Ashmit Mishra

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation turned twenty-five this year. Created in 2001 as a six-member Eurasian security grouping, it has expanded into a ten-member forum bringing India together with China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus and the four Central Asian republics. Its members account for more than 40 per cent of the world’s population and roughly a third of global output. India became a full member in 2017 for specific reasons: a standing seat alongside Russia and China, access to a...

What Piyush Goyal’s Japan Visit Means for India Japan Economic Ties More than 200 Indian business representatives accompanied the Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal to Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka between 24 and 27 August 2026, forming India’s largest business delegation to Japan. The latter met Japan’s economy minister, Akazawa Ryosei, chaired a semiconductor and artificial intelligence roundtable with around 21 Japanese companies and addressed Keidanren. The visit followed the...

On 7 August, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, declaring that an armed attack on one would be treated as an attack on all. Naturally, the comparison with NATO's Article 5 followed immediately. In truth, the pact is better understood as three states converting overlapping security interests into a shared institutional framework than as a finished military alliance: a commitment has been signed, but the mechanisms that would give it completed...