Grand Tamasha

The U.S.-India relationship today sits at a crossroads. Over the past two decades, Washington and New Delhi have drawn steadily closer—driven by shared concerns about China, expanding economic ties, and a growing Indian diaspora in the United States.   But the partnership is also facing new uncertainties: geopolitical turbulence in the Middle East, shifting trade dynamics, and questions about the...

For decades, Bangladesh has long oscillated between competitive democracy and dominant-party rule. In 2024, mass protests brought an abrupt end to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s long tenure in power, opening the door to Bangladesh’s most consequential election in more than a decade, one that returned the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to power and reshaped the country’s political landscape.   With H...

We tend to think of populist leaders around the world as disruptive—skeptical of international institutions, impatient for change, and prone to upending foreign policy norms. But a new book by scholars Sandra Destradi and Johannes Plagemann argues that—while populists can have dramatic impacts on foreign policy—the extent of change depends on two key factors: the personalization of foreign policy...

Over the past year, Europe India relations have entered a markedly upbeat phase. What was once a diffuse partnership long on rhetoric, short on strategy now looks far more purposeful.  From the announcement on a long-delayed EU-India Free Trade Agreement to expanding cooperation on security, technology, and migration, Europe and India appear to be finally converging around a shared strategic logic...

After years of trade skepticism, India appears to be back in the deal-making business signing new agreements, reviving stalled talks, and announcing ambitious frameworks with key bilateral partners.  A few weeks ago, the European Union and India announced a mega-trade deal that was more than two decades in the works. And just days after this news broke, the White House announced that the United St...

Over the past few years, South Asia has witnessed a striking wave of mass protests toppling governments and upending long-standing political arrangements in countries ranging from Bangladesh to Nepal and Sri Lanka. These upheavals are often explained in terms of domestic factors—such as corruption, economic mismanagement, and democratic backsliding.  But in a recent Foreign Affairs essay titled “T...

U.S.-India relations were once described as one of Washington’s MOST important strategic bets in the twenty-first century. But over the past year, that partnership has come under serious strain buffeted by trade disputes, sharp rhetoric, and deep disagreements over Pakistan and Kashmir.  In the current print edition of Foreign Affairs, Lisa Curtis and Richard Fontaine argue that this rupture is no...

2026 is shaping up to be a hectic political year in India. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appointed the relatively unknown Nitin Nabin to take over as party president. The BJP and its opposition challengers are gearing up for high-stakes assembly elections in five states later this spring. And the Election Commission of India (ECI) is in the midst of a...

Grand Tamasha is Carnegie’s weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced with the Hindustan Times, a leading Indian media house. For six years (and counting), host Milan Vaishnav has interviewed authors, journalists, policymakers, and practitioners working on contemporary India to give listeners across the globe a glimpse into life in the world’s most populous country. Each December, M...

Despite a year marked by tariff battles, confusion over Washington’s China policy, and the shock of the 2025 India–Pakistan war, one part of the U.S.–India relationship has held firm: bilateral defense cooperation. The two sides recently announced a new defense framework, are deepening links between their private sectors, and are boosting military-to-military ties. To review the state of the U.S.-...

This year, the non-profit Educate Girls became the first Indian organization ever to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award often called Asia’s Nobel Prize. The foundation recognized the group for its groundbreaking work enrolling out-of-school girls, improving learning outcomes, and shifting social norms in some of India’s most underserved communities. It’s a remarkable milestone for an NGO that began...

India and the United Kingdom have spent decades trying to define their post-colonial relationship part partnership, part rivalry, and often, part courtship. Today, that relationship is being recast amid trade talks, tech cooperation, and geopolitical shifts. The two sides recently signed a landmark trade agreement and officials in London and New Delhi are sounding a new tone of optimism about what...

Bihar has once again delivered a political drama worthy of its reputation record turnout, sharp debates over the voter rolls, a decisive victory for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and a fresh round of questions about whether the opposition has what it takes to displace Modi and the BJP. The NDA anchored by Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal (United), together with the BJP and other allies, s...

How do non-state armed groups act when the state seeks not to crush them but to tolerate their activities? This is the central question of a new book by the political scientist Kolby Hanson titled, Ordinary Rebels: Rank-and-File Militants between War and Peace. Kolby is an assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University, and his new book looks at how state toleration fundamentally transfo...

For much of India’s democratic history, the woman voter has either been invisible or ignored at times she has been spoken for, but very rarely listened to. A new book by the journalist Ruhi Tewari argues that this is no longer the case and seeks to understand why women have emerged from the political shadows. What Women Want: Understanding the Female Voter in Modern India draws on years of journal...

As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait—were bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known officially as the “Indian Empire,” or more simply as the British Raj. And then, in just fifty years, the Indian Empire shattered. Five partitions tore it apart, carving out...

A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India's Development Odyssey is a landmark new book by the scholars Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian. The book is an audacious attempt to trace how India uniquely and daringly attempted four concurrent transformations—building a state, creating an economy, changing society, and forging a sense of nationhood under conditions of universal suffrage. It is the joint...

Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud was the fiftieth chief justice of India. An alumnus of Harvard Law School, he served as additional solicitor general of India. He was appointed as a judge of the Bombay High Court in 2000 and became the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court in 2013. In 2016, he was elevated to the Supreme Court of India, where he served as chief justice from November 202...

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced a stunning $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, the main channel through which U.S. employers hire foreign professionals in technology, engineering, and research. The move has sent shockwaves through America’s innovation ecosystem, prompting fears that companies will either look abroad or scale back their ambitions at home. Few countries will be as...

One of the most surprising developments in Washington, if you’re a South Asia-watcher, is the surprising turn in U.S.-Pakistan relations. Having largely sidelined Pakistan over the past decade or more, the current U.S. administration has courted Pakistan with an enthusiasm that has caught many analysts off-guard. In June, Trump hosted Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, in the White House. A few we...

For a quarter century, Washington policymakers made a strategic bet on India premised on the belief that shared values, shared interests, and a shared strategic convergence in Asia would bind these two countries together as ‘natural allies’ in the twenty-first century. All of this optimistic talk came crashing down to Earth a few months ago with the Trump administration’s decision to slap 25 perce...

India’s once-flourishing ties with Washington have soured in Trump’s second term, marked by punishing tariffs and penalties over Russian oil. This turbulence reinforces New Delhi’s instinct for “multi-alignment,” and the desire to hedge between great powers rather than bet on any single partner. Against this backdrop, a new paper by the journalist and analyst James Crabtree argues that now is the...

A Man for All Seasons: The Life of K.M. Panikkar is the new book by the author Narayani Basu. It documents the life and times of one of modern India’s most fascinating characters. Panikkar defies simple description. He was a journalist who founded the Hindustan Times; a bureaucrat who advised India’s princely states; a poet, a philosopher, and an international relations scholar. He served as India...

Believer’s Dilemma: Vajpayee and the Hindu Right’s Path to Power, 1977-2018 is the much anticipated second volume of author Abhishek Choudhary’s biography of former BJP prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The book traces his life from his stint as external affairs minister in the short-lived Janata government to his death in 2018 following a period of prolonged illness. The first volume of this b...

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order slapping India with a 25 percent special tariff due to its purchases of Russian oil. This surprise measure raised the total tariff on Indian exports to the United States to 50 percent—among the highest rates imposed by the United States on any country in the world. But India is not just “any country.” Over the last quarter-century, i...