Outlook magazine's September 21, 2025 issue asks: Where do we go now?
India-US relations reach a nadir, but China thaws, Russia keeps steady.
With analysis and insight, the latest issue unpeels the complexities one by one.
Complexity, recalibration and resilience: together, these essays, columns and think pieces in Outlook magazine's latest issue invite you to think beyond the headlines, look behind the posturing and stare, clear-eyed, at the forces shaping our world.
In 'Chasing a Chimera', Seema Guha explores India’s pursuit of a multipolar world, resisting domination by any one or two powers. She looks at how trade, tariffs and security concerns are reshaping India's partnerships—whether through updated free trade agreements with ASEAN, European Union negotiations, or alliances with Brazil and Canada. For India, she writes, diversification is about survival, not strategy.
Author and former diplomat Dilip Sinha examines India’s delicate balancing act with China in his column, 'To to Tango'. After the Modi-Xi talks in Tianjin, he argues that cooperation is necessary, but India must not fall in line with Beijing’s idea of the world. India, he cautions, must reduce dependence on major powers and approach self-sufficiency.
Gurjit Singh, former ambassador, reflects in 'This Time for Africa' on the diplomatic posture its nations have adopted towards the great powers and the rest of the world. African nations, he explains, are steering their course mindfully. They engage where necessary but refuse to get drawn into taking sides on polarised issues, such as the Ukraine conflict.
If India is to look at Africa for inspiration, it would back pragmatic partnerships over joining a bloc: not very far from India's historical approach.
'In Multipolarity or a New Bipolarity?' Manoj Kewalramani of Takshashila Institution maps out how ideas, economics and alliances will redraw the global power map in coming times. From tangled supply chains to competing visions of democracy and human rights, he explores whether the world will harden into new bipolar blocs or allow space for other nations to assert themselves.
In 'The Tianjin Trifecta', journalist and author Shastri Ramachandran analyses the spectacle of the SCO summit recently held in Tianjin, China, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping carefully choreographed their appearances and statements, aimed squarely at US-led trade aggression. But beyond the optics, he shows how pragmatism, rather than bravado, will better define India’s diplomatic posture.
'What is Terrorism?' asks Sartaj Chaudhary of the University of Kent, examining India’s moral and strategic positioning as global aggression mounts. He argues that India is both "shield" and "compass" against extremist forces and nuclear brinkmanship. As state-sponsored terrorism threatens peace, he writes, India’s resilience offers an ethical anchor.
Security and economic affairs analyst Vaishali Basu Sharma looks at the vulnerabilities that Trump's tariff war has exposed and the diplomatic theatrics that have followed. Prime Minister Modi’s appearance at Tianjin, she writes in her column, 'How Fragile we are', was a calculated response to economic pressure rather than a pivot toward deeper alliances with China. Symbolism aside, India’s economy and stability need more.
Activist, author and commentator Anand Teltumbde critiques what he considers the style-over-substance approach in India’s diplomacy. The Prime Minister's personal charisma, he writes in his column, 'The Big Bang', could only mask weaknesses that needed attention. As trade sanctions, visa restrictions and punitive tariffs hit ordinary Indians, the real casualties of diplomatic missteps, he warns, are not the elites but the poor whose livelihoods are at stake.
But that's not all. In 'Has the Maharaja Stopped Dancing?' S V Srinivas, who teaches at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, takes a cultural turn, unpacking the phenomenon of Rajinikanth’s stardom. In his latest movie, Coolie, Rajinikanth smokes a beedi for the first time in years on film. But what is this genre-defying appeal behind his persona? Or is his ability to let the relationship between audience and star power evolve?
