In 2019, Delhi left the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) due to concerns regarding asymmetric exposure to unchecked Chinese manufacturing for the Indian market through ASEAN routes. The exit was not irrational by any means; the concerns about arbitrage regarding rules of origin were justified. However, this has left India as the largest economy in the region behind China, without a diversified trade anchor to rely on. Illustration by The Geostrata Now, joini

FROM THE MCMOHAN LINE TO MODERN CLAIMS: THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF THE DISPUTE India's neighbourhood is marked by complex geopolitical realities, with both Pakistan and China posing distinct challenges to its security, diplomacy, and regional interests. The India-Pakistan relations are clearly adversarial in nature. In addition to cross-border terrorism, Pakistan uses a number of other asymmetric methods, such as narcoterrorism, disinformation campaigns, diplomatic hindrances, a

The most momentous trade route in Asia is not marked on any state cartography. It does not feature in economic surveys, permeate in infrastructure summits or govern headlines like nautical bottlenecks and energy corridors. Despite this, it traverses some of the continent's geopolitically charged, vulnerable terrain from the hinterlands of Afghanistan and the deserts of Iran to the untamed highlands of Myanmar and the turbulent borderlands of Northeast India. Its freight is ne

India is one of the fastest-growing energy markets on the planet, while being the world’s third-largest consumer of crude oil and the second-largest importer. Yet for a country whose economy depends substantially on imported oil, the strategic reserves portray quite an alarming story, a vision where infrastructure has grown but not quite fast enough. Illustration by The Geostrata THE SCALE OF DEPENDENCE To understand why India’s oil storage matters, it is imperative to first

Contemporary India’s strategic environment is like the Chakravyuh from the Mahabharat. The Chakravyuh was a military formation, and it had multiple layers to not only attack but also isolate the opponent from all sides. Abhimanyu knew how to enter it but not how to exit. The present situation of India is similar to that of Abhimanyu’s. Illustration by The Geostrata The layers of the Chakravyuh are a strong analogy to the present layers of encirclement faced by India. The fir

The world as a civilisation progressed through the firm establishment of trading routes among ancient empires, through the maritime routes, evolving to the nuanced Silk Road and then to the creation of the World Trade Organisation. These collective events highlight how important trading has been for any evolved civilisation throughout history across timelines. In the contemporary world, trading is not just limited to the material exchange but has gone beyond to establishing g

Headlines about the latest Ebola outbreak in Central Africa grab your attention immediately- rising numbers, warnings from international agencies, and fears of the virus crossing borders. For a short time, the disease was back in the headlines. On 15th May 2026, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Level 1 and Level 3 Travel Health Notice for people travelling to Uganda and the DRC, respectively. Illustration by The Geostrata Just a day later, the

The emergence of critical minerals is increasingly seen as a major driver of both national security and economic growth. This centrality of “future minerals” is driving a fundamental transformation in U.S. foreign policy. Washington's engagement with partner nations is being determined by a vision to diversify and secure supply chains despite global disruption. Within this evolving policy framework, Pakistan has emerged as an unexpected beneficiary due to the country's report

The ever-growing trend of bilateral FTAs in the global economy today can provide lessons to New Delhi amid its own push for the same. One such example would be Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia has been restructuring its EU FTA since 2025. The agreement focuses on adding value to the Malaysian semiconductor industry and on moving from assembly to chip design and fabrication. Trade access is being used as leverage to secure technology and R&D investment. Illustration by The Geostrata Th

“The Pakistani state’s oppression on its own people is a reality, which becomes into an cowardly irony whenever they face off against their avowed enemy, India.” A THROWBACK IN TIME The partition of India was not just a political division; it separated millions of people who had once fought together for freedom. It was based largely on religious demographics, creating Pakistan as a separate homeland for Muslims, while the rest became India. The real challenge was not drawing

Nobody voted for Palantir to run immigration enforcement. Nobody elected the NSO Group to decide which migrants get surveilled. And nobody asked Clearview AI to scrape over 60 billion publicly available images into a facial recognition database and then license it to immigration investigators operating in contexts where algorithmic error has no formal accountability mechanism. Illustration by The Geostrata Yet here we are. Across the United States, the European Union, and a g

A MARKET CATCHING FIRE India, however, is changing its journey. The subcontinent of a billion people is no longer shifting gears to the growls of petrol engines, but to silence. India’s 2025 total retail sales of electric vehicles exceeded 165,000 units, with battery electric vehicle sales reaching 176,500 units, a 77 per cent increase for all categories of vehicles in 2025, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Illustration by The Geostrata Two-wheelers and thr

On 10 June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will surpass Pt Nehru as India's longest-serving elected Prime Minister, and when a leader breaks a longevity record, the first temptation is to treat it as a sporting achievement. It represents a significant moment in the history of the world's largest democracy, inviting reflection on the two leaders who shaped India in vastly different eras. Illustration by The Geostrata Narendra Modi's emergence as a transformational and charismati

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

As it is said, a developed country is not a place where the poor have cars, but where the rich use public transport. Chasing this hallmark of progress, India’s transport has undergone a near-total metamorphosis. In the past two decades, the rapid urbanisation of the economy has demanded a modern, fast and efficient network of connectivity, evident in the increasing traffic congestion and delays, which cost the economy an estimated $22 billion each year. In this scenario, metr

Taiwan's coast guard reported on 6 June that a Chinese coast guard vessel and an oceanographic survey ship operated in unison around the Pratas Islands, the first documented case of paired civilian-coded assets at this remote atoll. The conventional read frames this as another grey-zone irritation, one of more than thirty annual incursions since February 2024, to be absorbed and ignored. Illustration by Geopolitics Next That reading misses the structural shift. Pratas sits as

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

In January 2026, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Niccolo De Masi, the chairman and chief executive of IonQ, delivered a warning of the “Q-Day” that should have dominated front pages. The "Q-Day", as he highlighted, refers to a moment when quantum computers become capable of breaking the public-key encryption that currently secures virtually all modern digital communication. Illustration by The Geostrata As per his estimation, this condition could arrive within three ye

Urban surfaces generally are made from asphalt or concrete, which soak up a lot of solar energy during the day, holding it until night, and causing cities to be much hotter than the surrounding areas. For a long time, we've thought of cities and nature as two very different things: cities are monuments to human industry, and nature is a place where wild things grow. Illustration by The Geostrata But this separation is proving deadly as the world's cities grow and the "Urban H

India is the most populous country in the world, the second-largest economy in Asia after China, and the nation that guided a spacecraft to the lunar South Pole on a budget smaller than a Hollywood blockbuster. It built a payment infrastructure so seamless that a fruit vendor in Varanasi and a startup founder in Bengaluru share the same digital wallet. It is, by almost every measure, a country that has learned to live at the speed of data. Illustration by The Geostrata And it