INSTAGRAM FEED
In December 2025, India Foundation’s 9th Katha Session brought the ancient Japanese art of Rakugo to the stage.
In this clip, the brilliant Koraku san breaks down exactly what makes this “sit-down comedy” so unique. It’s not just storytelling; it’s a masterclass in imagination.
Have you ever seen Rakugo performed live? Let us know in the comments! 👇
#rakugo #japanculture #indiafoundation #kathasession #storytelling #culturalexchange #koraku
On the issue of recent protests in Iran, NDTV India has published the comments and analysis by Dr Pavan Chaurasia, Research Fellow at India Foundation about the prospects of regime change in their report.
https://ndtv.in/world-news/america-iran-war-warning-protests-israel-china-role-analysis-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-donald-trump-10724141
Dr Shristi Pukhrem, Director, Act East Centre & Visiting Fellow, India Foundation spoke at the Inaugural Session of the 8th India Think Tank Forum 2026 organised by ORF in partnership with Nalanda University on the theme “The State of the World: Mapping Power, Disorder, and Direction”.
Read the latest edition of the ASEAN magazine which covers The 5th ASEAN-India Youth Summit held in Goa, India organised by India Foundation in collaboration with the ASEAN Foundation and supported by the Ministry of External Affairs, GoI and ASEAN Secretariat. https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/ASEAN-Tourism_-A-Destination-for-Every-Dream.pdf
Chintan Articles Weekly Roundup
Tiberio Graziani, President of Vision & Global Trends, explores the historical continuities of U.S. hegemony in Latin America and its implications for the Venezuelan crisis.
https://chintan.indiafoundation.in/articles/u-s-hegemony-and-latin-america-historical-continuities-and-the-venezuelan-crisis/
K. N. Pandita argues that Australia’s current anti-terrorism framework requires significant modernization to address evolving threats.
https://chintan.indiafoundation.in/articles/australias-anti-terrorist-measures-need-an-upgrade/
Sammridh Varma, MLA, Bihar, outlines their vision to transform Bihar into a global workplace by advancing inclusion from migration to meaningful participation.
https://chintan.indiafoundation.in/articles/politics/from-migration-to-participation-my-vision-for-the-global-workplace-bihar/
Air Marshal P. K. Roy (Retd.), examines how the upgraded Car Nicobar runway enhances India’s air power and Indo-Pacific posture.
https://chintan.indiafoundation.in/articles/car-nicobar-runway-upgrade-a-strategic-leap-in-indias-eastern-air-power-and-indo-pacific-posture/
Arpan A. Chakravarty, Research Fellow at India Foundation and doctoral scholar in law and security, analyses how developments in Caracas and China reflect stresses in the current global order
https://chintan.indiafoundation.in/articles/the-collapse-of-ritual-caracas-china-and-the-disintegrating-global-order/
An article by Ms. Trishala Sancheti, Research Fellow, India Foundation on India-Australia partnership with select mineral rich African countries for diversifying critical mineral supply chain published by East Asia Forum.
Link- https://eastasiaforum.org/2026/01/07/australia-and-india-can-unearth-critical-mineral-opportunities-across-africa/
The New World: 21st Century Global Order and India, a book by the President of India Foundation, Dr Ram Madhav has been placed under the ‘Top Ten Picks’ for Books on Foreign Policy for 2025 by India’s World.
The book can be bought from the following address:
https://amzn.in/d/22JGAwD
On 6th January 2026, Distinguished Fellow at India Foundation, Ms Rami Niranjan Desai spoke at the SWAN-SIWA Dialogue at IIC, New Delhi. The delegation from Malaysia was led by YB Dato Sri Hajah Fatimah Abdullah, Minister for Women, Early Childhood, and Community Wellbeing Development, Government of Sarawak, Malaysia & Penghulu Paliani Samba Bilaidom@ Lucy Lingam, President, Sarawak Indian Women Association (SIWA), Kuching. Ambassador Veena Sikri, Founding Trustee & Convener, South Asia Women’s Network (SWAN) led the Indian delegation.
On 6 January 2026, India Foundation, in collaboration with India Habitat Centre, organised a panel discussion on “India’s Success in Curbing Left-Wing Extremism” at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.
The panelists for the discussion were Shri Rajiv Gauba, Former Cabinet Secretary, Government of India and Member, NITI Aayog; Shri Pankaj Kumar Singh, IPS, Former Deputy NSA; and Shri Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, The Print. The session was moderated by Capt Alok Bansal, Executive Vice President, India Foundation.
On 7 January 2025, Shashvat Singh, Senior Research Fellow, India Foundation, met with Dr. Amit Mallick, Director – International Cooperation, IBCA, and Dr. Kausik Banerjee, Lead Specialist, IBCA. The discussion covered India’s evolving role in global conservation efforts, the importance of international cooperation for wildlife and biodiversity protection, and emerging perspectives on integrating conservation with broader sustainability and development discourse.
The meeting provided a valuable opportunity to exchange views on outreach, knowledge-sharing and the role of dialogue platforms in strengthening global conservation narratives.
India Foundation looks forward to continued engagement with stakeholders working at the intersection of ecology, policy and international cooperation.
‘K-4 missile test in Bay of Bengal signals strategic shift from western to eastern front’ writes Ms. Rami N Desai, Distinguished Fellow, India Foundation for the Print.
https://theprint.in/opinion/k4-missile-test-bay-of-bengal-strategic-shift-western-eastern-front/2819049/
Dr. Ram Madhav, President, India Foundation writes “In 2026, two opportunities for India to prove critics wrong” as a part of his column titled ‘Ram Rajya’ in Indian Express.
https://www.rammadhav.in/articles/in-2026-two-opportunities-for-india-to-prove-critics-wrong/
https://openthemagazine.com/india/postcards-from-fraught-lands-a-scholar-in-search-of-unquiet-datelines
Ms. Rami N Desai, Distinguished Fellow at India Foundation writes for the Open Magazine.
“For Opposition today, lessons from Atal Bihari Vajpayee” writes Dr. Ram Madhav, President, India Foundation in Indian Express on December 27, 2025 as a part of his column titled ‘Ram Rajya’.
Link - https://www.rammadhav.in/articles/for-opposition-today-lessons-from-atal-bihari-vajpayee/
‘Article 142 in Constitutional Governance: Scope, Restraint, and Institutional Balance’
Article by Ms Shatakshi Pathak, Research Associate, India Foundation published on Chintan, the official blog of India Foundation.
Link for the full article - https://chintan.indiafoundation.in/articles/article-142-in-constitutional-governance-scope-restraint-and-institutional-balance/
On 20 December 2025, Distinguished Fellow at India Foundation, Ms Rami Niranjan Desai @ramindesai , participated in a National Symposium on ‘Security Challenges to Viksit Bharat 2047’, organised by IIM Rohtak, Haryana and spoke on the topic ‘Tackling the Non Traditional Challenges’.
On 23rd December 2025, India Foundation hosted 9th Katha Session, featuring a fascinating exploration of “Rakugo: The Art of Japanese Comic Storytelling.”
The session was chaired by Mr. Côme Carpentier, Distinguished Fellow, India Foundation with the esteemed presence of Dr. Ram Madhav, President, India Foundation, and H.E. Mr. Keiichi Ono, Ambassador of Japan to India.
The event featured the 400-year-old Japanese tradition of Rakugo, brought to life by Mr. Kanariya Koraku, a diplomat-turned-storyteller.
Ms. Rami Desai, Distinguished Fellow, India Foundation writes for The Print.
https://theprint.in/opinion/bangladesh-myanmar-elections-in-2026/2810817/
An article by Ms. Trishala Sancheti, Research Fellow, India foundation on the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s visit to Ethiopia.
partnership-a-global-south-alliance-in-a-shifting -world-order-13961062.html/amp
“Peace, Democracy and Islam - The Maldivian Experience” - 8th Atal Bihari Vajpayee Memorial Lecture to be delivered by H E Faisal Naseem, former Vice President, Maldives.
Time and Date: 5 PM on December 24, 2025
Venue: Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Center, Lodhi Road
On 18 December 2025, India Foundation, in collaboration with the India Habitat Centre, organised a book discussion on the book ‘Civil-Military Fusion as a Metric of National Power and Comprehensive Security’ by Lt. Gen. Raj Shukla, Author and Member, UPSC at the India Habitat Centre.
Shri R.K. Mathur, Former Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh and Former Defence Secretary, Government of India; Lt. Gen. Rakesh Sharma, Former Adjutant General, Indian Army; and Shri Nitin Gokhale, Founder, BharatShakti.in and StratNewsGlobal.com, discussed the book with the author. The session was moderated by Capt. Alok Bansal, Executive Vice President, India Foundation.
India Foundation cordially invites you to the 8th Atal Bihari Vajpayee Memorial Lecture on 24 December 2025 at 1700 hours onwards, to be delivered by His Excellency Faisal Naseem, Former Vice President of the Maldives.
The event will take place at the Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.
We eagerly look forward to your gracious presence at this distinguished occasion.
Those interested in attending may fill the form.
https://forms.gle/h5Lvw34xLJeGULiA9
Ms Rami Desai , Distinguished Fellow at India Foundation writes on the recurring Cambodia Thailand border conflict for BasisPointInsight.
https://share.google/HXMHESB0wfb7vkYEJ
Dr Shristi Pukhrem, Director, Act East Centre & Visiting Fellow, India Foundation spoke on “India and Southeast Asia: Navigating Partnerships in a Changing Indo-Pacific” at the launch of the Dishamanthan Research Forum on 13 December 2025 in Jaipur.
On 16 December 2025, India Foundation and BEST-IU inaugurated the School of Global Leadership in New Delhi. Hon’ble Union Minister for Education, Shri. Dharmendra Pradhan graced the launch as chief guest. The school is chaired by Shri Jayant Sinha and Co-chaired by Amb Gautam Bambawale and Amb Jaideep Mazumdar.
‘How Trump’s recalibration of US-China ties will affect India’ writes Ms. Rami N Desai, Distinguished Fellow at India Foundation for the FirstPost.
https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/us-china-recalibration-trump-impact-india-13959626.html
Ms. Chitra Shekhawat, Research Fellow at India Foundation writes for Firstpost on ‘India-Bhutan Relations’.
Read here: https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/india-bhutan-neighbourhood-first-policy-modis-2025-visit-13959983.html
Katha Session 9 | Rakugo: The Art of Japanese Comic Storytelling (Japan) 🇯🇵
India Foundation invites you to the 9th Katha Session, featuring KANARIYA Koraku (鹿鳴家幸楽)—a diplomat-turned Rakugo storyteller bringing Japan’s 400-year-old comic storytelling tradition to life.
The session will include a short introduction to Rakugo, its history, and a live performance in English.
📅 23 December 2025
⏰ 5:45 PM – 7:00 PM
📍 India Foundation Office
Kindly fill the registration form https://forms.gle/onm2ASLyLtQ9B7KFA
India Foundation, in collaboration with the India Habitat Centre, is organising a book discussion on the book ’Civil-Military Fusion as a Metric of National Power and Comprehensive Security’ by Lt. Gen. Raj Shukla, Author and Member, UPSC on Thursday, 18 December 2025 at Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Centre.
Shri R.K Mathur, Former Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh & Former Defence Secretary, Government of India; Lt. Gen Rakesh Sharma, Former Adjutant General, Indian Army & Shri Nitin Gokhale, Founder, BharatShakti.in and StratNewsGlobal.com will discuss the book with the author. The session will be moderated by Capt. Alok Bansal, Executive Vice President, India Foundation.
Those interested in joining may fill the form.
https://forms.gle/r1JDJ1Se3BSirmx96
India Foundation organized a Roundtable on “An Overview of India’s Critical Mineral Supply Chain” on 12th December, 2025. The session was chaired by Shri Jayant Sinha, Former Minister of State and Member, Governing Council, India Foundation and was attended by stakeholders from the government, academia and various think tanks. The discussion revolved around the current critical mineral supply chain in the country and deliberated on the ways to enhance the supply chain resilience.
Dr. Ram Madhav, President, India Foundation writes “We need a calm and mature decision on terror” as a part of his column titled ‘Ram Rajya’ in Indian Express.
Link to the full article- https://www.rammadhav.in/articles/we-need-a-calm-and-mature-decision-on-terror/
India Foundation is pleased to announce the publication of our latest report, “Employment Landscape in Uttar Pradesh & Madhya Pradesh.”
This comprehensive study examines the challenges; reasons of youth unemployment, addressing various issue. Furthermore, the report delineates sector-specific deficits within agriculture, manufacturing, and services, issues that are compounded by existing socio-economic disparities.
The report also proposes a framework of strategic solutions, including essential policy reforms designed to stimulate entrepreneurship and catalyse job creation.
The complete report is available for access here: https://indiafoundation.in/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Employment-web.pdf
On 10 December 2025, India Foundation organised the ‘India Foundation Dialogue 103’ on ‘Japan’s Role in a Multipolar World’.
Chaired by Captain Alok Bansal and addressed by Prof. Kazuto Suzuki, University of Tokyo, the discussion emphasised as to how Japan’s role in a geoeconomic world will hinge on successfully balancing geoeconomic resilience, strategic indispensability, and a robust security partnership with the United States.
On 9 December 2025, India Foundation (IF) and Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) co-hosted the first Battery Circularity Forum and launched a joint report, “Charting a Circular Battery Future in India” (https://indiafoundation.in/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/rmi-charting-a-circular-battery-future-in-india.pdf)
The study identifies a ₹75,000 crore circularity opportunity by 2050 and outlines how India can advance reuse, repurposing and recycling to build a secure and competitive battery ecosystem.
The convening brought together leaders from government, industry and research to discuss pathways to strengthen the country’s battery value chain and accelerate innovation.
IF also signed an MoU with RMI to deepen collaboration in this vital space.
Ms. Rami N Desai, Distinguished Fellow, India Foundation writes for The Print: ‘Drugs from Myanmar are taking over Northeast. India must recognise national security threat’
Link : https://theprint.in/opinion/drugs-from-myanmar-are-taking-over-northeast-india-must-recognise-national-security-threat/2801696/
‘For Putin, Russia always comes first. The West has never understood that, to its peril’, writes Dr. Ram Madhav, President, India Foundation as a part of his column titled ‘Ram Rajya’ in Indian Express.
Link to the article- https://www.rammadhav.in/articles/for-putin-russia-always-comes-first-the-west-has-never-understood-that-to-its-peril/
Ms. Rami N Desai, Distinguished Fellow at the India Foundation writes for FirstPost on President Putin’s recent visit to India.
Link to the article- https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/putin-in-new-delhi-how-india-balances-russia-america-and-its-own-interests-13956634.html
“Why Rare Earths Now Sit at the Fault Line of US–China Power Politics”, writes Ms. Rami N Desai, Distinguished Fellow at India Foundation for BasicPoint .
Link to the full article- https://basispointinsight.com/Story/Home/why-rare-earths-now-sit-at-the-fault-line-of-us-china-power-politics_6ea6a664791c.html
On 2 December 2025, an India Foundation delegation led by the President of India Foundation, Dr Ram Madhav participated in the IF-IPIS Joint Roundtable at Tehran, Iran. The IPIS delegation was led by
Dr. Saeed Khatibzadeh, Deputy Foreign Minister and President of the IPIS.
On 25th November 2025, India Foundation organised a roundtable on “Q-Commerce Ecosystem and Its Impact on India’s Economic and Social Landscape” . The session was chaired by Maj Gen Dhruv C. Katoch (Retd.), Director, India Foundation and moderated by Dr. Raghav Pandey, Visiting Fellow, India Foundation.
Dr. Abhishek Malhotra, Visiting Fellow, and Ms. Shatakshi Pathak, Research Associate at India Foundation, delivered a presentation on how Q-commerce is emerging as a foundational engine for India’s economic modernisation and also outlined the aim and intent of the study. The roundtable included active participation and valuable inputs from leading Q-commerce industry players, including Zepto, Blinkit, Swiggy, and Flipkart.
Distinguished Fellow at India Foundation, Ms Rami Niranjan Desai spoke on a discussion about ‘Current Situation in Bangladesh’ at the Chandigarh Literature Festival on 22 November 2025.
President, India Foundation, Dr Ram Madhav`s interview with Mr Fernand Kartheiser, MEP for Luxembourg. Link to the Interview:
https://youtu.be/tnyg-9Ixq5Y
Katha is currently structured as a monthly in-person meet with a visiting storyteller. To make folklore and mythology more accessible to a wider audience and learn from scholars who may not be physically present in Delhi, we have decided to also start 20-minute online interviews with storytellers from around the world who have worked on the theme of our in-person meet.
The 2nd in these series of 20-minute interviews is scheduled at 2 pm today with Dr. Ranjana Banerjee (Professor at JNU, Delhi).
India Foundation, in collaboration with the India Habitat Centre, is organising a book discussion on the book ‘The New World: 21st-Century Global Order and India’, by Dr Ram Madhav, President, India Foundation, on Thursday, 27 November 2025 at Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Centre.
Amb Harshvardhan Shringla, Member of Parliament and Former Foreign Secretary of India; Prof Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, Vice-Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University & Dr. Sanjaya Baru, Former Media Advisor to the Prime Minister of India will discuss the book with the author. The session will be moderated by Capt. Alok Bansal, Executive Vice President, India Foundation.
Those interested in attending may fill the form:
https://forms.gle/SswxcPkQvsA6PdLC8
https://organiser.org/2025/11/24/327221/world/france-redefines-rape-through-a-consent-based-lens/
“France redefines rape through a consent based lens”, Dnyanashri Kulkarni, Research Fellow at India Foundation and PhD Scholar of European Studies at JSIA, writes for Organiser.
@organiser__weekly
An article by Ms. Trishala Sancheti, Research Fellow at India Foundation, examining why the Alliance of Sahel States’ isolationist policies have failed to curb Islamist insurgency in the region.
Link to the article :- https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/isolation-of-alliance-of-sahel-states-fuels-islamist-insurgency-in-region-13952872.html
https://chintan.indiafoundation.in/articles/the-sco-2025-summit-has-significance/
Dr K N Pandita, former Director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University, writes for Chintan, India Foundation.
Happening Today!!
Date: Monday, 24 November 2025
Time: 1800 hrs onwards
Venue: Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
Those interested to join may fill the form:
https://forms.gle/LkfTkcwEaWC5Ekcy8
Dr Ram Madhav, President, India Foundation (IF), spoke on the theme - `The New World` at the 4th edition of Sushma Swaraj Lectures, jointly hosted by India Foundation and the Sushma Swaraj Institute of Foreign Service, attended by 24 diplomats from 21 countries, on 19 November 2025.
At the 4th edition of Sushma Swaraj Lectures, jointly hosted by India Foundation and the Sushma Swaraj Institute of Foreign Service on 19 November 2025, attended by 24 diplomats from 21 countries, Shri Jayant Sinha, Former Minister of State, Government of India, gave a lecture on the Indian economy.
