK and devolved governments must work with educational institutions, civic society and community groups to ensure that opportunities for citizenship education are available and implemented well in advance of this. Pilot projects on experiential citizenship education should also be part of this strategy. Experiential learning will be critical not only in providing the practical skills and knowledge necessary for effective democratic participation, but the motivation to do so, by facilitating connections between learners and other human and more-than-human communities. A stepping stone to a more participatory democracy? Although this UK-wide extension of the franchise may improve participation, the existing challenges with the UK’s representative democratic system remain. ‘Votes at 16’ will not change the disproportionality of the First-Past-the-Post electoral system, or the lack of opportunities for citizen engagement outside elections. Eichhorn and Huebner’s research from Scotland also suggests that there is no spillover from extending the franchise to other non-electoral democratic engagement, such as participating in demonstrations or signing petitions. ‘Votes at 16’ is therefore, at best, one element of a wider package of reforms that will enhance democratic participation in the UK; further experiments with participatory and deliberative democracy at local levels are also essential in resolving some of the structural challenges facing British democracy. Equalising the voting age across all UK elections is a sensible policy measure with the potential to enhance democratic participation across the UK. However, its success in the short-term is dependent on urgent reform to the UK’s citizenship education offering, which must be practical as well as theoretical. Governments, educational institutions and civil society must jointly create the space for the education that will support and sustain a more participatory democracy in the

Votes at 16: A Significant Step Towards a Stronger British Democracy? Read More »

From Surveillance to Strike: Operation Sindoor and the Role of Space in Himalayan Regional Security

2025, Blog, Research Articles / Amy Wonnacott

Author: Amy Wonnacott, Research Intern India’s Operation Sindoor in May 2025 marked a milestone in the military application of space-based technology in the Indo-Pacific. Conducted as a response to the Pahalgam attack on 22 April, the operation was characterised by a high level of integration between terrestrial and space-based systems. Using indigenous satellite communications, Earth observation and navigation technology, India conducted targeted defence responses across the Pakistani border. Though it was not the first global example of satellite integration in conflict, as highlighted by the War in Ukraine, it was a significant moment for conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Territorial disputes are ingrained in regional geopolitics of the Himalayas. The Line of Actual Control between India and China remains undefined and contested, and the conflict in Kashmir has long been a cause of tension between India and Pakistan. As the viability of space resources grows, these earth-based geopolitics will be increasingly reflected in outer space, which could have significant security implications for the region. Indigenous Military Satellite Application The unreliability of traditional communication methods in remote border areas makes space-based satellite systems crucial, with significant investment underway to boost their military application across the Indo-Pacific. Since 2015, China has fundamentally restructured its approach to space and launched an arsenal of dedicated military satellites. India’s space program relies on a higher proportion of dual-use satellites (with both military and civilian application) due to a comparatively late inclusion of security into space policy. Both countries emphasise the development of indigenous satellite systems in three key areas to reduce reliance on foreign technology and ensure strategic autonomy. Satellite communications enable secure data exchange between military units through an in-orbit network. China’s emphasis on informatized warfare means that secure communications are integrated into satellites, enabling coverage over a vast area. The COMSAT system has grown by a factor of 12 in the past eight years, and includes the Shentong series of secure military communication satellites. India’s 14 GSAT communication satellites are mostly dual-use, but there are three for dedicated military communication. ISRO has announced programs to boost the GSAT-7 series to enhance network-centric warfare capabilities. Positioning, Navigation, and Timing systems are crucial for missile guidance and troop movement. The US-owned GPS has long been the dominant provider, but both China and India have developed indigenous systems after limitations in access and concerns over dependency. China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system comprises of 46 operational satellites, providing global coverage and critical situational awareness support to military operations. Its rapid expansion increasingly challenges the US, with BeiDou vs GPS becoming a new battle of geopolitical influence. The Indian NavIC system is much smaller, providing regional coverage using a constellation of 7 satellites for dual civilian and military use. It played a key role during Operation Sindoor to provide accurate strike targeting. ISRO claims the system offers enhanced precision due to its regional focus, but there are still challenges of ground infrastructure and network integration. Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) satellites capture imagery for real-time situational awareness. China’s Yaogan series uses optical technology to capture high-resolution images even at night or with heavy cloud cover. Indian satellite observation using the CARTOSAT series has allowed close monitoring of infrastructure developments along the India-Pakistan border since 2005. Data can only be downloaded from CARTOSAT every two weeks, so India retains some reliance on foreign infrastructure, using images from US company MAXAR during Operation Sindoor. In 2025 ISRO announced plans to launch a further 52 satellites dedicated to ISR, completing the move to indigenous capability within this field. This illustrates the geopolitical competition for strategic autonomy in space-based capabilities. Counterspace Capability Satellite technology has become a military target due to its critical role in offensive and defensive strategies across the Indo-Pacific. China and India have rapidly developed counterspace systems which can disrupt, damage or destroy a satellite reversibly or irreversibly to safeguard their own systems. Both India and Pakistan claim that satellite jamming systems disrupted air defence and communications during Operation Sindoor. The application of these systems in conflict scenarios rather than testing indicates the threat which space systems now face. The counterspace landscape has changed significantly in the last two decades. In 2007, China destroyed a defunct weather satellite in a direct-ascent anti-satellite test (ASAT) which caused international outcry as the largest single space debris producing incident in history. It changed the space defence landscape, contributing to the normalisation of ASAT capability. India’s counterspace program has developed as a direct consequence of this, evidenced by demonstration of indigenous DA-ASAT capability, Mission Shakti, in March 2019. Increased reliance on space-based assets and awareness of space sustainability has led to a shift away from hard-kill systems. Instead, states pursue counterspace capability which is diverse, non-detectable and deniable. Technology such as electronic warfare (EW) interferes with radar and communications, disrupting reliance on satellite systems without jeopardising the space environment. China’s counterspace strategy prioritises these soft-kill systems with lower political and escalatory risk. There is evidence of significant EW expansion, which could disrupt data links and access between forces as part of new informatized warfare strategy. An EW drone, tested in 2022, is a significant force-multiplier for China. India’s growing counterspace capabilities echo China’s strategy but are still in early stages. India has completed testing of electronic warfare, and claims that EW systems were crucial during Operation Sindoor to limit Pakistan’s situational awareness, navigation accuracy and munitions capability. ISRO has reported development of a Satellite Navigation System (SNS) Jammer capable of blocking BeiDou signals, a direct sign that India’s counterspace capability is aimed at China. Yet these efforts may negatively impact strategic stability in the Indo-Pacific due to the growing asymmetry between Indian and Chinese military space programmes. Pakistan has recognised India’s counterspace capabilities as a pressing security threat. Its space program is dependent on foreign technology, both for satellite applications and defence, predominately from China. Pakistani capability is boosted by China’s investment, which emphasises their strategic expansion in the Indo-Pacific to counter the influence of India. During Operation Sindoor, Pakistan had access to

From Surveillance to Strike: Operation Sindoor and the Role of Space in Himalayan Regional Security Read More »