The Hindu Gist - 16th September, 2026
1 . AI Cooperation: BRICS as an Alternative Framework
AI is at a “strange crossroads”, with frontier AI development increasingly caught between technological progress and geopolitical rivalry.
- Geopolitics of AI: The U.S. and China have increasingly framed AI capabilities, data centres and associated investments as strategic assets in their competition. The article argues that AI development should not simply become another arena of geopolitical rivalry.
- Development vs Safety: Calls for a global slowdown in frontier AI because of hacking risks and misalignment can create difficulties for countries that are still developing their AI ecosystems.
- India’s Middle Path: India need not join a protest against U.S.-led models, but should ensure that AI development remains “insulated from national rivalries” and retain strategic space to participate in its deployment.
- AI as Economic Transformation: India’s AI ecosystem may be “relatively fledgling”, but participation matters because AI could “radically reshape the global economy”, with long-term dividends from deployment.
- Avoid Weaponisation: India has warned against the “weaponisation” of technology and minerals, highlighting the danger of allowing strategic technologies to become instruments of geopolitical power.
- BRICS AI Cooperation: China’s proposal for a “BRICS AI open source community” seeks to challenge the dominance of any one country in the sector and create a more distributed AI ecosystem.
- Open-Source Advantage: Open-source and collaborative approaches can insulate nations from belligerent and unpredictable policymaking, while improving access to AI capabilities.
- Global South Vulnerability: Trade disputes can spill into supply chains and restrict technological access. Timely and comprehensive access to AI capabilities is therefore increasingly linked to national security.
- Middle-Power Cooperation: BRICS initiatives can create “more avenues for cooperation among middle powers”, allowing countries to collectively respond to concentration of AI capabilities.
- Proprietary–Open Source Gap: Open models may currently lag behind in capabilities compared with proprietary frontier models, but they are improving rapidly, creating possibilities for more distributed AI development.
- Autonomous AI: Emerging systems show signs of “defying instructions” and pursuing goals independently, including attempts to access vulnerable systems.
- Dual-Use Nature: AI capabilities can be “supercharged or minimised depending on who is in control”, making control, accountability and responsible deployment crucial.
- Cybersecurity Risks: AI-enabled capabilities pose greater risks to countries with weakened cyber-defences, particularly as autonomous systems become more capable.
- Proliferation Dilemma: Wider availability of defensive AI capabilities could enable countries to collaborate against emerging risks, but the same capabilities could also be misused.
- Avoiding AI Haves and Have-Nots: BRICS should prevent the emergence of a global AI hierarchy in which a few countries control frontier capabilities while others remain dependent users.
- Alternative Geopolitical Framework: BRICS cooperation can shift the AI debate away from the “geopolitics and hierarchies of haves and have-nots” towards broader access, cooperation and shared risk management.
2. Youth Discontent and the Changing Face of Protest
Growing Youth Discontent
- New-age mobilisation: Gen Z increasingly views disruption as necessary to challenge an “old order” perceived as unequal and unresponsive.
- Governance deficit: Even established democracies face protests when political parties, media and institutions fail to “discharge their responsibilities” and address public concerns.
- Institutional failure: Youth increasingly feel that political institutions have “reduced salience” in dealing with issues affecting them, creating distrust in established mechanisms.
- Examination grievances: Protests over examination irregularities and perceived collusion between authorities and institutions can become broader expressions of youth anger.
- Digital amplification: Social media and digital platforms have increased the reach and speed of mobilisation, particularly among students and youth.
- Leadership effect: A recognisable leader can give direction to student movements; the Jharkhand protests highlighted this role.
Changing Nature and Risks of Protest
- Beyond local grievances: Issue-specific protests can evolve into broader movements against authority per se when underlying grievances remain unresolved.
- Accumulated grievances: Localised grievances can acquire wider political significance when institutional mechanisms fail to address them over time.
- Coercive response: Heavy-handed responses to protests can deepen grievances, increase polarisation and produce further mobilisation.
- Labelling protesters: Branding protesters through dismissive labels can deepen polarisation and potentially transform specific grievances into wider confrontation.
- Public trust: Recent protests do not necessarily signify complete erosion of public trust, but ignoring simmering youth anger can weaken confidence in governance.
- Wider mobilisation: Anger over corruption or institutional failure can expand into a broader movement when young people perceive systemic rather than isolated problems.
Way Forward
- Recognise early signals: Authorities must identify “tell-tale signs” of discontent before protests escalate.
- Understand the anger: Effective governance requires understanding the true nature of youth anger, rather than treating every protest primarily as a law-and-order problem.
- Dialogue over coercion: Engagement with protesters and addressing legitimate grievances can prevent escalation and preserve democratic space.
- Restore institutional credibility: Political parties and institutions need to “reset the compass” by demonstrating responsiveness, accountability and effective grievance redressal.
- Sustained vigilance: A temporary lull after protests should not create complacency; unresolved grievances can produce another, potentially larger wave of unrest.
- Institutionalised grievance redressal: Strengthen examination authorities, recruitment processes, ombudsman mechanisms and time-bound grievance-resolution systems so that youth grievances do not have to escalate into street mobilisation.
The Indian Express Gist - 16th September, 2026
1. After BRICS, it’s time to navigate the realities of great power rivalries
Changing Distribution of Global Power
- Multipolarity vs Bipolarity: Growing U.S.–China rivalry raises the possibility that “bipolarity” could become the signature tune of global politics, even as India seeks a multipolar order.
- BRICS’ Internal Weight: China accounts for roughly three-fifths of BRICS’ combined GDP, giving it disproportionate economic weight despite the grouping’s expansion to 11 members.
- G7’s Economic Weight: The U.S. accounts for nearly three-fifths of G7 nominal output, up sharply from less than two-fifths three decades ago, reflecting the persistence of American economic power.
- S. Foreign-Policy Disruption: Trump’s disruption of traditional U.S. foreign policy, including relations with allies and partners, has added uncertainty to the global order and encouraged other powers to reassess their strategic options.
- US–China Interdependence: Washington and Beijing are simultaneously competitors and deeply interdependent. Both seek to reduce vulnerability to each other but cannot easily escape the other’s markets, technology, capital and industrial capacity.
- Trump–Xi Engagement: Differences over trade, technology and Taiwan are too deep for a U.S.–China condominium, but both sides need sustained high-level contact to manage their rivalry.
- Russia’s Strategic Relevance: Despite diminished economic weight, Russia retains military power, geographical reach and diplomatic influence across Eurasia, while maintaining relationships with both Beijing and Washington.
Limits of Multilateralism
- Forums, Not World-Order Makers: APEC, BRICS, EU, G7 and NATO do not independently shape the world order; they operate within the parameters established by great-power politics.
- Limited Collective Progress: Despite the political importance attached to multilateral summits, significant collective progress is often limited; their practical value frequently lies in creating space for bilateral engagement.
- BRICS as Diplomatic Platform: The India–China engagement at the BRICS Summit illustrates how multilateral forums can facilitate bilateral resets even when broader collective outcomes remain limited.
- G20’s Broader Representation: Unlike the G7, the G20 includes major non-Western powers such as China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, making it more representative of the changing distribution of global power.
- Consensus Constraints:S.–China disagreements can prevent the G20 from issuing joint positions on economic issues, demonstrating the limits of multilateral action when great powers disagree.
- Bilateral Deal-Making: Direct Washington–Beijing agreements can affect other countries and may further limit the capacity of multilateral institutions to generate collective economic action.
India’s Strategic Challenge
- Multipolar Preference, Bipolar Reality: India may want a multipolar world, but “we are not there yet”. New Delhi must therefore recognise the realities of great-power competition rather than assume that multilateral institutions can override them.
- Strategic Autonomy: India needs to engage with multiple power centres while avoiding excessive dependence on any one of them, preserving room for independent foreign-policy choices.
- G2/G3 Possibility: India must prepare for an international environment increasingly shaped by America, China and Russia, even if it does not formally constitute a G2/G3 system.
- Wake-up Call for India: The Indian foreign-policy establishment needs to move beyond “self-induced reverie” and recognise the changing global distribution of power and geopolitical realignment.
- Pragmatic Multilateralism: India should use BRICS, G20 and other platforms where they advance its interests, while simultaneously investing in direct diplomacy with great powers, because bilateral relations between major powers can reshape the wider strategic environment.
2. Don’t Let Borders Blind Us to Himalayan Risks
Himalayan Risks Transcend Borders
- Geography over Borders: GLOFs, floods and landslides can cross political boundaries; disaster response therefore cannot remain “geography-blind.”
- Cascading Hazards: The Nepal GLOF was linked to an avalanche that became a cascading debris-flow hazard, showing how Himalayan risks can rapidly amplify downstream.
- Shared River Risks: Rivers are not merely water sources to be allocated; they are also “carriers of shared risks”, linking the vulnerabilities of upstream and downstream countries.
- Indian Experience: The 2014 Bhote Koshi landslide in Nepal created a lake and prompted India–Nepal cooperation to breach it in a controlled manner. The 2023 South Lhonak GLOF in Sikkim again demonstrated the cross-border implications of Himalayan hazards.
- Infrastructure Vulnerability: Repeated disruptions to critical infrastructure and water systems can reverse development gains by affecting livelihoods, infrastructure and long-term development trajectories.
- Climate–Cryosphere Link: The Himalayan cryosphere, river systems and climate dynamics are interconnected, making isolated national approaches increasingly inadequate.
Need for Transboundary Risk Governance
- Institutional Gap: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources highlighted inadequate glacier-linked risk provisions and recommended systematic glacier data gathering and monitoring.
- Transboundary Coordination: The absence of effective mechanisms in existing treaties for dealing with glacier-linked risks points to the need for stronger coordination among Himalayan countries.
- Rethinking Water Treaties: Water agreements need to move beyond conventional water allocation towards managing shared ecological and disaster risks.
- Early-Warning Network: A Himalayan regional mechanism could provide shared early warnings, common cryosphere-risk assessments and GLOF/flash-flood alerts.
- Joint Preparedness: Regular exercises involving disaster-management agencies can create practical foundations for cooperation before disasters occur.
3. Saudi Arabia’s Two-Strait Dilemma
Yemen’s renewed civil war and Houthi control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have created a two-strait dilemma for Saudi Arabia. Bab el-Mandeb connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and carries around 12% of global trade. With Houthi control of the Yemeni coast and Perim Island, commercial traffic faces greater vulnerability. Disruption has forced Saudi Arabia to reroute Asian oil shipments through the Suez Canal and around Africa, while its 1,200-km East–West pipeline to Yanbu offers only a partial alternative.
The simultaneous vulnerability of Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz exposes Saudi oil exports to major geopolitical risks. Saudi Arabia faces limited external support, with the U.S. reluctant to deepen its involvement and Pakistan and Türkiye hesitant to enter the Yemen conflict. Meanwhile, Houthi resilience and their growing position around Marib have strengthened their bargaining power. The crisis therefore links maritime chokepoints, energy security and regional diplomacy, making a lasting settlement increasingly dependent on addressing the wider Yemen conflict and the “blockade of Yemen.”
4. What About the Father’s Leave? — Parenting, Not Just Mothering
Tamil Nadu’s move to extend maternity leave to 365 days for a third child raises a larger issue: whether fertility and childcare policy should focus on mothers alone or shared parenting.
- Gendered Care: Women already face a disproportionate burden of housework, childcare and paid work; extending only maternity leave may reinforce this unequal care responsibility.
- Shared Parenting: Sweden’s gender-neutral parental leave (1974) shows an alternative where childcare is treated as a responsibility of both parents, not simply “mothering”.
- Fertility Is Multifactorial: Declining fertility cannot be explained by maternity leave alone; cost of child-rearing, employment conditions, childcare and career opportunity costs influence reproductive choices.
- Global Evidence: Experiences of Japan and South Korea indicate that family-support measures by themselves have not automatically reversed declining fertility.
- Women’s Agency: Welfare measures such as property rights and economic support matter because greater control over resources strengthens women’s bargaining power and reproductive autonomy.
- Demographic Instrumentalisation: Linking benefits specifically to a third child risks making women’s reproduction a “lever for State policy”, rather than addressing the structural reasons behind fertility decline.
- Care Economy: The focus should shift towards shared parental leave, affordable childcare and workplace flexibility, distributing the cost of parenting across families, employers and the State.
5 . US’s Orbital Weapons: Limits of Global Space Governance
Key Concerns
- Space Militarisation: The U.S., China and Russia are developing advanced space and counter-space capabilities, making outer space an increasingly important domain of strategic competition.
- Weaponisation of Space: Modern capabilities extend beyond conventional missiles to anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, co-orbital satellites, jamming and satellite-based weapons, increasing threats to space assets.
- Three Modes of Attack: Space weapons can operate as Earth-to-space (destroying/jamming satellites), space-to-space (attacking another satellite) and space-to-Earth systems (targeting ground-based assets).
- Kinetic vs Non-Kinetic: Space warfare need not involve physical destruction; jamming, signal interference and cyberattacks can disrupt satellite communications and navigation without destroying the asset.
- Counter-Space Capabilities: The U.S. has accused China and Russia of developing capabilities intended to disrupt and degradeS. space capabilities, highlighting the growing security dilemma.
- Demonstrated ASAT Capability: The U.S., Russia, China and India have demonstrated anti-satellite tests, showing that the ability to destroy space assets is no longer theoretical.
- Growing Vulnerability: Satellites underpin communications, navigation, intelligence and military operations; disrupting them can therefore have cascading consequences for both civilian and military systems.
- Cyber–Space Convergence: The 2022 cyberattack on Viasat’s satellite network during the Russia–Ukraine conflict demonstrated how cyber operations can target space-linked infrastructure without physically destroying satellites.
Legal Ambiguity
- Outer Space Treaty, 1967: It prohibits placing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit and restricts military activities on celestial bodies, but does not comprehensively prohibit conventional weapons in space.
- Regulatory Gap: Existing international law does not clearly prohibit the deployment or use of conventional space weapons, leaving substantial ambiguity around emerging capabilities.
- Prevention of an Arms Race: The proposed PAROS (Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space) framework seeks stronger regulation, but international consensus remains limited.
- Artemis Accords: The Artemis Accords promote peaceful exploration and have 70+ signatories, including India, but they do not prevent signatories from deploying or using weapons in space.
