The dawn of each new year generally brings fresh hopes for brighter, peaceful, and more prosperous days ahead. Unfortunately, historically speaking, the opposite is often true. Nevertheless, as change is the only constant, nothing stops a nation or society from striving for improvements in all aspects of human endeavour. India, located in South Asia—one of the most volatile regions of the world—despite being the largest and most powerful country in this turbulent expanse, also faces many challenges to its security and well-being. Though India has no expansionist tendencies, securing India’s rise in this war-stricken global ecosystem is indeed a formidable challenge.

India, GDP-wise, is the fourth-largest economy in the world and is gradually climbing to become the third-largest in the coming years. Yet, by GDP per capita, we are at a dismal position of 136 or so in the world, which is hardly a matter of satisfaction. Thus, the Indian government must assiduously work to ensure that our economy is not tainted by sheer monopolistic orientation and the fruits of growth do get disseminated to our masses, some of whom still live under the poverty line. This year, the government will also have to address the one-sided and unfair tariff strategies by our “strategic partner", the US. India’s current handling of its trade ties with the US has been firm and fair, and to ensure our strategic autonomy policy, we should be prepared to weather the storm. On the other hand, India must continue to buy as much oil as it can, at competitive rates, from Russia. For its exports, India must seek new trading partners. Temporary economic losses inflicted by others will have to be absorbed. Anyway, the US too is getting economically isolated to some extent and may soon learn to mend its ways!

On the foreign policy front, India did not appear to have achieved significant successes last year. Though we adhered to our strategic autonomy policies, we should have done better in our neighbourhood. As the principal power of South Asia, India has to find ways and means, both overt and covert, to be of significance to all political parties in their respective nations. Even during Operation Sindoor, when India rightly punished terror-exporter Pakistan, most of the nations, even friendly ones, did not come out to praise India or condemn Pakistan forcefully. India........

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