The FCRA, or the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, is being widely discussed because, on the surface, it discusses regulation of foreign funding, but when examined in depth, it reveals the modern state’s relationship with organised civil society. It questions two ideas: one is stricter foreign funding controls as an essential tool for protecting national defence and increasing accountability, and the other is a strategy to silence and restrict civil society freedom. Ill

Recent reporting from Taipei Times regarding the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) operational planning highlights a fundamental paradigm shift away from traditional, high-attrition amphibious landing models towards systemic urban paralysis, grey-zone coercion and multi-domain encirclement. Illustration by The Geostrata Moving beyond the classic Joint Island Landing Campaign, PLA strategists are actively refining an operational framework termed “All-Domain Megacity Inc

India's Minimum Support Price regime was conceived as insurance against price collapse for farmers to ensure a sustained channel of stable pricing and income. Six decades later, it has changed from insurance into the primary revenue channel itself, and it tells farmers not just what price they'll get, but effectively what is the best choice of crop to grow because the market guarantees you a price you know and can predict without fail. Illustration by The Geostrata And what i

The world has already discovered India's culture. India is still discovering what it can do with it. For thousands of years, yoga has been an inseparable part of India’s civilizational heritage. It is a philosophy based on harmony of mind, body, and spirit rather than a system of physical postures. Similar to Ayurveda, classical arts, spiritual traditions and indigenous knowledge systems, yoga is a model of a worldview that has been formative to Indian society and continues

India undoubtedly has one of the fastest-growing startup ecosystems in the world. However, one must stop and start asking the question of why almost 9 out of 10 startups fail in India. The answer would provide you with a typical checklist of bad unit economics, copied business models, and businesses that scaled and invested capital before finding adequate product-market fit. Illustration by The Geostrata Every single reason is true, but it is not the primary reason. All thes

The 47th American President, Donald John Trump, declared in his inaugural speech on 20 January 2025 that his legacy would be measured by the “wars we never get into”, while promising a “greater, stronger & far more exceptional” America. Barely a year later, America finds itself trapped in an unending war against the Persian state, two broken ceasefire agreements, and a sharp decline in the world's tacit acceptance of American Greatness. Illustration by The Geostrata As Washin

The Geopolitical architecture of the Persian Gulf is undergoing a profound realignment. For over half a century, the security doctrine of the Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) rested on a foundational, military-centric arrangement: the host states provided territorial basing access and recycled petrodollars into Western financial markets and weapons systems, while the USA provided the deterrent shield against external threats. Illustration by The Geostrata Thi

In 1987, Soviet political scientist Georgy Arbatov told off his American counterparts, saying, “We are going to do a terrible thing to you. We are going to deprive you of an enemy.” The West laughed off the warning, but it should have known better. If there was ever something that held the entire NATO alliance together, it was the common threat of the totalitarian regime beyond the Iron Curtain. Once that threat lost its plausibility, the fractures that had only been masked b

Strolling through the campuses of Harvard, Yale, or Stanford, you will find buildings named in honor of alumni, research funded by graduates, and scholarship funds that generally pay tuition for those who would otherwise never access these facilities. Contrasting this with IIT or Delhi University, you rarely find even a similar equivalent. Buildings generally end up being named after politicians or bureaucrats instead, and scholarships almost always only come from the governm

When a rocket takes off from Sriharikota, millions witness the countdown, ignition, and separation of the craft from its launcher. But those few moments of the launch are the result of many years of effort behind the scenes. There is a team behind each successful mission designing spacecraft, writing code, analysing data, planning trajectories, and preparing for conditions that might never be seen on television screens. Illustration by The Geostrata Among these groups working

The multi-front conflict in the Middle East has brought about a significant geopolitical change, one that is going beyond headlines of price surges and shipping disruptions. The tactical confrontation is in the spotlight, but a much more fundamental structural realignment is taking place in the region of Eurasia. This battle has unwittingly catapulted Asia's two superpowers into a high-stakes, asymmetrical game of chess. In New Delhi, the battle is considered mainly a problem

Minamitorishima is Japan's easternmost territory, the only island east of the Japan Trench. It is a coral atoll of roughly 1.5km2, covered in trees, grass, and little else besides a species of gecko and large colonies of seabirds. It is administratively part of Ogasawara, a municipality governed as part of the Tokyo metropolis. From the nearest inhabited Japanese island, it is still over 1200 kilometres away. Under international law, every island generates a 200-nautical-mile

“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” In the case of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Türkiye and a number of other Gulf states and even NATO, abrasive US policies threaten to shake these eternal interests and inflict collateral damage. Illustration by The Geostrata Signed in Mecca on 7 August 2026, the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement brings Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan

Thirty years is a long time to have a relationship without showing up. Despite the absence of a prime ministerial visit between 1993 and 2026, India and Slovakia consistently strengthened their diplomatic, defense, and economic partnership. The lack of a high-level visit did not diminish the importance either country attached to the relationship, which continued to grow through sustained engagement across multiple sectors. Modi came to Bratislava in June, and commentaries soo

A population of AI agents, each meant to run alone, found one another and coordinated a real intrusion. The lasting questions are about oversight, not villains. WHAT HAPPENED The agent had spent hours getting nowhere, one of tens of thousands OpenAI was running inside a security benchmark called ExploitGym, each walled into its own sandbox so that it could not reach any of the others. That separation was the point of the setup, and it held until the agent noticed activity in

In the last few years, especially after COVID-19, the world order has been fragmented with strategic uncertainty and gradual erosion of persisting traditional security arrangements. The post-Cold War liberal international order, which often relied on stable alliances, multilateralism, and most importantly of all, predictable, responsible leadership by major powers, is being transformed into a more contested landscape. Cover by The Geostrata Amid such global flux, countries an

Human judgement is influenced not only by facts but also by how those facts are presented. The 21st century is an era that has seen transformation in how narratives are created, shared, and consumed. Digital content that reaches global audiences instantly and at an unprecedented scale. In the geopolitical sphere, perceptions of countries have been shaped not by direct experience but by selective framing. The way a country is portrayed influences diplomacy, strategic partnersh

The apparel industry, which includes ready-made garments such as shirts, trousers, dresses, jackets and other clothing, is one of the world’s largest sources of employment and international trade. It is especially important for developing countries because it creates millions of jobs, requires relatively low investment to start manufacturing, and provides opportunities for women and small businesses. Illustration by The Geostrata As global demand for clothing continues to gro

The perception of biological threats as marginal biosecurity issues had been prevalent for decades. States feared accidents, lab security issues, and disease monitoring. The premise of such a way of perceiving biological threats was that biological capability presupposed rare assets – money, knowledge, equipment – that remained rare and thus visible. This is no longer the case. The same developments that have led to genetic cures for cancer and sickle-cell anaemia have made p

The signing of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan on August 7, 2026, has generated significant sensationalism. Commentators have labelled it an "Islamic NATO," pointing to its collective defence clause modelled on NATO's Article 5. However, rigorous strategic analysis requires moving past declarative intents to examine the material, geographical, and industrial realities governing the signatories. Illustration by The Geostrata Rather than