Content

1. A year of dissipating promises for Indian foreign policy
2. The urban future with cities as dynamic ecosystems

A year of dissipating promises for Indian foreign policy

Why is it in News?

• 2025 began with high diplomatic expectations for India — renewed great-power engagement, trade deals, energy partnerships, and regional outreach.
• By the end of the year, these expectations unravelled across four critical domains:
  • Economic security
  • Energy security
  • Global strategic stability
  • Regional security
• The year highlighted the limits of performative diplomacy, the risks of over-reliance on great-power goodwill, and widening vulnerabilities in India’s neighbourhood and external partnerships.

Relevance

• GS-2 (International Relations)
  • India–U.S., India–China, India–Russia relations
  • Sanctions, tariffs, immigration, energy security
  • Regional security, cross-border terrorism, neighbourhood policy
  • Role of great-power politics, changing global order, NSS realignment

Practice Question

• “India’s foreign policy in 2025 reveals the limits of performative diplomacy.”Discuss with reference to economic security, energy choices and regional challenges. (15 marks)

Basics & Background 

• Post-2024 elections, India aimed to re-energise foreign policy activism through:
  • High-level summits and bilateral visits
  • Reset in ties with the U.S. under Trump-2.0
  • Progress on long-pending Bilateral Trade Agreements (BTAs) / FTAs
  • Re-engagement with China and Russia
  • Outreach to the neighbourhood and extended neighbourhood
• Mid-year onwards, developments produced strategic frictions instead of gains.

Key Facts & Data

• U.S. Tariffs
  • 25% reciprocal tariff on Indian exports — hit apparel, gems & jewellery, seafood.
  • 25% surcharge on Indian purchases of Russian oil.
• Russian Oil Imports
  • Imports rose to ~$52 billion before sanctions pressure tightened.
• Trade Negotiations
  • FTAs signed: U.K., Oman, New Zealand
  • Pending: U.S. and EU (the major expected deals of 2025).
• India–China
  • Links restored: flights, visas, pilgrimages
  • LAC security guarantees unresolved
  • Economic restrictions on Chinese investments unchanged
• Regional Security
  • Pahalgam attack (April 2025) → Operation Sindoor retaliation
  • Questions over loss of Indian jets weakened credibility
  • Emergence of Saudi–Pakistan mutual defence pact
  • Ties strained with Türkiye & Azerbaijan
• Neighbourhood Political Flux
  • Bangladesh regime-change fallout (2024)
  • Nepal Gen-Z protests (2025)
  • Uncertain transitions ahead of 2026 elections
  • Myanmar elections under junta control.

Issue-wise Overview

Economic Security

• Tariff escalation by the U.S. reversed trust-building trends.
• Impact concentrated on:
  • Labour-intensive export sectors
  • MSME-linked value chains
• Withdrawal of GSP earlier + new tariff regime → competitiveness loss.
• Immigration restrictions on H-1B visas
  • Risk to remittances, a key foreign exchange stabiliser.
• Trade diplomacy gap
  • FTAs signed were secondary partners
  • High-value agreements (U.S., EU) remained unfinished.

Strategic takeaway: India’s export-growth model remains vulnerable to policy swings in major markets.

Energy Security

• Russian crude became a low-cost anchor post-Ukraine war.
• New sanction wave + U.S. surcharge → potential compulsion to reduce / exit Ural crude.
• Precedent risk: Similar exit earlier from Iran and Venezuela under U.S. pressure.
• India–Russia summit outcome:
  • No breakthrough in defence, energy, nuclear, space
  • Raised doubts about strategic depth of the partnership.

Strategic takeaway: Energy choices now carry economic + geopolitical reputational costs.

Global Strategic Environment

• 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy shift:
  • Softer references to China & Russia
  • India’s role narrowed to Indo-Pacific + critical minerals
• Indications of U.S.–China accommodation (“G-2” narrative) increased anxiety in Asia.
• Peace plans in Gaza & Ukraine criticised as status-quo-favouring.
• China’s promotion of alternative “Global Governance” frameworks signalled
  • Contest to Western-led rules-based order.

Strategic takeaway: The world moved toward transactional alignments and power bargains, shrinking space for middle-power diplomacy.

Regional & Security Environment

• Pahalgam terror attack exposed:
  • Persistent cross-border threat capability
  • Gaps in internal movement surveillance
• Operation Sindoor:
  • Tactical success
  • But limited diplomatic backing for cross-border response
• Speculation over aircraft losses eroded credibility.
• Pakistan’s posture hardened under Field Marshal Asim Munir.
• Saudi–Pakistan defence pact changed West Asian strategic equations.
• Political volatility in Bangladesh & Nepal reduced predictability.
• Myanmar elections reinforced junta-first architecture.

Strategic takeaway: Regional theatre turned fragile, reactive and escalation-prone.

Interpretation & Strategic Implications for India

• Over-reliance on summit optics & symbolic gestures does not secure outcomes.
• Performative diplomacy ≠ structural gains.
• Economic, energy, and strategic vulnerabilities now intersect, creating:
  • Supply-chain risk
  • Alliance uncertainty
  • Neighbourhood instability
• India must address credibility gaps in messaging vs practice:
  • Democracy, minority rights, and neighbourhood advocacy must be consistent.
• With global politics becoming transactional, India must:
  • Anchor policy in institutional depth, economic resilience, energy diversification, and neighbourhood trust-building.

Lessons for 2026

• Move from symbolism to substance in diplomacy.
• Prioritise trade competitiveness over tariff-exemption dependency.
• Diversify energy sources & payment channels to reduce sanctions shock.
• Strengthen deterrence + diplomatic coalition-building simultaneously.
• Adopt consistent principles on democracy, rights, and regional norms.
• Develop a clear Indian vision for global order reform, not only reactive balancing.

The urban future with cities as dynamic ecosystems

Why is it in News?

• The editorial highlights the growing debate on urban inclusion, migrant integration, and linguistic barriers in Indian cities.
• Rapid urbanisation has intensified concerns about:
  • Exclusion of internal migrants
  • Language-based discrimination in services, jobs, and governance
  • Design of cities that privilege “insiders” over “new residents”
• The article argues that urban planning often ignores belonging, identity and cultural diversity, creating what it terms an “invisible linguistic tax” on migrants.

Relevance

• GS-1 (Society & Urbanisation)
  • Internal migration, identity, belonging, social exclusion
  • Urban diversity and demographic change
• GS-2 (Governance & Welfare Delivery)
  • Barriers to access: language, documentation, service design
  • Inclusive urban governance, participatory planning

Practice Question

• “Language exclusion functions as an invisible economic tax on urban migrants.”Explain the statement and suggest policy measures for inclusive urban governance. (15 marks)

Basics & Background 

• Cities are economic, political and technological hubs, but they are also social ecosystems shaped by people.
• Migration to cities drives:
  • Labour supply
  • Construction, services, gig economy, manufacturing
  • Knowledge and creative economies
• However, urban planning traditionally assumes a static, homogenous resident, overlooking:
  • New migrants
  • Linguistic minorities
  • Culturally diverse populations

Core conceptual problem:
Cities are designed as physical infrastructures, not as human habitats of belonging and identity.

Key Facts & Data Context

• Urbanisation in India
  • 36% of India’s population lives in urban areas (World Bank est., 2023); projected to cross 50% by 2047.
• Internal Migration
  • Over 450+ million internal migrants (Census & PLFS trends).
  • Major flows: UP–Bihar → Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Punjab, Karnataka.
• Language Diversity
  • India has 22 Scheduled languages + 1,600+ mother tongues (Census 2011).
  • Most municipal & welfare documents remain monolingual.
• Labour Profile of Migrants
  • High concentration in construction, domestic work, transport, gig platforms, food delivery, hospitality, informal trade.
  • Informal employment share in urban labour market: ~70–75%.

Implication: Migrants sustain cities economically but face institutional and linguistic exclusion.

Core Argument of the Editorials

The “Invisible Linguistic Tax”

• Migrants are expected to assimilate linguistically (“speak like locals”).
• Failure to do so results in:
  • Difficulty accessing jobs, housing, health care, welfare schemes
  • Barriers in documentation, contracts, and grievance redress
  • Exclusion from formal economy → greater vulnerability to exploitation

Economic outcome:
Language exclusion → lower earnings, informality trap, limited mobility.

Misaligned Urban Planning Assumptions

• Cities are planned for the already-settled resident, not the newcomer.
• “Smart cities” become smart only for the documented and linguistically aligned.
• Migrants become administratively invisible despite contributing:
  • Labour
  • Taxes (GST, indirect taxes)
  • Urban productivity

Structural flaw: Planning ignores dynamic demographic change.

Governance Without Cultural Diversity

• Planning institutions often lack:
  • Linguistic diversity
  • Migrant representation
  • Community voice
• Policies on schools, transit, housing, public spaces fail to reflect:
  • Multilingual needs
  • Social realities of mobile populations

Result: Cities become exclusionary by design.

Why This Matters ?

• Economic risks
  • Under-utilisation of migrant skills
  • Productivity loss due to bureaucratic exclusion
• Urban resilience risks
  • Weak social cohesion
  • Heightened informalisation and precarity
• Democratic risks
  • Unequal access → erosion of rights and belonging
• Planning risks
  • Infrastructure success without social inclusion fails development outcomes

Central message:
Cities succeed only when infrastructure + empathy + belonging move together.

Policy & Reform Lens — What Needs to Change?

Designing Cities “for All” — Key Directions

• Multilingual urban interfaces
  • Welfare, transport, municipal services in multiple major migrant languages
• Inclusive documentation
  • Simplified forms, icon-based instructions, translation support desks
• Cultural-sensitivity training
  • Frontline staff: hospitals, ration offices, police stations, transport hubs
• Participatory planning
  • Representation of migrant communities in ward committees
• Urban social integration policies
  • Community spaces, language-bridging programmes, local networking platforms
• Shift from static to dynamic planning
  • Cities designed as evolving social ecosystems, not closed settlements

Takeaways

• Urbanisation & Social Justice
• Internal Migration and Informality
• Language, Identity, and Access to Governance
• Human-centric vs Infrastructure-centric Planning
• Inclusivity as a pillar of Sustainable Cities (SDG-11)

Conclusion

• The editorials argues that the true measure of urban success is not roads, metros, or glass towers — but whether people feel recognised, secure, and “belong”.
• Empathy and belonging are not soft values; they are core drivers of economic efficiency, democratic legitimacy, and social resilience.