Category Thematic Areas

NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar NISAR Satellite 2025 India US Space Cooperation 1

NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) Satellite (2025): India-US Space Cooperation

Background 

India-US space cooperation has evolved from limited technical engagement into a broader strategic partnership. The relationship gained momentum after the 2005 Indo-US civil space framework, followed by the easing of US export controls on Indian space entities during the 2010s. A major step came in 2014, when NASA and ISRO began developing the NISAR mission as a joint project during bilateral discussions.

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Sovereign Green Bond (SGrB) Framework 2022 

In 1693, the British Parliament passed the Million Act for financing the Nine Years' War. Specifically, they agreed to collect all beer and liquor taxes directly toward servicing the new debt. As such, this was one of the first instances of earmarking government borrowing. Making a specific funding source or spending objective to legitimize a borrower's commitment. Modern Public Finance has been retreating from earmarking since then through the consolidation of America's revolutionary debts by Alexander Hamilton to current treasury orthodoxies. According to these orthodoxies, a sovereign's ability to borrow is at its best when it is able to make use of a free flowing, fungible, single treasury account where funds are drawn from many sources to a central point. 

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Fiscal Health Index 2026: Are Indian States Building Sustainable Public Finances?

India's fiscal stability is closely linked to the financial health of its states, which account for a significant share of public expenditure and revenue. Differences in revenue mobilisation, expenditure quality, fiscal deficits and debt levels can create substantial variation in the fiscal resilience of individual states. NITI Aayog introduced the Fiscal Health Index (FHI) as a systematic framework to assess and benchmark the fiscal performance of states. States can track their performance across the five pillars: Quality of Expenditure, Revenue Mobilisation, Fiscal Prudence, Debt Index and Debt Sustainability: year-on-year and identify areas where deterioration is taking place (NITI Aayog, 2026a). 

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Digitising Immigration Management for Secure and Seamless Mobility: The IVFRT Scheme (2010) at Fifteen Years

The Immigration, Visa, Foreigners' Registration and Tracking (IVFRT) programme was sanctioned by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on 13 May 2010 as a Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Plan with budgetary provision of ₹1,011 crore and a project duration up to September 2014 (Prime Minister's Office [PMO], 2026). It aimed to establish a networked and comprehensive digitization process that connects Indian missions abroad and Immigration checkposts and Foreigners Regional Registration Offices (FRROs) and Foreigners Registration Offices (FROs) from visa application to departure (PMO, 2026).

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Quality Control Orders (QCOs) (2016): Assessing India’s Standards-Based Industrial Policy

Policy Update Divya Natarajan Background Quality Control Orders (QCOs) are mandatory technical regulations, issued by Central Government Line Ministries after consultation with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), that require specified products to comply with designated Indian Standards before they…

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Digital Development Compass 2026: Reading India’s Digital Governance 

1. Background: What Is the Digital Development Compass? 

Governments across the world routinely describe themselves as pursuing 'digital transformation,' yet few possess a comparative, evidence-based way of establishing where they actually stand. The Digital Development Compass (DDC), developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), was built to close this gap. Rather than functioning as one more competitive ranking, the Compass is designed as a diagnostic: a visualisation of a country's digital indicators, drawn entirely from publicly available datasets, that allows a government to identify its own strengths and weaknesses and locate itself within a five-stage digital maturity scale.

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