As the third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi commences, the world is watching keenly what changes and continuities emerge. While Modi might appear to be constrained by the compulsions of domestic politics, it is unlikely to have much of an impact on India's external engagements. Modi has fundamentally altered the way India engages with the world, and that trajectory will continue to unfold over the next five years under his leadership. This is a critical moment in the global order and India's centrality to the emerging order is now well-established. With the Modi government continuing in office, it offers India's partners and adversaries a new opportunity to assess their ties with New Delhi.

For India's partners, the Modi continuity ensures that the framework around which engagement with India was built over the last decade will remain in place and that it will be made more robust going forward. The Modi government has succeeded in altering the very nature of India's partnerships by making them key to enhancing India's strategic autonomy. Instead of close alignments being viewed as a constraint, there has been an emphasis on building robust partnerships........

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