Former United States Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, said in 1976 that the “interdependence of nations” could lead to the country’s ascent or decline – the same applies to India in the interconnected world order today. So where does India stand in 2023, and who are its friends and foes? Coming off the back of the presidency of the G20 group of nations, and becoming the first country to land on the south pole of the moon, India is receiving considerable global attention and acclaim.  Its relations with the other ‘pillar of a free and open Indo-Pacific,’ the United States, has also been consistently positive. India’s relations in the Pacific, with Asia, are strong, with India being invited to the Forum for India Pacific Island Cooperation; and India and Europe’s mutual agenda to increase economic security has also kept India’s ties strong with that continent. Closer home, India’s long-defended ‘Big Brother’ status in South Asia is slowly changing – for example, India needs to cooperate with Bangladesh. Both countries need the Bay of Bengal, depending on the sea for over three fourth of their trade, and they are in the process of signing the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to cooperate with each other.  

India’s multilateral allyship has led to what external affairs minister S. Jaishankar calls ‘re-globalisation’ – where the centre of activity is no longer the West, but includes the global South. The government has put in place local production-linked incentives, and more companies overseas want to increase economic activity and manufacturing in India. Geopolitics shows its face in other ways, in India’s markets: for instance, the Russia-Ukraine war has meant that India can import crude oil at lower prices. With growing violence in Israel, companies are considering relocating operations to India and countries in the Middle East. 

What other changes can we expect? What is the status of India’s place in the geoeconomic world order today? How does this impact local policy and growth? How is trade impacted by constantly changing geopolitics? To explore these questions, join us for a panel discussion where Menaka Doshi, senior editor, Bloomberg News, will be in conversation with C Raja Mohan, Senior Fellow, Asia Society Policy Institute, and Ridham Desai, managing director, Morgan Stanley.  

Speakers 
                  

C Raja Mohan is Senior Fellow, Asia Society Policy Institute, New Delhi — a division of the Asia  Society India Centre. He is a Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore and was previously the Director of ISAS.

Mohan was the erstwhile founding director of Carnegie India, the sixth international center of Carnegie Endowment for Peace. He has been associated with several Indian think tanks, including the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses and the Observer Research Foundation, and served on India’s National Security Advisory Board from 1998-2000 and 2004-06. He also served as the Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Kluge Center, US Library of Congress, Washington DC, during 2009-10, and convened the India chapter of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs during 1995-2005. Earlier, Mohan was a Professor of South Asian Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and the Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. He has published widely on India's foreign and security policies, Asian geopolitics, arms control, and global governance of new technologies. Mohan most recently co-authored the Adelphi Book, The New Asian Geopolitics: Military Power and Regional Order published by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, London in 2021. He writes a column on international affairs for the Indian Express and the Foreign Policy. 

Ridham Desai is a Managing Director of Morgan Stanley, with 26 years at the firm. He heads Morgan Stanley’s Indian Equity Research team, which is among the top-ranked teams in the country. He has been consistently ranked among the best equity market strategists and analysts in the country over his career spanning over three decades. He has represented Morgan Stanley in several public debates on the equity market and the economy, is a regular media contributor and authored several insightful reports. Ridham is also part of the advisory board of Project Mumbai, a non-profit engaged in improving the lives of Mumbaikars.

Menaka Doshi is an award-winning journalist, editor and television host with close to three decades of experience in covering the Indian economy, the coming-of-age of big business groups and related local and international policy, law and tax matters.  As Senior Editor at Bloomberg India, she works across multi media documenting the most important developments in business and policy through reported stories and interviews with leaders. 

Prior to this, she was founding managing editor at Bloomberg Quint, named in 2021 as among the top three best news websites in South Asia by the World Association of News Publishers. Menaka began her career at CNBC-TV18, where over 20 years she interviewed top business and government leaders, hosted award-winning primetime news shows (India Business Hour, Your World@10),and was host and editor of The Firm, India's first television show on law, tax and audit. In 2005-06, Menaka was awarded the first Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award in the category of Business & Economic Journalism (Broadcast).