India's nuclear energy programme is entering a defining new phase with the successful commissioning of the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR), growing international partnerships, and a renewed policy emphasis on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and private-sector participation. As India is seeking to meet its rising energy demand, fulfil its climate commitments, and strengthen its strategic autonomy, nuclear energy has re-emerged as a long-term development strategy. Illustra

The Chinese industry cannot keep up with Western companies when it comes to manufacturing the most advanced dynamic random access memories (DRAMs). This analysis rests on the assumption that the semiconductor restrictions imposed by the United States limit China’s ability to obtain the latest generation of fabrication nodes – 7 nm, 5 nm, and 3 nm. Such an assumption becomes less and less relevant as time goes by. Illustration by The Geostrata This is the logic that has domina

Artificial Intelligence was created as a niche field that used to focus mainly on research and on creating machines that were capable of performing tasks that normally require human intelligence. Early innovators thought of AI as a tool that would solve complex problems, automate repetitive work, and enhance human capabilities. Illustration by The Geostrata For decades, the development of AI was limited to just laboratories and specific industries and focused on improving eff

The Golden Dome Missile Defence Initiative is a plan to create a new missile defence system announced by the United States in 2025. It is similar to Israel's Iron Dome, but much bigger and is sought to be even more effective. Unlike the Iron Dome, which is primarily designed to intercept short-range artillery projectiles, the Golden Dome aims to defend the entire United States against a wide spectrum of aerial threats. Illustration by The Geostrata It will integrate ground-ba

$54 billion will be spent by the U.S. Department of Defense on autonomous warfare technology, even as it remains undecided as to what these technologies are really authorised to do. Rather, it is an operational gap being widened at the very time that speed and scale are wiping out the decision hierarchies of war. Illustration by The Geostrata With the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG) budget proposal for fiscal year 2026-27 and National Security Presidential Memorandum

India produces some of the world’s most talented and capable engineers. Its universities file patents at a pace that would make most countries envious. IIT Madras alone generated more than one patent a day in the year ending March 2025. India is home to over 100 unicorns and ranks as the world's largest startup ecosystem. Some of the most successful technology companies in the world are run by Indian origin engineers. And yet somewhere along the way India lags behind. Illust

As per scientists and experts, in case humanity survives existential incidents such as climate collapse, global natural disasters, a nuclear conflict, AI misalignment, or any other uncertainty, life 1000 years from now would be something remarkable and unthinkable for the human species. Scientists predict that in the year 3025, there will be significant advances made in biotechnology and artificial intelligence, as well as nanotechnology, which will change the dynamics of hum

The 20th century was the era of the aggressive extraction of rare-earth metals from the bowels of the earth. The strategic autonomy of the 21st century may well be defined by what grows under our feet. The global race for technological supremacy has become a brutal war over hardware as the geopolitical gulf between Washington and Beijing grows. The statecraft now is in semiconductors, data servers, and sophisticated communication arrays. But this high-tech, digital empire is

In 1527, two armies clashed on a plain in northern India at the Battle of Khanwa. Across the field, Rana Sanga commanded a larger force, built on cavalry, tradition and numbers, an army that represented the established logic of warfare at the time. Babur stood opposite him. His army was smaller, but it carried something new: Gunpowder. What followed was not just a battlefield triumph, but a shattering of expectations. It was not only Babur’s victory, but a signal that the nat

In Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings, there exists a handful of crystal orbs that possess immense powers. These orbs allowed their possessor to communicate across vast distances and view events that were occurring anywhere in Middle-earth. But one of the orbs was later obtained by the series’ main antagonist to conquer the entire Middle-earth. Tolkien named these orbs Palantíri (seeing stones). This influenced four young men to brand their tech company, which would later

THE RISE OF FOREIGN-OWNED GCCS AND THE QUIET DECLINE OF INDIA'S IT GIANTS The story told about Indian IT is a story of disruption. Artificial intelligence, the argument goes, is automating the work that built a $224 billion export industry, the code-writing, the testing, the legacy migration, and the national champions that built it are scrambling to adapt. That story is true. It is also incomplete in a way that matters. Illustration by Geopolitics Next The more significant s

Throughout history, geography has influenced the fate of empires. For many centuries, lands that lack coasts have been described as landlocked or held captive to the land due to the need to pay tolls to pass through the territory of their neighbour country to access an ocean to use for shipping goods out of their country. The depiction of landlocked territories as prisoners or land-bound will soon change in the near future; when the new Silk Road is completed in April 2026, t

Persistent coverage across oceans, deserts, border regions, transportation corridors, offshore platforms, agricultural zones, and remote industrial locations is something that Space-Based IoT has long promised but terrestrial connections are unable to completely provide. However, there is a structural barrier in the industry. When many low-power devices try to connect to the same network simultaneously, traditional satellite IoT systems have trouble. Illustration by The Geos

THE LAUNCH: A NEW DAWN IN SPACE EXPLORATION On April 1, 2026, at 6:35:12 PM EDT, NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket launched off - Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Ending a 53-year streak, as humankind set off towards our natural satellite.Carrying the Orion spacecraft and Integrity module with 4 astronauts on board. Artemis II is the first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years. Illustration by The Geostrata NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman

There is an idea so deeply woven into how we build and govern software that most people in the industry have stopped noticing it is even an idea, and the idea is that software is a tool. The human thinks, the software executes. Every SaaS contract ever signed, every product liability ruling ever handed down, every regulatory text written about information technology in the last four decades takes this separation as a given, the way a fish takes water as a given. We talk about

India stands at a structural inflexion point in global history. The international system is no longer defined by the rigid binaries of the Cold War nor by the temporary unipolar moment that followed. Power today is fragmented, fluid, and multidimensional. In this evolving order, India is no longer a peripheral balancer. Illustration by The Geostrata It is one of the defining poles shaping the architecture of the twenty-first century. Yet there remains a strategic paradox. Whi

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has swiftly broken into the global hierarchy of space launch providers, proving itself as a formidable competitor in the heavy launch vehicle market. While SpaceX is widely recognised for its reusable technology and the European Space Agency known for its cemented historical prestige, ISRO has established itself as a “reliable cost-efficient leader” for medium-to-heavy-lift missions. Illustration by The Geostrata By combining comp

The Defence Procurement Manual (DPM) 2025 is a revision of DPM 2009, which instates the rule for revenue procurement (spares, repairs, MRO, ICT, services). The DPM 2025 came into force on 1st November 2025. This roughly governs Rs. One Lakh Crore of annual revenue procurement by the three Services and MoD Organisations. Cover by The Geostrata DPM 2025 is divided into two volumes: Volume I- This highlights the principles, procurement methods, delegated authorities, contract ru

Picture a harried executive trying to book a business trip to Singapore. She opens her laptop, tabs between airline websites, compares hotel prices, checks meeting schedules and rental car availability. Forty minutes later, having navigated a dozen interfaces and mentally converted time zones, she has cobbled together an itinerary. Now imagine her colleague doing the same task. He types a single sentence into an AI assistant: "Book me three nights in Singapore next month, nea

Every smartphone you tap, e very glass window you look through , and every road you drive or walk on has one common, silent but irreplaceable ingredient: sand. The world uses more than 50 billion tonnes of sand a year , the equivalent of building a wall 27 meters high and wide, surrounding the entire planet! Far from being an infinite source, high-purity silica sand is not a trivial and plentiful resource. Illustration by The Geostrata Rather, it's purified into silicon, wh