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Malaysia is pursuing two linked goals: tighter state control over refugee management and closer engagement with Myanmar on repatriation. Since 1 January 2026, it has piloted its own Refugee Registration Document (DPP), built on biometric registration and police and immigration screening.

In September, Malaysia’s Prime Minister said 10,493 Myanmar citizens, including personnel, were repatriated.

The piece argues repatriation must be judged not by the number of people returned, but by whether returns are genuinely voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/malaysia-s-changing-approach-towards-myanmar-nationals

France’s protests highlight a growing dilemma for European democracies: the tension between fiscal discipline and popular expectations of economic security, social justice and effective governance.

What began in mid-September as student demonstrations over deteriorating educational infrastructure and teacher shortages has become a broader movement against austerity, rising living costs and political alienation. Public debt is estimated at approximately 119% of GDP.

This piece looks at what France’s unrest means for Europe’s political centre: https://www.orfonline.org/research/how-unrest-in-france-is-putting-europe-s-political-centre-to-the-test

Despite its growing role in biological research, AI does not remove the need for human scientific expertise and judgement. Models can hallucinate, misinterpret literature or data, and produce scientifically inaccurate findings, so AI-generated claims require verification.

Scientific inquiry also depends on contestability, the ability to challenge, reproduce and re-examine findings. That is why transparency about when and how AI is used is important.

This piece examines AI’s evolving role in biological research and why human judgement still matters: https://www.orfonline.org/research/from-algorithms-to-experiments-ai-s-evolving-role-in-biological-research

AI is moving from a tool that assists biological research to an active collaborator in scientific inquiry.

Anthropic recently announced that its Claude system helped identify a previously unknown enzyme system in bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) in approximately 21 hours, work that would typically take a human researcher weeks or months.

Whether such systems can replicate the depth and reliability of human discovery is still unknown.

The piece asks how researchers can ensure AI augments the process in a transparent and accountable manner: https://www.orfonline.org/research/how-ai-could-open-new-avenues-in-biological-research

India is not offering a grand formula to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Its proposal, conveyed during External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to Kyiv in September, has three interconnected pillars: a mutual cessation of attacks on energy facilities and other critical infrastructure; the uninterrupted movement of grain and energy supplies through Black Sea ports; and an end to attacks on commercial shipping in the Black Sea.

The aim is to limit the war’s costs for food security, energy flows and civilian seafarers, without requiring either side to make immediate concessions on the political and territorial questions.

This piece examines India’s Black Sea initiative and why verifiable, reciprocal restraint is its central challenge: https://www.orfonline.org/research/beyond-calls-for-peace-india-s-pragmatic-play-in-the-black-sea

ORF is hosting a conversation with Anisa K. Mbega, High Commissioner of Tanzania to India as part of the Diplomat Diaries.

This edition's discussion will examine the evolving trajectory of India-Tanzania bilateral relations and growing strategic importance of both partners to each other. The session will be moderated by Prof Harsh V. Pant, Vice President – Studies and Foreign Policy, ORF.

🗓️ 30 October | 📍ORF Delhi | Open Event

Register Now 🔗 https://or-f.org/40798

India’s e-bus sales jumped from 37 units in Financial Year 2017-18 to 5,412 in Financial Year 2025-26.

But the cost case often leaves out battery replacement, which can be around 25 to 30% of an e-bus’s cost, according to credit rating agency ICRA. In Kerala, failed battery replacements reportedly cost the state transport corporation about INR 2.8 million per bus.

Contracts must decide who bears that risk before the first bus enters service.
This brief looks at who carries the risk of battery replacement in India’s e-bus contracts and what needs to change: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/a-bumpy-ride-india-s-e-bus-boom-has-a-battery-problem

Russia has taken the Taliban off its list of terrorist organisations and recognised its government. What it has received in return, this piece says, remains a big question mark.

At the eighth Moscow Format talks on 5 October, the regional gathering ended without a joint statement, something Russian diplomacy had expected to secure.

This brief looks at why the forum struggled and what Russia’s deepening bilateral ties with the Taliban reveal: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/moscow-format-on-afghanistan-exposes-limits-of-regional-consensus

During Ukraine’s 2022 counter-offensive to retake Kherson, Starlink was reportedly shut off mid-battle. Ukrainian forces trying to encircle Russian positions lost the attempt entirely.

A similar pattern played out in Iran, when Starlink went live without the government’s consent. In India, the Army recovered a Starlink terminal alongside weapons during operations in Manipur, though how it was being used remains unclear. Different outcomes, same pattern: a private company, not the host state, decided when the network worked.

India has written 29 security conditions into its satellite policy. But those conditions only matter if they can actually be enforced. The satellites, the software, and the final decision-making authority remain with one company, and ultimately one person, based in the US, outside India’s jurisdiction.

This brief argues India should build its own satellite communications capability, even if that means connecting remote regions a little slower: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/starlink-in-india-weighing-sovereignty-strategy-and-security

Girls now match or outperform boys in school completion across India. Yet young women are five times more likely than young men to end up NEET, not in employment, education, or training.

About 88% of NEET young women are doing unpaid domestic and care work.

The piece argues India isn’t short on female human capital, it’s losing it at the exact point where education should convert into work.

Protecting continuity, not just participation, is the real policy fix

Read More: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/india-s-missing-human-capital-the-gender-gap-in-education-to-work-transitions
#GenderGap #India #WomenAtWork

Child stunting in India fell from 35.5% to 29.3% in the latest health survey.
That’s real progress, but it’s the wrong number to chase next: wasting still sits at 19%, and India doesn’t yet have fresh, comparable data on anaemia, which affected 67% of young children in the prior survey. These numbers track physical growth, but they miss diet quality and micronutrients.

The deeper problem isn’t producing enough food. It’s that nutritious food, fruits, pulses, dairy, eggs, is often too expensive or too hard to access, especially as climate shocks and price swings hit these foods hardest.
AI-powered monsoon forecasts already reach 38 million Indian farmers. That proves good information can change decisions, if it arrives early enough.

The piece argues India now needs to connect that same kind of data to nutrition and food prices, through tools like Bharat-VISTAAR, so problems show up before the next health survey, not after: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/digital-transformation-for-affordable-diverse-and-resilient-food-in-india

Western partners withdrew. The UN peacekeeping mission left. That vacuum is exactly where Russia has stepped in, as Mali’s top security partner and Algeria’s longtime military supplier since the 1960s.

Now that Mali and Algeria are repairing ties, Russia could position itself as the bridge between them, but only if it pushes for actual political dialogue, not just more security cooperation.

This brief looks at whether this emerging triangle becomes a path to stability or deeper militarisation:https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/sahel-s-geopolitical-reset-and-russia-s-strategic-opening
#Sahel #Russia #Geopolitics

https://youtu.be/j557eS30eU8?si=9VIBcAgpuN9oioJQ

Climate vulnerability and sovereign credit ratings feed each other. Climate risk weakens a country’s credit standing, weaker credit makes borrowing costlier and that squeezes the very investment needed to reduce the risk in the first place.

But this doesn’t impact every country the same way. India has been stuck in the lowest investment-grade band for two decades, yet clean energy took 83% of its power-sector investment in 2024, backed largely by domestic, bank-led finance.

Africa, by contrast, holds 18% of the world’s population but draws just 2% of global clean-energy investment, even though its infrastructure default risk is among the lowest anywhere.

This brief looks at why the same mechanism plays out so differently for India and Africa, and what that means for climate finance: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/a-costly-climate-sovereign-credit-ratings-and-the-clean-energy-transition

How does India’s telemedicine scale compare globally? eSanjeevani has crossed 500 million consultations, built almost entirely on a public-clinic model where a frontline worker connects patients to a remote doctor.

China’s internet hospitals logged 130 million visits in 2024. Brazil’s public health system recorded 2.53 million telehealth services the same year. Across the OECD, remote consultations made up just 13% of all doctor visits in 2023. India’s reliance on assisted, clinic-based care sets it apart from both.

This brief examines what eSanjeevani’s model reveals about delivering remote care at scale in a large developing economy: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/esanjeevani-at-half-a-billion-remote-care-through-the-public-clinic

Most explanations of Bitcoin’s value start with scarcity and speculation.
But, Bitcoin had value before any of that, because it solved a problem no one had solved before: how do strangers trust each other online without a bank in the middle.
Bitcoin’s price didn’t exist for almost a year after it launched in January 2009. The first real exchange rate appeared in late 2009, and the famous ‘10,000 bitcoin for two pizzas’ trade happened in May 2010.

Bitcoin isn’t an elimination of trust, it’s a relocation of it, away from a single institution and onto code, cryptography, and an incentive structure designed to make honest behaviour more economically rational.

This brief traces how Bitcoin moved from an experiment in trust to a trillion-dollar asset: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/when-code-became-currency-the-bitcoin-experiment-in-trust-and-value

https://youtube.com/shorts/nWwl5v4qQqk?si=fyefdbO60dbpielK

A Geran-5 drone costs Russia about $100,000 to build. Shooting one down with a Patriot missile costs Ukraine $4.2 million.

That math is the real story here, not just the drone’s speed. Ukraine now intercepts only about 60% of Geran-5 drones, down from 95% for other drone variants, while Russia has scaled production to around 3,000 drones a month.

This brief examines why Ukraine faces a three-front problem, drone interceptors, missile stockpiles, and fighter squadrons, all strained simultaneously, and why that may hand Russia a tactical edge without a decisive one: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/jet-powered-drones-a-new-frontier-in-the-russia-ukraine-war

#NewRelease

ORF presents The Defence Cable – Issue 5, a monthly insight on military affairs and defence technology, analysing key developments shaping global defence and security.

This edition examines India’s indigenous Kaveri engine trials for the Ghatak combat drone, private-sector innovation in counter-drone technology, the United States’ push towards autonomous warfare, next-generation uncrewed aircraft, #India–#US military cooperation, #Pakistan’s submarine capabilities, and Houthi advances threatening Red Sea shipping.

Authors: Tuneer Mukherjee Archishman Ray Goswami

Read here 🔗 https://or-f.org/40697

#Defence #DefenceTech #NationalSecurity

Indian states are tagging their budgets to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), splitting money across indicators using a 50-50 or equal-share rule when one scheme serves several goals.

That rule, although mathematically convenient, is factually wrong.
The mid-day meal scheme is the clearest example: 71% of the nutritional impact comes through protein, 21% through calories, and just 7% through iron, yet an equal split credits each a third.

That overstates the meal’s effect on iron deficiency by nearly five times, and understates what it actually does for protein.

This brief examines why states need evidence-based weights, not equal ones, before SDG budgets can actually guide spending decisions: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/splitting-the-rupee-getting-sdg-budget-tagging-right-in-indian-states