The Hindu Gist - 8th September, 2026
1 . India–Belgium: “Natural Partners”
Growing economic partnership
- India–Belgium ties are expanding beyond traditional trade towards economic, defence, technology and strategic cooperation, despite Belgium being a relatively smaller partner for India.
- The key development is the proposed India–EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA), expe cted to be signed in December; India–Belgium bilateral trade is around $13 billion, with about one-third linked to the diamond industry.
- Antwerp is a global hub for diamond trading, while Mumbai and Surat are major centres of diamond cutting and polishing—creating a natural India–Belgium economic linkage.
- Both sides aim to diversify cooperation into renewable energy and food processing, with a target to double bilateral trade within five years.
Defence & technology: emerging strategic convergence
- Belgium’s high-tech defence industry—including small arms, ammunition and naval defence—offers scope for greater integration with the Indian defence market as India diversifies procurement beyond traditional global suppliers.
- India and Belgium agreed on a MoU for co-development of military hardware and signed a Letter of Intent on defence cooperation, including plans for a resident defence attaché in Brussels.
- Cooperation in defence technology and co-development fits India’s broader push for defence indigenisation and strategic autonomy, while offering Belgium access to India’s growing defence market.
Strategic significance: Europe, China and Russia
- The relationship is increasingly geopolitical, with Belgium and wider Europe recognising India’s “wariness” of strategic autonomy from global powers and its dependence on trade/industrial production, particularly concerning China.
- Modi’s emphasis on democratic values, market economy and “people-to-people ties” provides a foundation for calling India and Belgium “natural partners” despite their different geopolitical positions.
- Belgium’s engagement comes amid India’s wider European outreach, while its ties with Russia remain important; the simultaneous engagement with Belgium and upcoming Putin–Modi interaction demonstrates India’s strategic autonomy and multi-alignment.
- India–Belgium ties illustrate India’s effort to build diversified European partnerships across trade, critical technologies and defence while maintaining strategic autonomy amid the Russia–Ukraine conflict and wider great-power competition.
2. Ground Control — ISRO and space technology as a tool for development
ISRO’s changing role: from state-led programme to wider space ecosystem
- Indian Space Policy, 2023 envisages a clearer division of roles: ISRO should focus on advanced/exploratory missions, while commercial satellite and launch activities increasingly move towards private players.
- IN-SPACe is intended to facilitate private participation; ISRO has clarified that it will “not be privatised or reduced”, but the expanding industry role raises concerns over staff strength, outsourcing and possible job losses.
- India already has a long history of public–private collaboration in space manufacturing, with firms such as L&T and Walchandnagar Industries contributing to the space programme; the newer shift is towards start-ups, private capital and commercial space services.
Space technology must deliver developmental value
- The central question is whether India’s space programme becomes primarily a “source of power” or remains a “tool for social development”—generating jobs, skilled employment and export earnings through space-based services.
- Despite a relatively modest budget of about $2.44 billion for the Department of Space, India has built substantial capabilities, showing the strength of a cost-effective, application-oriented space programme.
- ISRO’s traditional advantage has been its close linkage with developmental applications and manufacturing, rather than merely competing in a global “space race”; this orientation should remain central even as India expands exploration.
- The major opportunity is to move up the value chain from satellites and launchers to value-added satellite-data services, creating an ecosystem around applications in agriculture, disaster management, navigation and resource management.
Balancing space ambition, strategic competition and development
- India cannot ignore space as a strategic domain, particularly with the rapid expansion of China’s space programme; however, strategic ambition should generate wider technological and economic spillovers rather than become prestige-driven.
- The future ecosystem should combine ISRO’s strategic and high-end capabilities with private-sector innovation, capital and commercialisation, ensuring that public institutions remain strong while new entrants expand the market.
- India needs a transparent long-term roadmap defining the respective roles of ISRO, IN-SPACe and industry, so that commercialisation does not dilute institutional capability and exploration remains aligned with national priorities.
- The emphasis should be on “space technology as a tool for development”—converting India’s technological capabilities into export earnings, employment, skilled-labour absorption and public-service delivery, while maintaining strategic autonomy.
3. India’s opportunity to put BRICS back together
BRICS: from reform platform to internal contradictions
- BRICS was originally conceived as a Global South voice seeking reform of global financial and economic institutions and a more equitable multilateral order; India initially saw it as a vehicle for genuine reform of multilateral institutions.
- India’s 2012 BRICS Summit in New Delhi, themed “Global Stability, Security and Prosperity”, reflected this broader geopolitical purpose, alongside initiatives such as the New Development Bank and counter-terrorism cooperation.
- China, however, increasingly viewed BRICS as a counterweight to Western dominance, using BRICS-Plus and BRICS Outreach to expand its influence and build a potential second pole in a future bipolar world.
- Expansion has made cohesion harder: BRICS has grown to 11 members, bringing countries with divergent interests and bilateral conflicts into the grouping; new members have already begun fighting among themselves.
- The principle of consensus is also under strain, with non-consensual documents raising the risk that BRICS may cease to function as an effective grouping.
India’s central dilemma: “non-West” vs “anti-West”
- India has sought to preserve BRICS as a “non-West” group rather than an anti-West bloc, since an explicitly anti-West orientation would conflict with India’s multi-alignment and diverse strategic partnerships.
- This becomes difficult amid Russia–Ukraine, U.S.–Iran and U.S.–China tensions, which are pulling BRICS members in different directions; India therefore needs to prevent their bilateral conflicts from paralysing the grouping.
- India also faces the challenge of China’s disproportionate influence within BRICS and its broader push for alternative global structures, institutions and standards in areas such as AI, digital governance, data, 5G/6G, telecom and satellite navigation.
- Even the push for de-dollarisation/BRICS currency has met limited enthusiasm because several members are uncomfortable with a renminbi-dominated system and prefer alternatives such as national-currency transactions and interconnected payment systems.
Delhi Summit: opportunity to restore BRICS’s original purpose
- The 2026 Delhi Summit offers India an opportunity to revive BRICS’s “original raison d’être”—a platform for reform and stability, rather than allowing it to become an instrument of geopolitical confrontation.
- India should use its diplomatic space to bridge differences among the expanded membership, preserve consensus-based functioning, and prevent bilateral disputes from weakening the grouping.
4 . India can cut steel emissions before coal plants lock them in
India’s steel sector is a hard-to-abate industry, with steelmaking emissions around 12% higher than the global average and accounting for nearly 12% of India’s total GHG emissions. At the same time, steel demand is rising rapidly with infrastructure, construction and manufacturing. The government’s National Mission on Green Steel aims to reduce the sector’s carbon intensity, but the bigger concern is carbon lock-in: new coal-based plants can operate for decades, making early choices on technology crucial for India’s future emissions trajectory.
The key opportunity is to shift away from the conventional coal-intensive blast-furnace route towards cleaner technologies. Greater use of electric arc furnaces (EAFs) and scrap can lower emissions, while green hydrogen-based steelmaking offers a longer-term pathway for primary steel production. However, India faces constraints such as limited scrap availability, high cost of green hydrogen and the “green premium” on low-carbon steel. The study highlighted argues that making these shifts early, while India’s steel capacity is still expanding, can deliver much larger emissions reductions than trying to retrofit or replace coal-based capacity later.
The transition therefore requires policy support and credible market demand, not technology alone. India has begun supporting green-hydrogen steel pilots, while the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) creates pressure on Indian steel exporters to reduce embedded emissions. At the same time, clear definitions and certification of “green steel” are necessary to prevent greenwashing. The central message is that India has a narrow “window of opportunity”: if new steel capacity is built around cleaner pathways now, the country can reconcile its growing steel demand with climate goals, instead of locking itself into high-emission infrastructure for decades.
The Indian Express Gist - 8th September, 2026
No Important Articles today or has already been covered.
