essay about india's rise as global space power

Why does India want to be a space power? Chandrayaan-3 and the politics of India’s space programme

With its chandrayaan-3 mission, india has become the fourth nation to land on the moon. dimitrios stroikos has been exploring the complexities around the international politics of space, with a specific focus on china and india as rising powers, and the connections between power, technology and modernity. he sets out how india’s space programme has developed, and why its latest mission is largely a reflection of its great power aspirations..

On 14 July 2023, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched a rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in southern India that sent India’s third lunar exploration mission, Chandrayaan-3 , consisting of a propulsion module, a lander and a rover. The lander touched down on the surface of the moon on 23 August 2023, making India the fourth country in the world, after the United States, the Soviet Union and China, to carry out a soft landing on the moon.

According to ISRO , the three main goals of the mission were: 1) achieving a soft landing on the lunar surface; 2) realising rover roving on the lunar terrain; and 3) carrying out in-situ experiments.

After landing near the south pole region, Chandrayaan-3’s lander deployed a rover to perform in-situ analysis of the lunar surface. As outlined by ISRO, the lander and the rover have scientific payloads to explore the lunar surface, collect data and perform various experiments. From a scientific point of view, such a mission is important because the south pole region remains underexplored, and thus has the potential for scientific discoveries . For example, it is believed that this region of the moon might contain deposits of ice water. The possibility of the presence of ice water on the moon has already attracted the interest of other space agencies and private companies, especially since the extraction and use of water from the moon could support the feasibility of prolonged lunar missions and serve as a potential stepping stone towards Mars and other missions venturing deeper in space.

But while the possibilities of such discoveries hold great potential for whichever nation makes them and can contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge, as we shall see, scientific research is just one of the reasons driving India’s vigorous space endeavour.

Science alone is not usually sufficient to explain such activities. Broader political considerations and strategic dynamics may be equally or even more important drivers behind India’s forays in space and the Chandrayaan programme in particular.

More specifically, Chandrayaan-3 is not India’s first attempt at soft landing on the moon. It is essentially a follow-up mission to Chandrayaan-2 , which was launched in July 2019 and was designed to explore the lunar surface near the south pole. Chandrayaan-2 consisted of an orbiter, a lander and a rover, but it was considered a partial success . Although the lander was successfully separated from the orbiter, due to a communication breakdown it had a hard landing  500 metres from the designated site on the lunar surface in September 2019. However, since 2019 the orbiter has continued to operate successfully, providing valuable data about the moon, and it will also support the latest mission.

Chandrayaan-3 also comes roughly 15 years after India’s first lunar exploration mission, Chandrayaan-1 , which was launched in October 2008 with the goal of mapping the lunar surface. Apart from five Indian payloads, the spacecraft carried instruments from NASA, British, German and Swedish research institutes (through the European Space Agency), and Bulgaria. As such, the mission was also an example of international scientific cooperation. Eventually, Chandrayaan-1 encountered technical hurdles when ISRO lost communication with the spacecraft and the mission had to end prematurely. Still, it was considered a remarkable success, not least because data gathered from one of the NASA instruments carried on the Chandrayaan-1 mission found clear evidence of water molecules on the moon.

The international politics of outer space

Chris Alden and Dimitrios Stroikos explore the complexities around the international politics of space, addressing topics such as: the challenges underpinning the international politics of space, state and non-state engagement in space activities.

Explaining Chandrayaan and India’s space programme

Despite the fact that India has one of the world’s oldest space programmes, established in the early 1960s, the focus has been on the use of space for socio-economic development . To this end, priority was given to the development of space applications, such as communications, remote sending and meteorology, that could provide tangible practical benefits tailored to the needs of a developing and large country. This developmental rationale has been associated with the vision of Dr Vikram Sarabhai , who is considered the ‘‘father’’ of India’s space programme and was one of the most influential and respected scientists in post-independence India. Although Sarabhai was a keen supporter of the use of space technology as a way of leapfrogging some of the stages of social and economic development, he was famously against highly visible space stunts for the sake of prestige and news headlines that offered little in economic and social terms.

It was against this backdrop that Chandrayaan-1, India’s first ever space exploration mission, signalled a shift towards highly visible space projects, which seemed to be at odds with India’s traditional developmental rationale. Further reflecting this reorientation of India’s space effort, in addition to the Chandrayaan lunar programme, other notable examples include the 2013 Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) , also called Mangalyaan , and plans for India’s first human spaceflight mission, the Gaganyaan programme , which is targeted to be launched within the next few years.

As far as India is concerned, the recent focus on space exploration can largely be seen as a response to China’s emergence as a great space power.

The China factor and the quest for great power status in space

What explains this change in India’s space programme? To be sure, the potential scientific benefits of lunar missions can be significant. What is more, I have long argued that scientific internationalism has been a key feature of space activities from the beginning of the Space Age. However, science alone is not usually sufficient to explain such activities. Broader political considerations and strategic dynamics may be equally or even more important drivers behind India’s forays in space and the Chandrayaan programme in particular.

A number of observations are worth making here. First, it is useful to recognise from the outset that international imperatives have rendered space a complex domain of international relations amid a surge of interest in the use of space for military, civilian and commercial purposes. As far as India is concerned, the recent focus on space exploration can largely be seen as a response to China’s emergence as a great space power , manifested not only in a series of remarkable Chinese space achievements, but also in the ways in which Beijing uses its space programme as a foreign policy and diplomacy tool . While India’s competition with China in space increasingly involves a military component , high-profile exploration projects are part of the contest for leadership , influence and soft power in Asia, contributing to the notion of an Asian space race .

Highly visible technoscientific projects serve as markers of power, status and modernity, a practice rooted in the 19th century.

Second, and related to the previous point, underlying India’s interest in lunar exploration is its great power aspirations . Highly visible technoscientific projects serve as markers of power, status and modernity, a practice rooted in the 19th century when technoscientific advancement emerged as a standard of “civilisation” demarcating the “society of civilised states” from non-European societies through a “techno-scientific orientalist” discourse. In this way, the space programme can be understood as a powerful symbol of postcolonial India’s modernity, statehood, and national prestige . From this perspective, the pursuit of the Chandrayaan lunar programme is part of India’s effort to climb up the ladder to the top tier of the hierarchical global space order and have a bigger “seat at the table’’ of space affairs.

Domestic influences

The role of domestic politics should also be acknowledged. For example, India’s space programme is an important source of national pride and prestige, and thus Indian leaders, including the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are keen to leverage the country's achievements in space to bolster the legitimacy of their governments whenever an opportunity arises. At the same time, powerful institutions, such as ISRO, have their own organisational and bureaucratic interests that compel them to push for highly visible projects to gain political approval. Finally, apart from foreign policy and military spin-offs due to the inherent dual-use nature of space technology, Chandrayaan-3 will help to inculcate and attract young talent in space science and showcase India’s vigorous private space sector , as this is the first time that ISRO has partnered in a major mission with the private space industry.

Consequently, and given the technical problems experienced by India's previous lunar mission, the stakes for Chandrayaan-3 could not be higher. Regardless of the outcome of Chandrayaan-3, however, the success of India’s lunar programme hinges on more than simply scientific gains, encompassing broader political and strategic considerations that will continue to animate India’s space ambitions.

" International Relations and Outer Space " by Dr Dimitrios Stroikos is published by the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies. 

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LSE Fellow, Department of International Relations, LSE

Dr Dimitrios Stroikos is an LSE Fellow in the Department of International Relations at LSE and Head of the Space Policy Programme at LSE IDEAS. He is also the Editor-in-chief of Space Policy: an International Journal, hosted by LSE IDEAS.

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Analysis and Space

How india has slowly but surely become a major player in space.

India’s space agency has been remarkably successful in recent years, growing the country’s prestige on the global stage – and the 2024 election is unlikely to change that

By Leah Crane

30 April 2024

India launched Chandrayaan-3 to the moon last year

If India seems like a latecomer to space flight, it is only because the country’s space agency has been slowly and steadily growing for decades, catching up with the original major players. When the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft managed the first ever soft landing near the south pole of the moon in 2023, it marked a triumph for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and a sign that the agency’s unique way of operating makes it capable of great things.

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The strategy that has made all of this work was championed in the 1960s by Vikram Sarabhai, often considered the father of the Indian space programme. He rejected the idea that the country had to work its way up through every stage of learning how to do space flight , instead insisting on “leapfrogging”, using knowledge that had already been gained by other nations along with expertise developed at home.

“What you’re seeing now is the product of four decades of serious investment in this programme that a lot of people dismissed as being inappropriate for a developing country, but turns out to have been a smart decision all along,” says Itty Abraham at Arizona State University. “It’s done a great job of absorbing technologies from different countries and stitching them together to make something that’s uniquely Indian.”

Why it's a big deal that India beat Russia in the new race to the moon

The Chandrayaan-3 mission is a perfect example of this. ISRO has stated that the budget for the mission was only £60 million ($74 million), less than the cost of a commercial aeroplane and an astonishingly low price tag for a spacecraft. This was enabled in part by the use of more cost-effective off-the-shelf parts alongside custom-built ones, as well as contracts with private companies for some of the spacecraft development and manufacturing.

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That private company involvement is relatively new for ISRO, a change heralded by Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister since 2014. “Where Modi has made a difference is that he has encouraged the private sector to step in in a way that is very unusual for Indian government programmes,” says Abraham. “If you look at the other government projects, the private sector is there but in a very small way.” ISRO didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But more broadly, India’s election is unlikely to change ISRO’s direction, given the geopolitical prestige that comes with success in space. “The space programme has managed to remain independent for so long because it’s been successful,” says Abraham. “In this case, it doesn’t matter who’s in charge – they’re all going to throw money at it.”

This article is part of a special series on India’s election.

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Dissecting India’s Growing Power In the New Space Race

One of india’s strongest assets is its abundant young, tech-savvy workforce..

All signs point towards continued growth in the global space sector. Based on data from mostly the U.S. and Europe, Bank of America expects the global space economy to grow at an annual rate of 10.6 percent to reach about $1.4 trillion in 2030. However, emerging players like China, India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will drive the direction of the global space economy in ways we cannot fully estimate at this time.

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The boundaries between what we have traditionally thought of as space and non-space activities are increasingly blurring. So many of our day-to-day tasks, such as phone service and downloading and processing speeds, are managed and enhanced by satellites. Outer space will soon serve as a tool to create other technologies and products. 

As such, countries are eagerly taking actions to increase their share of the market. India, in particular, is actively establishing itself as a major player in space and has become the 27th nation to sign the Artemis Accords. India currently ranks fifth globally with over 400 space companies . The country’s space economy is expected to grow more than 10 percent within this decade, fueled by the Indian government’s allocation of over $137 billion to space-related industries this year.

Like most countries, India’s space sector was historically government-managed. This is rapidly changing. The Indian Space Policy was amended last year to expand the role of private-sector players in the commercial space sector. The new Space Activities Bill, along with 10 more policies, are under development to provide the necessary regulatory framework and procedural guidelines for private space activities, as well as open new channels for investments and technological support for the sector.

By 2025, space launch will be the fastest-growing segment in India’s space economy, followed by satellite manufacturing. Satellite services will form the largest share of the space economy, accounting for 36 percent, while the launch segment is quickly becoming a focus area for startups and small- to medium-size businesses. 

Over the past five to 10 years, the global space ecosystem has seen significant growth and investment. However, the availability of talent has not increased at a proportional rate. Aerospace engineers and software engineers, in particular, have sought opportunities in other fields in part due to competition from Big Tech employers. There is also a prevailing perception that the space industry is difficult to penetrate, which deters engineers with strong technical skills from applying to space jobs. Consequently, this restricts the recruitment pool.

It’s important to note that one of India’s strongest assets is its abundant young, tech-savvy workforce who could contribute to the innovation needed to create consumer-friendly space technologies. This advantage will provide further acceleration across four aspects of the space value chain: 

• Primary space research India’s rapid and innovative research capabilities allowed it to become the first country to land on the lunar south pole in August 2023 and the fourth country to make a successful soft landing on the Moon. India has also completed these missions at an extremely low cost—the Chandrayan 3 mission only cost $75 million, substantially cheaper than Russia’s Luna-25 mission, which cost $200 million. In fact, the production cost of Chris Nolan’s Interstellar was twice that amount.
• Launch and logistics This includes getting vehicles off the ground and operating in space, driving design for operability, performing satellite maintenance, and managing the flow of materials and services. More countries are seeing the benefits of launching satellites in India. More than 34 countries have worked with India to launch more than 380 satellites, and this number is only likely to increase as more companies and countries leverage innovation and cost advantages.
• Data and applications Such as satellite services and cell phone towers. India has skipped to cellular phones and electronic payments tied to the national identity number, surpassing many other countries. The barriers to developing terrestrial infrastructure were eliminated with the rise of cellular usage and highly affordable smartphones can be used in any regional language. All of this will rapidly accelerate the use of space and Earth observation data, allowing for more data and application businesses to flourish, especially in the areas of supply chain management, real estate and infrastructure investment monitoring.
• Direct consumer India’s growing population of 1.6 billion today will use more data thanks to falling data costs and the elimination of language barriers (mentioned in the prior point). The increase in Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, smart appliances, and other areas like crop and farming support for small individual farmers will allow this segment to grow rapidly in India. 

Elizebeth Varghese is the leader of the Space Economy Acceleration team at Deloitte. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for the SETI Institute, co-chair of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Committee, and Board member of the Columbia Business School, Women’s Circle. Varghese is the author of “Stellar Singularity: Navigating the Spacefaring Economy.”

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‘India’s emergence as a space power’: How global media covered Chandrayaan-3’s successful Moon landing

With the mission’s success, India has become the first country to land a spacecraft on the lunar’s uncharted territory of south pole and fourth overall to reach on the Moon.

Indians around the world united with pride and excitement as the Chandrayaan-3 lander module gently descended on the lunar surface on Wednesday evening, ending the disappointment over the crash-landing of the Chandrayaan-2 lander four years ago.

While the spacecraft’s Vikram lander made the soft landing at 6.04 PM (IST), here’s how the international media has covered India’s moon mission.

‘Historic moon landing’: BBC, UK

Ahead of live streaming the ISRO moon mission’s soft landing on the lunar surface, BBC carried a live reaction of their South Asian correspondent to the “historic Moon landing” who was at the space centre in Bengaluru on Wednesday. She captured the final moments before the landing including her own reaction to the successful outcome and was seen exclaiming – “My goodness!”

‘A country with growing ambitions in space’: The Washington Post, US

In an analysis carried by The Washington Post, the successful touchdown of the Chandrayaan -3 mission was termed as “a triumph for a country with growing ambitions in space.” It stated that PM Modi has sought to “ bolster the India’s space agency as a symbol of the country’s stature on the global stage.” Citing analysts, the article said: “Its space program is being used as a way to boost its economy and growing tech sector.” Author Christian Davenport added that the mission has also “sought to keep up with China, which has big ambitions in space and has already landed on the moon.”

‘India’s emergence as a space power’: The Guardian, UK

“ The successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 marks ‘India’s emergence as a space power as the government looks to spur investment in private space launches and related satellite-based businesses’,” The Guardian said. Highlighting that “nuclear-armed India” emerged as the world’s fifth-largest economy last year, the article said, “Modi’s nationalist government is eager to showcase the country’s rising standing as a technology and space powerhouse.” “A successful moon mission dovetails with Modi’s image of an ascendant India asserting its place among the global elite and would help bolster his popularity ahead of a crucial general election next year,” the Guardian article stated with a description of the final few minutes of the touchdown.

‘The landing provided a rare moment of unity’: The New York Times, US

The New York Times said the achievement of Chandrayaan-3 “may be even sweeter, as it comes at a particularly important moment in the South Asian giant’s diplomatic push as an ambitious power on the rise.” Indian officials have been advocating in favor of a multipolar world order in which New Delhi is seen as indispensable to global solutions, it state. “In a country with a deep tradition of science, the excitement and anticipation around the landing provided a rare moment of unity in what has otherwise been fraught times of sectarian tension stoked by divisive policies of Mr. Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist ruling party,” it said. “The Indian public already takes great pride in the accomplishments of the nation’s space program, which has orbited the moon and Mars and routinely launches satellites above the Earth with far fewer financial resources than other space-faring nations.”

‘Win for Mr Modi’s government’: ABC, Australia

Australia’s ABC   said the Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing is “also a win for Mr Modi’s government which is showing off India as a leader in technology and an assertive global superpower.” “Critics of the mission have questioned its importance while hundreds of millions of Indians are still battling rough living conditions,” it stated.

While the article mentioned the mission to be a “boost for India’s reputation for cost-competitive space engineering”, it also said, “Experts say India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing technology, and thanks to an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of their foreign counterparts’ wages.”

• Chandrayaan 3

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Another Leap Forward: India’s Historic Moon Landing and the Space Competition Underway

Photo: Raymond/Adobe Stock

Critical Questions by Kari A. Bingen

Published August 30, 2023

Indian lunar lander Chandrayaan-3 successfully touched down on the lunar surface on August 23, 2023, making India the fourth nation to successfully land on the Moon and the first to land in the south pole region. This historic accomplishment further cements India’s rise as a global space power at a time of heightened international competition in space.

Q1: What is the significance of India’s Moon landing?

A1: The Chandrayaan-3 mission (“moon vehicle” in Hindi and Sanskrit), led by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), is a mark of national prestige. The mission sets India up to lead internationally in the exploration of frozen water on the Moon and demonstrate its scientific and technical prowess, which Prime Minister Modi remarked , “are the foundation of a bright future for our nation.”

ISRO’s space exploration program is part of a broad government strategy to realize the scientific, economic, and security benefits of space capabilities. India’s space program is also seen as a pathway for attracting young Indians into high-technology fields and for ushering in a more technically advanced society. Indian communications satellites orbiting the Earth can improve connectivity across rural areas, navigation satellites can aid mariners, and imagery satellites can support disaster relief operations as well as monitor Chinese military developments. India also maintains its own fleet of space launch vehicles that loft satellites from governments and commercial companies alike.

This lunar mission further raises India’s profile as a destination for developing new technologies and a partner in international endeavors. The Modi government has sought to grow an indigenous commercial space ecosystem and attract private investment into Indian space startups, enabled by policy reforms in 2020 that allowed privatization in the space sector. Chandrayaan-3 also provides a confidence boost as ISRO pursues more firsts in space exploration, including its first solar mission later in 2023 (Aditya L1) and first human spaceflight mission (Gaganyaan).

Q2: Why land on the Moon’s south pole?

A2: The south pole region of the Moon is believed to contain frozen water, with large deposits hidden in shadowed craters . Water and its elemental ingredients—hydrogen and oxygen—will be critical to support human activity on the Moon. It can provide drinking water and oxygen, power lunar habitats and equipment, and fuel rockets for longer journeys to Mars.

Geological surveys indicate that the Moon holds mineral stores, including rare-earth metals used in electronics, and helium that could generate energy in nuclear fusion reactors. The difficulty will be mining these elements, extracting them from lunar rocks and soil, and converting them into usable forms.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission will start the necessary work to understand what is contained within the lunar surface. Within a few hours of the successful landing, ISRO deployed a small, solar-powered rover, Pragyan (or, “wisdom” in Sanskrit), that will explore the lunar surface over the next two weeks. Both the landing craft and the rover contain various scientific instruments to collect data on the mineral composition, thermal properties, and seismic activity around the landing site.

Q3: How difficult is it to land on the Moon? Why did Russia fail a few days earlier while India succeeded?

A3: The contrast between India’s successful lunar landing and the failure of Russia’s Luna-25 lander four days earlier is a reminder of the technical challenges and operational risks associated with space and missions to the Moon. It is not just Russia. A Japanese company aiming to be the first to land a commercial spacecraft on the Moon was unsuccessful earlier in 2023.

The final descent to the lunar surface—the last 13 minutes— is particularly hazardous. It was for the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 and remains so today. Thrusters are fired on the spacecraft to position it for de-orbit and to control its descent. With minimal atmosphere to slow the spacecraft down, the thrusters are used as brakes to reduce the spacecraft’s speed from 1.68 kilometers (km) per second (3,800 miles per hour) to nearly zero, all while sensors precisely measure altitude to ensure a soft landing. All of this is accomplished by flight operators in mission control some 384,400 km (238,900 miles) away with a 2.5 second communications lag.

According to reports , contact was lost with the Russian Luna-25 spacecraft as it was adjusting its orbit to descend to the lunar surface. The craft subsequently crashed into the Moon. While Russia has seen success in other aspects of its space program over the years, including ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station, it had not exercised its technical base on a lunar mission in 47 years. Russia’s space program has been beset by corruption, reduced funding, Western sanctions, and brain drain , which accelerated after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Q4: Why so much attention on the Moon? What does it mean for the broader space race?

A4: As captured in the CSIS report Fly Me to the Moon , both governments and commercial companies are driven to pursue lunar missions for national pride, scientific discovery, domestic space industrial development, international partnership advancement, and economic benefits, including access to lunar resources. Analysts estimate over 100 missions are planned across the next decade to the Moon and cislunar space (i.e., the area between geosynchronous Earth orbit at 36,000 km and the Moon at 384,400 km from Earth).

These endeavors present opportunities for expanding international cooperation. Several planned missions reflect such partnerships, for example: India and the United States; India and Japan; Europe, Japan, Canada, and the United States; and Japan and the United Arab Emirates. The Europe Space Agency and Russia were planning joint lunar missions, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led the agency to terminate the partnership. China has a robust lunar exploration program: in 2019, it was the first to land a robotic rover on the far side of the Moon, and in 2021, Beijing and Moscow signed an agreement to cooperate on a joint lunar research station, inviting other nations to participate. NASA’s Artemis Program aims to establish a long-term presence on the Moon, working with a coalition of commercial and international partners.

Lunar missions will require technological advances in areas like autonomy, navigation, and communications that will benefit civil, commercial, and military space capabilities alike. They will also challenge international space law and policy. While the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 holds that no nation shall claim sovereignty over the Moon, it is less clear on guidelines for commercial exploits. NASA’s Artemis Accords attempts to address this with a set of principles to guide space exploration, including transparency, sharing of scientific data, and deconflicting activities. Twenty-eight nations have signed on as of July 2023, including India; Russia and China have not.

Finally, such lunar pursuits are occurring against a backdrop of heightened geopolitical tension and are only one facet of a broader global space competition underway that present both opportunities and challenges. Greater access to space technologies and lower launch costs have led to a burgeoning commercial space sector and growing space economy. As of 2022, 90 countries now operate in space and, while Russia’s program shows signs of decline, Beijing has ambitions " to become the world's leading power ," including in space. Space capabilities are critical to national security, they connect people across the globe and aid in understanding the changing environment on Earth. However, the importance of space has also led to the expansion of threats against it, trends that CSIS captures in an annual Space Threat Assessment , and increasing focus on space security. The combination of scientific, economic, diplomatic, and security motivations will continue to drive both space exploration and the peaceful use of space. 

Kari A. Bingen is the director of the Aerospace Security Project and a senior fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Critical Questions is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

© 2024 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

Kari A. Bingen

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Understanding India’s Uses of Space: Space in India’s Changing Geopolitics

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Although primarily driven by the need to serve developmental aims, India’s space programme is not limited to the sole pursuit of utilitarian, socio-economic benefits. Space has also been a tool in India’s geopolitical calculus, a dimension that has progressively strengthened since the past decade. Thanks to exploration missions such as Chandrayaan-1 and Mangalyaan, space has increasingly become an asset for boosting national prestige, a prestige directed as much towards its citizens as the international community. Similarly, space has also become a tool of Indian foreign policy and diplomacy, as well as an element in its military modernisation. It is essential to see the context of a growing geopolitical significance of space in light of India’s own growing role on the world stage. Accordingly, the next section will shed light on the most recent developments in India’s foreign policy agenda. The chapter will subsequently elaborate on India’s emerging uses of space for both diplomatic objectives and security needs. Further, considering that space is not only a tool for achieving broader policy objectives but also an arena of strategic interaction, India’s approach vis-a-vis diplomacy and the security of space will also be analysed.

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Interestingly, also during the “non-alignment period”, India showed a high dose of ambiguity, with regard for instance to non-proliferation issues.

This is so not only because India’s international position is progressively making structural determinants less potent but also because the democratic nature of India’s political processes, its size and the extreme heterogeneity in terms of ethnicity, languages, religions and caste diversity and fractured and democratic nature of its polity create several disagreements or even active sociocultural and political cleavages that have competing or conflicting claims (Stepan et al. 2010 ; Ollapally and Rajagopalan 2013 ).

This section is mainly based on the perspectives offered by Indian international relations’ scholars Ollapally and Rajagopalan ( 2013 ).

Because of its extreme heterogeneity in terms of ethnicity, languages, religions and caste, Indian polity indeed presents a significantly robust multinational dimension that does not fit well into the classic French-style nation-state model based on a “we-feeling” resulting from an existing or forged homogeneity. According to Stepan, Linz and Yadav, India should be more properly analysed under the lenses of the state-nations’ model. The term indicates “a political-institutional approach that respects and protects multiple but complementary socio-cultural identities. State-nations policies recognise the legitimate public and even political expression of active socio-cultural cleavages, and they include mechanisms to accommodate competing or conflicting claims without imposing or privileging in a discriminatory way any one claim. State-nation policies involve creating a sense of belonging (or “we feeling”) with respect to the state-wide political community, while simultaneously creating institutional safeguards for respecting and protecting politically salient sociocultural diversities” (Stepan et al. 2010 , p. 54).

It is also important to note that Western understandings of left- and right-wing politics are not easily applicable to India’s political life. As explained by Nick Booker, India parties’ ideologies fall at different places on the liberal–conservative spectrum, socially and economically. For instance, India’s longest ruling party, the Congress, is considered both socially and economically centrist, while the Communist Party of India, of Marxist origins, is liberal from a social perspective and conservative from an economic perspective. The current ruling party at the national level, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is the exact opposite: it is conservative from a social perspective but liberal from an economic perspective (IndoGenius, India’s Election Calendar 2016 ).

This diplomatic and strategic initiative was first launched during Shinzo Abe’s first tenure as prime minister of Japan (September 2006–September 2007) and named the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Japan, the United States, India and Australia) as a solution to the maritime disputes involving China. The new strategy was launched by Prime Minister Abe in 2014 based on “three pillars: (1) reinvigorating the U.S.-Japan alliance; (2) a reintroduction of the UK and France to Asia’s international security realm; and (3) bolstering international cooperation between key democracies in the Indo-Pacific, such as India and Australia” (Miller 2013 ).

Larry Summers. Quoted from (Bajaj 2010 ).

UN General Assembly Resolution 45/72 of 11 December 1990.

The main task of the Centre is to develop the skills and knowledge of university educators, environmental research scientists and project personnel in the design, development and application of space science and technology for subsequent application in national and regional development and environment management.

Rao, Krishna. Quoted from (Rajagopalan 2017a ).

Gandhi, Indira. Quoted from (Jayaraj 2004 ).

Over the years, these diplomatic efforts would be successful. In 1982, the UN recognised the potential of space technologies for these purposes, noting example states such as India are “leapfrogging over obsolete technologies and getting away from percolation and trickle down models of development for which developing countries do not have the time”. Remarkably, Yash Pal was the secretary general for the second UN Space Conference held in August 1982 called UNISPACE-82, and U.R. Rao was the chairman the UNISPACE-III held in July 1999.

Rao, Narasimha. Quoted from (Lele 2017c ).

Once again, this is not because the country’s space leaders did not recognise the military value of space activities, but they made a deliberate effort to harness space technology for socio-economic utility, hence avoiding possible confrontational stances in the space arena and benefiting instead from cooperation with both the United States and the Soviet Union.

In explaining the drivers behind its establishment, the minister affirmed: “Although we want to utilize space for peaceful purposes and remain committed to our policy of non-weaponisation of space, offensive counter space systems like anti-satellite weaponry, new classes of heavy-lift and small boosters and an improved array of Military Space Systems have emerged in our neighbourhood” (Rajagopalan 2013 ).

As also contended by Ajey Lele, it would be erroneous to equal the absence of a space policy to the absence of vision. Various specific policy documents, articulations of space agenda by top ISRO leadership on various occasions, documents such as Vision 2020, etc. elucidate India’s expectation for the future (Othman 2017 ).

As highlighted by Mazlan Othman, “these principles can be used to reaffirm or demonstrate a state’s adherence to international agreements and treaties, and to outline national principles that have a historical, cultural, or ideological basis. The principles in a national space policy can also form the foundation for lower-level government policies in specific sectors. As for International cooperation, it is “rarely pursued haphazardly, but is instead often part of larger policy and strategic considerations. International cooperation is often considered both a mechanism and a goal, so it may feature in policy documents. As a mechanism, space cooperation enables actors to leverage the expertise, investments, and resources of others in the development of programs, whether through the direct acquisition of hardware or the joint development of technical capacity”.

Knowing India’s interests, needs and priorities for the future can help foreign partners enlarge the scope of potential cooperation with respect to both data and information exchange and joint activities in areas of mutual interest.

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Aliberti, M. (2018). Understanding India’s Uses of Space: Space in India’s Changing Geopolitics. In: India in Space: Between Utility and Geopolitics. Studies in Space Policy, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71652-7_5

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Introduction: Is the Rise of India as a Global Power Inevitable? 

Since the turn of the century, the chatter about India as an emerging global power has become louder and louder. The drivers of this perception are the steady growth in India’s defense budget; the recognition of the talent of its engineers, doctors, scientists and managers; the success of the Indian diaspora; and India’s rapid GDP growth. The fact that India is a democracy also adds to its international appeal. Western nations saw very early on that India was not only a natural ally of the West because of its democratic ethos but was also a preferred rival to China, where authoritarianism remains entrenched. This geostrategic difference adds to India’s importance. The U.S., India’s biggest trading partner, sees U.S.-India relations as the “most consequential relationship of this century.” [1] And U.S. officials now routinely parrot the refrain that India, the world’s biggest democracy, and the U.S., the world’s oldest democracy, are natural allies and partners in advancing a global order that defends democracy and the rule of law. [2]   

Since the George W. Bush administration, the U.S. has been facilitating the rise of India, as it enabled the rise of China in the 1990s. The sanctions imposed on India for testing nuclear weapons were eased and efforts have since been made to groom India as a potential partner in containing the rise of China as a challenger to U.S. hegemony and to the liberal international order. India is eager to gain a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. It feels that this achievement will not only underscore India’s status as a major power but also give it the protection it seeks from international criticism as it pursues its ideological goals in the domestic arena. India has witnessed how the U.S. has used its power at the U.N. not only to advance its own interests but also to safeguard the interests of its allies. From the day it gained independence, India has felt that it was destined to be a great power and will one day achieve its “rightful place” on the global stage. Becoming part of the global governing elite, meaning a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, and having more say in the management of multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, would be the pathway to this “rightful place.” This idea was born with the concept of a modern, independent India. In his famous speech “Tryst With Destiny,” delivered on the eve of India’s independence, India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, pledged that he would work “to the end that this ancient land attain her rightful place in the world and make her full and willing contribution to the promotion of world peace and the welfare of mankind.” [3] 

India’s Hunger for Global Status  

The Indian foreign policy elite is desperate for international validation of India as an important nation on the global stage. Often, to satiate that hunger, fake news about international recognition is circulated in Indian media that makes India look more powerful and influential than it is. For example, there were fake reports circulated in mainstream Indian media that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. The media frenzy around this fake report subsided only after a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee issued a statement denying the nomination. [4] Surveys by inconsequential private consultants that show Modi to be the most popular global leader make headlines and are mentioned frequently by talking heads and government officials, but those same individuals challenge or vehemently reject international indices that show India performing poorly on the happiness index, the hunger index, or human rights and democracy measures. Every critical report about India’s human rights record is labeled as biased and fake, even though those reports are well documented in the U.S. State Department’s 2022 report. The present Indian leadership, politically engaged population, and media, it is safe to say, are seeking international recognition more intensely than their counterparts in any other nation in the world today. 

This hunger is driven by frequent developments that indicate India’s rise. The recognition by the IMF that India is the fastest growing major economy in the post-COVID-19 era and the fact that it has now surpassed the United Kingdom as the fifth largest economy in the world are clear indicators that India is gaining in the economic sphere. India has recently become the world’s most populous country, and this too is seen as a marker of India’s achievement. The year 2023 has become a diplomatic bonanza for India. India became the host and president of two important multilateral forums, the G20 and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This has kept India in the global diplomatic limelight for most of the year, during which time it has sought to set the global agenda and establish itself as an important global power and the voice of the Global South. Even invitations for state visits for Modi by the U.S. and France reenforce the perception that India is the new “golden boy” of international relations.  

Additional markers of India’s global influence include the success of India’s diaspora in business (think tech CEOs) and in politics (think Rishi Sunak and Kamala Harris); the emergence of powerful business houses like the Ambanis, Adanis, and Tatas; and the growing political influence of Indian Americans. The India story can be seen in everything from the emergence of India’s growing middle class as a major market to the recognition of the global importance of India’s IT, and from the diamond and pharmaceutical industries to India’s growing defense imports. 

India’s successes have not happened by accident. The country has made major investments in digital access, and today Indians on the internet outnumber Chinese and Americans combined. The Indian government is also investing in national infrastructure, building more roads, airports, metros, and bullet trains, which is contributing to the rapid development and economic growth of the nation. According to UNICEF, in the decade 2010-2020, India lifted 271 million people out of poverty. Additionally, India’s exports have also increased, and the country is likely to see its exports surpass $1 trillion U.S. in the year 2023. India has also benefited from the Russia-Ukraine war and has imported Russian oil at discounted prices; it now exports refined oil to Europe and North America. Both public sector and private sector oil companies have made huge profits from this unexpected opportunity.  

Besides all these economic and diplomatic achievements, the key reason all eyes are now on India is the persistent wooing of India by the Biden administration. U.S. officials have not only increased both the frequency and the intensity of their engagement with Indian counterparts, the U.S. has also signed many defense agreements, increased cooperation in the arena of critical emerging technologies and intelligence sharing, and is committed to upgrading India’s defense capabilities. The sale and transfer of F414 jet engines, which will be made in India by Hindustan Aeronautics, is the latest development in the U.S.-India defense partnership. This is a game-changer for India’s air strike capability, as well as its defense industry. Finally, the state dinner President Joe Biden hosted for Modi on June 22, 2023, and Modi’s address to a joint session of Congress have gone a long way toward sending a message to the world – especially to India and China – that U.S.-India relations have now reached unprecedented heights and that India is important to the U.S. Everybody now knows that India is one of the cool kids on the global campus.  

The Dark Side of the India Story  

But there is another side to the India story – a much darker side. This is a story that is rarely told in mainstream Indian media, but the global media is more committed to telling both sides of the India story. The other side is about two critical issues: one, the rise of Hindu nationalism and its terrible impact on democracy and the rights of religious minorities in India, especially Indian Muslims; and two, the structural flaws in India’s economic growth that are hidden by an unusually high focus on GDP growth alone as a measure of economic development.  

In his book “India is Broken,” Princeton professor Ashoka Mody, a former IMF economist, identifies three major flaws in the Indian economy. He argues that the economy is growing but without generating jobs, and hence the unemployment rate in India is very high for a country whose economy is growing at over 6%. The unemployment rate in mid-July 2023 was 8.4%, according to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy. [5]  

Mody also argues that India is suffering from chronic underemployment. Many rural workers’ employment is seasonal, yet those workers are considered employed for purposes of tracking unemployment. Many people with advanced degrees are not working in their fields, but rather working as drivers for home delivery of food and goods, or as drivers for ride-hailing services. Such realities are hiding the extent of India’s unemployment. The most shocking aspect of India’s economy is the decline in women’s labor force participation, which dropped from 30% in 1990 to 19% in 2021 and is around 23% at the moment. [6] Mody also argues that India’s economic growth is insensitive to the damage it is causing the environment, and hence is not as sustainable as the government claims. He also finds the quality of India’s rapidly expanding private education institutions less than desirable. He feels that if India does not improve the quality of its education, it will fall behind other Asian nations that invest more in their human resources. [7]

As for India’s democratic backsliding, the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom have systematically documented the many ways in which minorities in India are persecuted. Democracy indices have, especially since 2019 (the beginning of Modi’s second term), downgraded India to the status of a flawed democracy. The Swedish think tank V-Dem labeled India an “electoral autocracy,” and Freedom House has also highlighted the decline of freedom under the rule of Modi. [8] The State Department’s 2022 annual report is damning: It meticulously documents the persecution of religious minorities, especially Muslims, in India under Modi and his Hindu nationalist party (Bharatiya Janta Party). The atrocities documented include mob lynching of Muslims, extrajudicial bulldozing of Muslims’ homes and places of worship, violence against Muslims by mobs as well as police, passage of laws that violate religious freedoms, and frequent calls for genocide of Indian Muslims and hate speech by Hindu priests and Hindu nationalist political leaders. [9] 

The two sides of the India story were dramatically on display when Modi visited the U.S. in June 2023. While the White House and the U.S. Congress laid out the red carpet for Modi, and Biden spoke eloquently of India’s democratic DNA, over 75 U.S. senators and representatives wrote a letter to Biden demanding that he raise the issue of India’s terrible human rights records directly with Modi. [10] Many of them also chose to boycott Modi’s address to Congress. While Biden was bending backward not to ruffle India’s feathers, former President Barack Obama said in an interview with journalist Christiane Amanpour that the “protection of the Muslim minority in a majority-Hindu India” was “something worth mentioning” during the state visit. He added, “If you do not protect the rights of ethnic minorities in India, then there is a strong possibility India at some point starts pulling apart.” There are some who believe that Obama may have made this comment at Biden’s behest to send the message to India that the U.S. was not overlooking the democratic backsliding of India. [11] These comments sparked backlash from Indian leaders, who attacked Obama for being hypocritical since he had bombed several Muslim countries during his time as president. The most shocking reaction came from a senior leader of Modi’s party, Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of the state of Assam, who told a journalist that there were many Hussain Obamas in India and that Assam police would prioritize “taking care of them,” then head to Washington, D.C. Ironically, while India’s prime minister was talking about how there was no room for discrimination in India, his own party member was threatening Muslim minorities with police for no reason. The man has faced no consequences for his blatant bigotry. [12]   

Clearly there are two sides to the India story: one about India’s emergence as a major economic and global power, and the other about its steady transformation into an electoral autocracy that treats its religious minorities terribly. In the two months prior to this writing, overlapping with Modi’s visit to the U.S., over 250 churches have been burned down in the state of Manipur, which is also ruled by Modi’s Hindu nationalist party (BJP). The state is experiencing an ethnic and religious civil war in which over 140 people have been killed and thousands displaced and rendered homeless. [13] The European Parliament passed an urgency resolution on the violence in Manipur hours before Modi landed in Paris to be a state guest at France’s Bastille Day celebrations. [14] Unless India seriously addresses its domestic religious polarization and targeting of minorities, it will be hard even for the Biden administration, which is comfortable working with illiberal leaders all over the world, to keep India in the camp of democracies. India is on its way to becoming a more developed, more powerful, and more influential country, but it is also suffering from a serious domestic crisis that could undermine progress. It can and probably will emerge as a major power, but first it must address the communal hatred that unfortunately is becoming more lethal and more widespread around the country. 

Brief Summaries of the Book Chapters  

For this anthology, titled “Rise of India as a World Power,” the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy has invited an extraordinary group of scholars, experts, and practitioners to contribute their views. The essays, like the diverse contributors, bring a variety of perspectives that paint a multifaceted picture of India’s rise and the challenges it faces. In the first essay, professor Sumit Ganguly , a prominent scholar of Indian foreign policy and South Asian politics, argues that India can emerge as a global power, but it must make significant changes in its posture toward the U.S. and its defense procurement policies, end its geopolitical rivalry with Pakistan, and address the persistent poverty in the nation. While he acknowledges that many authoritarian nations have become great powers, he feels that India’s lurch toward authoritarianism could become a major impediment to its march toward great power status. Ganguly argues that India’s democracy, albeit flawed, has succeeded in managing the country’s vast diversity, but if India retreats from its democratic principles, then it will jeopardize its domestic and social order.  

Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad , who has served as India’s ambassador to many Middle Eastern countries, is intimately aware of both the process and content of Indian foreign policy. He argues that Modi has worked hard to improve relations with Middle Eastern countries, and has been successful, but worries that India’s reputation as well as its long-term interests are not being served well by the Hindutva ideology that informs the Modi government. He also points to weaknesses in the Indian economy and predicts that it will not reach the target of $5 trillion U.S. by 2025, as predicted by the Modi government. [15] Ahmad also laments the loss of opportunity. The U.S. has slowly retreated from the Middle East, and India, which has good business relations with the nations in the region, has not enhanced its strategic role. It has allowed China to step into the vacuum created by the U.S. pivot away from the Middle East. He predicts that constrained by Hindutva values, which target Muslims at home, India can only maintain transactional and business relations with the Middle East, and shared strategic goals and actions will be limited. 

Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center, argues that while Pakistan is capable of putting hurdles in India’s path, it cannot at the moment prevent India’s rise. A combination of the widening gap between India and Pakistan’s capabilities along with domestic political and economic instability have diminished Pakistan’s ability to curtail the rise of India and its growing international profile. Kugelman also points out that while Pakistan does possess assets that allow it to pose asymmetric threats to India, it has for the moment reduced such activity. Additionally, Pakistan’s fortunes in Afghanistan have not fared well, and hence Pakistan will continue to maintain peace and calm on its eastern border with India while dealing with the challenges it faces from Afghanistan on its western border. Kugelman sees challenges to India’s emergence as a world power coming more from India’s other neighbor, China, a more powerful and more aggressive power. 

Aparna Pande is a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, and her work focuses on India’s foreign policy and the politics and geopolitics of South Asia. Pande draws an intriguing portrait of India as an aspiring world power, but a “different kind of world power.” She argues that India is seeking recognition as a global power with a moral identity – Vishwaguru (world teacher). The country does not have hegemonic aspirations in the region or globally. It does not have any territorial aspirations, nor does it seek to upset the existing order. According to Pande, this “Indian exceptionalism” is based on a form of nationalism that takes pride in its civilizational heritage and is neither territorial nor ideological. In her essay, Pande also emphasizes the importance of the emerging and rapidly growing India-U.S. alliance. 

Ghazala Wahab , a defense expert who also edits and publishes FORCE , a monthly journal on security issues, has contributed a counterintuitive and persuasive challenge to the narrative that India is a rising military power. She points out that India’s status as having the third largest defense budget in the world and also being the third or fourth largest importer of military equipment is being confused with military power. She argues that while India is indeed spending more than most nations on military power, it is not deterring other nations such as Pakistan and China from pursuing their aggressive cross-border attacks and violations. For Wahab, deterrence is the measure of power. Wahab also dispels the myth of the policy/goal of Atmanirbhar (self-reliance) in the defense sector. She observes that the resources earmarked for research and development are very low, and almost all major weapons manufacturing in India happens through collaboration with foreign firms. Wahab suggests that heralding India as a major military power is premature, and that it will be a while before India actually becomes self-reliant and successfully deters its enemies.  

India seeks greater responsibility and recognition on the global stage, and as part of this pursuit it has persevered in pushing for reforms first of the U.N. Security Council and now of the entire system of multilateral governance. Retired Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin , who has served as India’s permanent representative to the U.N., recounts in detail how India has sought reform of the U.N. Security Council to make it more representative and more in alignment with current realities, and to attain a permanent membership. He explains how India’s strategy for reform has evolved and how various international stakeholders have ensured that the process is consistently stymied, and no reforms have taken place. India’s failure to achieve a permanent seat at the U.N. Security Council reveals the nature of global politics: Institutional continuity prevails despite major shifts in economic and military balances of power.  

[1] See comments by Rich Verma, the deputy undersecretary of state, as reported by Financial Express, April 27, 2023.  https://www.financialexpress.com/business/defence-india-us-relationship-the-most-consequential-relationship-of-this-century-top-us-diplomat-3064684/ . Similar observations are regularly repeated by senior diplomats. 

[2] Pande, A. (2020).  Making India great: The promise of a reluctant global power . HarperCollins; Jaishankar, S. (2020).  The India way: Strategies for an uncertain world . New Delhi. 

[3] See the full text of Nehru’s speech at:  https://thewire.in/history/india-at-75-jawaharlal-nehru-tryst-with-destiny-full-text

[4] See media reports fact-checking this fake news:  https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/fact-check-did-asle-toje-call-pm-modi-biggest-contender-for-nobel-prize-123031600463_1.html

[5] Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. Ltd. (n.d.)  CMIE statistics.  Retrieved July 21, 2023, from  https://www.cmie.com/kommon/bin/sr.php?kall=warticle&dt=20230501182648&msec=936

[6] S, V. (2023, March 19). MPW 2022: India’s female labour force is plunging; can country’s growing economy afford this?  Business Today.   https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/deep-dive/story/mpw-2022-indias-female-labour-force-is-plunging-can-countrys-growing-economy-afford-this-372141-2023-03-03

[7] Mody, A. (2023).  India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today . Stanford University Press. See also the author’s “Khanversation” with Mody about his book on YouTube at:  https://youtu.be/7sLBuc90_ec . 

[8] Biswas, S. (2021, March 16). ‘ Electoral autocracy’: The downgrading of India’s democracy.  BBC News.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56393944  

[9] See the State Department’s report on the state of religious freedom in India:  https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-religious-freedom/india/ . Also see the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s report:  https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-05/India%202023.pdf .

[10] Rai, S. (2023, June 20). Democrats push Biden to make human rights a focus in meeting with Modi.  The Hill.   https://thehill.com/policy/international/4058441-democrats-human-rights-modi-biden-visit/

[11] HT News Desk. (2023, June 23).  Obama’s comments on Modi coincidental? Congress MP says ‘would be surprised if …’.  The Hindustan Times.  https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/obamas-comments-on-modi-coincidental-congress-mp-says-would-be-surprised-if-101687486315221.html

[12] The Wire Staff. (2023, June 23). ‘Hussain Obama’: Assam CM Himanta targets, threatens US ex-prez with Islamophobic slur.  The Wire.   https://thewire.in/communalism/hussain-obama-himanta-biswa-sarma

[13] See report in  The Guardian  on the state of affairs in Manipur:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/10/foreigners-on-our-own-land-ethnic-clashes-threaten-to-push-indias-manipur-state-into-civil-war .  The Telegraph  reports that 253 churches have been burnt in Manipur. See  https://www.telegraphindia.com/north-east/253-churches-burnt-down-during-continuing-unrest-in-manipur-indigenous-tribal-leaders-forum/cid/1944597 . 

[14] European Parliament. (2023, July 12). Joint motion for a resolution on India, the situation in Manipur (2023/2781[RSP]).  https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-9-2023-0335_EN.html

[15] PIB Delhi. (2022, Nov. 12).  No one can stop the Indian economy from holding the 3rd rank in the world by 2027- Amit Shah.  Ministry of Home Affairs.  https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1875480

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As a rising global power, what is India’s vision for the world?

India has the opportunity to put in place a new framework for its own security and growth, and that of developing countries around the world. Image:  REUTERS

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Seventy-one years ago – on 15 August 1947 – India gained independence. Over the subsequent decades, the country has managed its evolution in an international system largely created and guided by the United States and its partners. While it was not easy for India to pursue independent domestic and foreign policies within this system, the American-led order was preferable to the British Empire from which New Delhi had liberated itself.

Today, this global system is under serious threat. Washington, along with capital cities across the European Union, finds itself caught in a polarizing debate on the social contracts of its society – questions of domestic inequality and identity have left the US and its allies incapable of effectively championing the values of the international order. Simultaneously, the balance of global economic power has once again tipped in favour of Asia.

Within this shifting global landscape, India has the opportunity to put in place a new framework for its own security, growth and development, and that of developing countries around the world. As a rising global power, this must be India’s principle endeavor in the coming decades.

The changing international order

The extraordinary rise of countries in Asia has spawned at least two new dynamics. First, political boundaries – many of them colonial legacies – are steadily becoming more porous through economic cooperation. Markets are converging across the Eurasian landmass as well as facilitating the geo-economic “union” of the Indian and Pacific oceans. This has resulted in new integrative dynamics; as cultures, markets and communities aspire for development and new opportunities. Second, even though territorial considerations acknowledge economic linkages, political differences are still being reasserted – not just to contest the consensus of the past, but to shape a new order altogether.

Asia is coming together economically but is also threatening to grow apart politically; market-driven growth in the region sits uneasily with a diverse array of political systems.

China is, in large part, responsible for both. While offering a political vision that stands in sharp contrast to the “liberal international order”, China has been equally assertive about advancing free trade, raising new development finance, and offering a new model for development and global governance. The prospect of China using its economic clout to advance its own norms is worrying for India.

A consensus to shape a new order

Given the velocity of change underway, the challenge for India on its Independence Day is to shape an inclusive and equitable international order by the centenary of its independence. To achieve this, India must prepare to act according to its capabilities: by mid-century it must build the necessary state capacity, industrial and economic heft and strategic culture that would befit its status as a leading power. The country could present this as a model for much of the developing world to emulate, and anchor faith in the liberalism and internationalism of the world order.

India, then, requires a “consensus” – a new proposition that will not only guide its own trajectory for the better part of the 21st century, but one that appeals to communities around the world.

What then are the tenets of a “New Delhi Consensus”?

First, India must sustain and strengthen its own trajectory of rapid economic growth, and show to the world that it is capable of realizing its development goals within the rubric of liberal democracy. No argument for the New Delhi Consensus can be more powerful and alluring than the economic success of India. By IMF estimates, India already accounts for 15% of global growth. Even though nearly 40% of its population live in various shades of poverty and barely a third are connected to the internet, India is still able to proportionately shoulder the world’s economic burden. Imagine the possibilities for global growth if India can meet, and even exceed, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

States in the developing world yearn for replicable templates of growth, yet they find themselves with a binary choice between Western democracy, which is ill suited for deeply plural and socially stratified societies, and autocratic systems that have little room for individual freedom.

India, on the other hand has “emerged as a bridge between the many extremes of the world”, as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once remarked . India’s plural and composite culture, he said, was “living proof of the possibility of a confluence of civilizations”. The global 2030 development agenda, for the most part, may as well be a story of India’s domestic economic transformation and of its defence of diversity and democracy.

Second and flowing from the above, Delhi must claim leadership over the global development agenda. It is worth pointing out that India sits at the intersection of the world’s two most dynamics regions, Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific. The largest bulk of development finance will emerge from, and be invested in, these regions. It is incumbent on India to ensure that this is not a new means to maximize political interference, but a moment to offer unfettered opportunities.

In his recent address to the Ugandan Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi affirmed that “India’s development partnership will be guided by [African] priorities” – a position that contrasts sharply with the West’s evangelical focus on governance reforms and China’s economic policies in the region. India’s recipient-led partnership framework will allow states to secure development pathways that are economically sustainable and politically acceptable. India now needs to articulate its intentions and the principles that will shape international development cooperation in the days ahead.

Third, Delhi must create and protect the space for equitable and inclusive global governance. For too long, leadership in the international system was considered a free pass to monopolize the global commons. India has always bucked this trend, emerging as a leading power that has never tempered its idealism of “having an interest in peace, and a tradition of friendliness to all”, as one official put it. Whether it is on free trade, climate change or international security, India’s non-interventionist and multilateral approach is well suited to support and sustain global governance in a multipolar world: the new reality of this century.

Finally, India must incubate a new social contract between its own state, industry and civil society. At the turn of the century, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee lamented that India’s democratic growth was held back by three failures: of the government to heed industry voices, of industry to appreciate the objectives of government, and of both in their commitment to the common individual.

Nearly two decades later, the imperative for India to correct these failures is even greater. The spread of information communication technologies and global supply chains implies that businesses and civil society must be made equal stakeholders if India is to develop its own unique consensus. Not only will this add greater legitimacy to India’s proposition, it will also create natural and grassroots champions for the country around the world.

For the first time since the end of the Second World War, a nation state that is wary of hegemonic tendencies and identifies itself with the equitable governance of the global commons is in a position to shape the international order. India is home to one-sixth of the global population and has sustained a unique democratic ethos and a foreign policy that is defined not only by national interest but also by solidarity with the developing world.

As a leading power, India must look beyond raw indexes of economic, political and military might, and craft a consensus that is consistent with its ancient and historic view of the world.

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Stormy Daniels Takes the Stand

The porn star testified for eight hours at donald trump’s hush-money trial. this is how it went..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

It’s 6:41 AM. I’m feeling a little stressed because I’m running late. It’s the fourth week of Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial. It’s a white collar trial. Most of the witnesses we’ve heard from have been, I think, typical white collar witnesses in terms of their professions.

We’ve got a former publisher, a lawyer, accountants. The witness today, a little less typical, Stormy Daniels, porn star in a New York criminal courtroom in front of a jury more accustomed to the types of witnesses they’ve already seen. There’s a lot that could go wrong.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

Today, what happened when Stormy Daniels took the stand for eight hours in the first criminal trial of Donald J. Trump. As before, my colleague Jonah Bromwich was inside the courtroom.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It’s Friday, May 10th.

So it’s now day 14 of this trial. And I think it’s worth having you briefly, and in broad strokes, catch listeners up on the biggest developments that have occurred since you were last on, which was the day that opening arguments were made by both the defense and the prosecution. So just give us that brief recap.

Sure. It’s all been the prosecution’s case so far. And prosecutors have a saying, which is that the evidence is coming in great. And I think for this prosecution, which is trying to show that Trump falsified business records to cover up a sex scandal, to ease his way into the White House in 2016, the evidence has been coming in pretty well. It’s come in well through David Pecker, former publisher of The National Enquirer, who testified that he entered into a secret plot with Trump and Michael Cohen, his fixer at the time, to suppress negative stories about Trump, the candidate.

It came in pretty well through Keith Davidson, who was a lawyer to Stormy Daniels in 2016 and negotiated the hush money payment. And we’ve seen all these little bits and pieces of evidence that tell the story that prosecutors want to tell. And the case makes sense so far. We can’t tell what the jury is thinking, as we always say.

But we can tell that there’s a narrative that’s coherent and that matches up with the prosecution’s opening statement. Then we come to Tuesday. And that day really marks the first time that the prosecution’s strategy seems a little bit risky because that’s the day that Stormy Daniels gets called to the witness stand.

OK, well, just explain why the prosecution putting Stormy Daniels on the stand would be so risky. And I guess it makes sense to answer that in the context of why the prosecution is calling her as a witness at all.

Well, you can see why it makes sense to have her. The hush money payment was to her. The cover-up of the hush money payment, in some ways, concerns her. And so she’s this character who’s very much at the center of this story. But according to prosecutors, she’s not at the center of the crime. The prosecution is telling a story, and they hope a compelling one. And arguably, that story starts with Stormy Daniels. It starts in 2006, when Stormy Daniels says that she and Trump had sex, which is something that Trump has always denied.

So if prosecutors were to not call Stormy Daniels to the stand, you would have this big hole in the case. It would be like, effect, effect, effect. But where is the cause? Where is the person who set off this chain reaction? But Stormy Daniels is a porn star. She’s there to testify about sex. Sex and pornography are things that the jurors were not asked about during jury selection. And those are subjects that bring up all kinds of different complex reactions in people.

And so, when the prosecutors bring Stormy Daniels to the courtroom, it’s very difficult to know how the jurors will take it, particularly given that she’s about to describe a sexual episode that she says she had with the former president. Will the jurors think that makes sense, as they sit here and try to decide a falsifying business records case, or will they ask themselves, why are we hearing this?

So the reason why this is the first time that the prosecution’s strategy is, for journalists like you, a little bit confusing, is because it’s the first time that the prosecution seems to be taking a genuine risk in what they’re putting before these jurors. Everything else has been kind of cut and dry and a little bit more mechanical. This is just a wild card.

This is like live ammunition, to some extent. Everything else is settled and controlled. And they know what’s going to happen. With Stormy Daniels, that’s not the case.

OK, so walk us through the testimony. When the prosecution brings her to the stand, what actually happens?

It starts, as every witness does, with what’s called direct examination, which is a fancy word for saying prosecutors question Stormy Daniels. And they have her tell her story. First, they have her tell the jury about her education and where she grew up and her professional experience. And because of Stormy Daniels’s biography, that quickly goes into stripping, and then goes into making adult films.

And I thought the prosecutor who questioned her, Susan Hoffinger, had this nice touch in talking about that, because not only did she ask Daniels about acting in adult films. But she asked her about writing and directing them, too, emphasizing the more professional aspects of that work and giving a little more credit to the witness, as if to say, well, you may think this or you may think that. But this is a person with dignity who took what she did seriously. Got it.

What’s your first impression of Daniels as a witness?

It’s very clear that she’s nervous. She’s speaking fast. She’s laughing to herself and making small jokes. But the tension in the room is so serious from the beginning, from the moment she enters, that those jokes aren’t landing. So it just feels, like, really heavy and still and almost oppressive in there. So Daniels talking quickly, seeming nervous, giving more answers than are being asked of her by the prosecution, even before we get to the sexual encounter that she’s about to describe, all of that presents a really discomfiting impression, I would say.

And how does this move towards the encounter that Daniels ultimately has?

It starts at a golf tournament in 2006, in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Daniels meets Trump there. There are other celebrities there, too. They chatted very briefly. And then she received a dinner invitation from him. She thought it over, she says. And she goes to have dinner with Trump, not at a restaurant, by the way. But she’s invited to join him in the hotel suite.

So she gets to the hotel suite. And his bodyguard is there. And the hotel door is cracked open. And the bodyguard greets her and says she looks nice, this and that. And she goes in. And there’s Donald Trump, just as expected. But what’s not expected, she says, is that he’s not wearing what you would wear to a dinner with a stranger, but instead, she says, silk or satin pajamas. She asked him to change, she says. And he obliges.

He goes, and he puts on a dress shirt and dress pants. And they sit down at the hotel suite’s dining room table. And they have a kind of bizarre dinner. Trump is asking her very personal questions about pornography and safe sex. And she testifies that she teased him about vain and pompous he is. And then at some point, she goes to the bathroom. And she sees that he has got his toiletries in there, his Old Spice, his gold tweezers.

Very specific details.

Yeah, we’re getting a ton of detail in this scene. And the reason we’re getting those is because prosecutors are trying to elicit those details to establish that this is a credible person, that this thing did happen, despite what Donald Trump and his lawyers say. And the reason you can know it happened, prosecutors seem to be saying, is because, look at all these details she can still summon up.

She comes out of the bathroom. And she says that Donald Trump is on the hotel bed. And what stands out to me there is what she describes as a very intense physical reaction. She says that she blacked out. And she quickly clarifies, she doesn’t mean from drugs or alcohol. She means that, she says, that the intensity of this experience was such that, suddenly, she can’t remember every detail. The prosecution asks a question that cuts directly to the sex. Essentially, did you start having sex with him? And Daniels says that she did. And she continues to provide more details than even, I think, the prosecution wanted.

And I think we don’t want to go chapter and verse through this claimed sexual encounter. But I wonder what details stand out and which details feel important, given the prosecution’s strategy here.

All the details stand out because it’s a story about having had sex with a former president. And the more salacious and more private the details feel, the more you’re going to remember them. So we’ll remember that Stormy Daniels said what position they had sex in. We’ll remember that she said he didn’t use a condom. Whether that’s important to the prosecution’s case, now, that’s a much harder question to answer, as we’ve been saying.

But what I can tell you is, as she’s describing having had sex with Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is sitting right there, and Eric Trump, his son, is sitting behind him, seeming to turn a different color as he hears this embarrassment of his father being described to a courtroom full of reporters at this trial, it’s hard to even describe the energy in that room. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. And it was just Daniels’s testimony and, seemingly, the former President’s emotions. And you almost felt like you were trapped in there with both of them as this description was happening.

Well, I think it’s important to try to understand why the prosecution is getting these details, these salacious, carnal, pick your word, graphic details about sex with Donald Trump. What is the value, if other details are clearly making the point that she’s recollecting something?

Well, I think, at this point, we can only speculate. But one thing we can say is, this was uncomfortable. This felt bad. And remember, prosecutor’s story is not about the sex. It’s about trying to hide the sex. So if you’re trying to show a jury why it might be worthwhile to hide a story, it might be worth —

Providing lots of salacious details that a person would want to hide.

— exposing them to how bad that story feels and reminding them that if they had been voters and they had heard that story, and, in fact, they asked Daniels this very question, if you hadn’t accepted hush money, if you hadn’t signed that NDA, is this the story you would have told? And she said, yes. And so where I think they’re going with this, but we can’t really be sure yet, is that they’re going to tell the jurors, hey, that story, you can see why he wanted to cover that up, can’t you?

You mentioned the hush money payments. What testimony does Daniels offer about that? And how does it advance the prosecution’s case of business fraud related to the hush money payments?

So little evidence that it’s almost laughable. She says that she received the hush money. But we actually already heard another witness, her lawyer at the time, Keith Davidson, testify that he had received the hush money payment on her behalf. And she testified about feeling as if she had to sell this story because the election was fast approaching, almost as if her leverage was slipping away because she knew this would be bad for Trump.

That feels important. But just help me understand why it’s important.

Well, what the prosecution has been arguing is that Trump covered up this hush money payment in order to conceal a different crime. And that crime, they say, was to promote his election to the presidency by illegal means.

Right, we’ve talked about this in the past.

So when Daniels ties her side of the payment into the election, it just reminds the jurors maybe, oh, right, this is what they’re arguing.

So how does the prosecution end this very dramatic, and from everything you’re saying, very tense questioning of Stormy Daniels about this encounter?

Well, before they can even end, the defense lawyers go and they consult among themselves. And then, with the jury out of the room, one of them stands up. And he says that the defense is moving for a mistrial.

On what terms?

He says that the testimony offered by Daniels that morning is so prejudicial, so damning to Trump in the eyes of the jury, that the trial can no longer be fair. Like, how could these jurors have heard these details and still be fair when they render their verdict? And he says a memorable expression. He says, you can’t un-ring that bell, meaning they heard it. They can’t un-hear it. It’s over. Throw out this trial. It should be done.

Wow. And what is the response from the judge?

So the judge, Juan Merchan, he hears them out. And he really hears them out. But at the end of their arguments, he says, I do think she went a little too far. He says that. He said, there were things that were better left unsaid.

By Stormy Daniels?

By Stormy Daniels. And he acknowledges that she is a difficult witness. But, he says, the remedy for that is not a mistrial, is not stopping the whole thing right now. The remedy for that is cross-examination. If the defense feels that there are issues with her story, issues with her credibility, they can ask her whatever they want. They can try to win the jury back over. If they think this jury has been poisoned by this witness, well, this is their time to provide the antidote. The antidote is cross-examination. And soon enough, cross-examination starts. And it is exactly as intense and combative as we expected.

We’ll be right back.

So, Jonah, how would you characterize the defense’s overall strategy in this intense cross-examination of Stormy Daniels?

People know the word impeach from presidential impeachments. But it has a meaning in law, too. You impeach a witness, and, specifically, their credibility. And that’s what the defense is going for here. They are going to try to make Stormy Daniels look like a liar, a fraud, an extortionist, a money-grubbing opportunist who wanted to take advantage of Trump and sought to do so by any means necessary.

And what did that impeachment strategy look like in the courtroom?

The defense lawyer who questions Stormy Daniels is a woman named Susan Necheles. She’s defended Trump before. And she’s a bit of a cross-examination specialist. We even saw her during jury selection bring up these past details to confront jurors who had said nasty things about Trump on social media with. And she wants to do the same thing with Daniels. She wants to bring up old interviews and old tweets and things that Daniels has said in the past that don’t match what Daniels is saying from the stand.

What’s a specific example? And do they land?

Some of them land. And some of them don’t. One specific example is that Necheles confronts Daniels with this old tweet, where Daniels says that she’s going to dance down the street if Trump goes to jail. And what she’s trying to show there is that Daniels is out for revenge, that she hates Trump, and that she wants to see him go to jail. And that’s why she’s testifying against him.

And Daniels is very interesting during the cross-examination. It’s almost as if she’s a different person. She kind of squares her shoulders. And she sits up a little straighter. And she leans forward. Daniels is ready to fight. But it doesn’t quite land. The tweet actually says, I’ll dance down the street when he’s selected to go to jail.

And Daniels goes off on this digression about how she knows that people don’t get selected to go to jail. That’s not how it works. But she can’t really unseat this argument, that she’s a political enemy of Donald Trump. So that one kind of sticks, I would say. But there are other moves that Necheles tries to pull that don’t stick.

So unlike the prosecution, which typically used words like adult, adult film, Necheles seems to be taking every chance she can get to say porn, or pornography, or porn star, to make it sound base or dirty. And so when she starts to ask Daniels about actually being in pornography, writing, acting, and directing sex films, she tries to land a punch line, Necheles does. She says, so you have a lot of experience making phony stories about sex appear to be real, right?

As if to say, perhaps this story you have told about entering Trump’s suite in Lake Tahoe and having sex with him was made up.

Just another one of your fictional stories about sex. But Daniels comes back and says, the sex in the films, it’s very much real, just like what happened to me in that room. And so, when you have this kind of combat of a lawyer cross-examining very aggressively and the witness fighting back, you can feel the energy in the room shift as one lands a blow or the other does. But here, Daniels lands one back. And the other issue that I think Susan Necheles runs into is, she tries to draw out disparities from interviews that Daniels gave, particularly to N-TOUCH, very early on once the story was out.

It’s kind of like a tabloid magazine?

But some of the disparities don’t seem to be landing quite like Necheles would want. So she tries to do this complicated thing about where the bodyguard was in the room when Daniels walked into the room, as described in an interview in a magazine. But in that magazine interview, as it turns out, Daniels mentioned that Trump was wearing pajamas. And so, if I’m a juror, I don’t care where the bodyguard is. I’m thinking about, oh, yeah, I remember that Stormy Daniels said now in 2024 that Trump was wearing pajamas.

I’m curious if, as somebody in the room, you felt that the defense was effective in undermining Stormy Daniels’s credibility? Because what I took from the earlier part of our conversation was that Stormy Daniels is in this courtroom on behalf of the prosecution to tell a story that’s uncomfortable and has the kind of details that Donald Trump would be motivated to try to hide. And therefore, this defense strategy is to say, those details about what Trump might want to hide, you can’t trust them. So does this back and forth effectively hurt Stormy Daniels’s credibility, in your estimation?

I don’t think that Stormy Daniels came off as perfectly credible about everything she testified about. There are incidents that were unclear or confusing. There were things she talked about that I found hard to believe, when she, for instance, denied that she had attacked Trump in a tweet or talked about her motivations. But about what prosecutors need, that central story, the story of having had sex with him, we can’t know whether it happened.

But there weren’t that many disparities in these accounts over the years. In terms of things that would make me doubt the story that Daniels was telling, details that don’t add up, those weren’t present. And you don’t have to take my word for that, nor should you. But the judge is in the room. And he says something very, very similar.

What does he say? And why does he say it?

Well, he does it when the defense, again, at the end of the day on Thursday, calls for a mistrial.

With a similar argument as before?

Not only with a similar argument as before, but, like, almost the exact same argument. And I would say that I was astonished to see them do this. But I wasn’t because I’ve covered other trials where Trump is the client. And in those trials, the lawyers, again and again, called for a mistrial.

And what does Judge Marchan say in response to this second effort to seek a mistrial?

Let me say, to this one, he seems a little less patient. He says that after the first mistrial ruling, two days before, he went into his chambers. And he read every decision he had made about the case. He took this moment to reflect on the first decision. And he found that he had, in his own estimation, which is all he has, been fair and not allowed evidence that was prejudicial to Trump into this trial. It could continue. And so he said that again. And then he really almost turned on the defense. And he said that the things that the defense was objecting to were things that the defense had made happen.

He says that in their opening statement, the defense could have taken issue with many elements of the case, about whether there were falsified business records, about any of the other things that prosecutors are saying happened. But instead, he says, they focused their energy on denying that Trump ever had sex with Daniels.

And so that was essentially an invitation to the prosecution to call Stormy Daniels as a witness and have her say from the stand, yes, I had this sexual encounter. The upshot of it is that the judge not only takes the defense to task. But he also just says that he finds Stormy Daniels’s narrative credible. He doesn’t see it as having changed so much from year to year.

Interesting. So in thinking back to our original question here, Jonah, about the idea that putting Stormy Daniels on the stand was risky, I wonder if, by the end of this entire journey, you’re reevaluating that idea because it doesn’t sound like it ended up being super risky. It sounded like it ended up working reasonably well for the prosecution.

Well, let me just assert that it doesn’t really matter what I think. The jury is going to decide this. There’s 12 people. And we can’t know what they’re thinking. But my impression was that, while she was being questioned by the prosecution for the prosecution’s case, Stormy Daniels was a real liability. She was a difficult witness for them.

And the judge said as much. But when the defense cross-examined her, Stormy Daniels became a better witness, in part because their struggles to discredit her may have actually ended up making her story look more credible and stronger. And the reason that matters is because, remember, we said that prosecutors are trying to fill this hole in their case. Well, now, they have. The jury has met Stormy Daniels. They’ve heard her account. They’ve made of it what they will. And now, the sequence of events that prosecutors are trying to line up as they seek prison time for the former President really makes a lot of sense.

It starts with what Stormy Daniels says with sex in a hotel suite in 2006. It picks up years later, as Donald Trump is trying to win an election and, prosecutors say, suppressing negative stories, including Stormy Daniels’s very negative story. And the story that prosecutors are telling ends with Donald Trump orchestrating the falsification of business records to keep that story concealed.

Well, Jonah, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Of course, thanks for having me.

The prosecution’s next major witness will be Michael Cohen, the former Trump fixer who arranged for the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. Cohen is expected to take the stand on Monday.

Here’s what else you need to know today. On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a defiant response to warnings from the United States that it would stop supplying weapons to Israel if Israel invades the Southern Gaza City of Rafah. So far, Israel has carried out a limited incursion into the city where a million civilians are sheltering, but has threatened a full invasion. In a statement, Netanyahu said, quote, “if we need to stand alone, we will stand alone.”

Meanwhile, high level ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas have been put on hold in part because of anger over Israel’s incursion into Rafah.

A reminder, tomorrow, we’ll be sharing the latest episode of our colleague’s new show, “The Interview” This week on “The Interview,” Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with radio host Charlamagne Tha God about his frustrations with how Americans talk about politics.

If me as a Black man, if I criticize Democrats, then I’m supporting MAGA. But if I criticize, you know, Donald Trump and Republicans, then I’m a Democratic shill. Why can’t I just be a person who deals in nuance?

Today’s episode was produced by Olivia Natt and Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Lexie Diao, with help from Paige Cowett, contains original music by Will Reid and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.

• May 17, 2024   •   51:10 The Campus Protesters Explain Themselves
• May 16, 2024   •   30:47 The Make-or-Break Testimony of Michael Cohen
• May 15, 2024   •   27:03 The Possible Collapse of the U.S. Home Insurance System
• May 14, 2024   •   35:20 Voters Want Change. In Our Poll, They See It in Trump.
• May 13, 2024   •   27:46 How Biden Adopted Trump’s Trade War With China
• May 10, 2024   •   27:42 Stormy Daniels Takes the Stand
• May 9, 2024   •   34:42 One Strongman, One Billion Voters, and the Future of India
• May 8, 2024   •   28:28 A Plan to Remake the Middle East
• May 7, 2024   •   27:43 How Changing Ocean Temperatures Could Upend Life on Earth
• May 6, 2024   •   29:23 R.F.K. Jr.’s Battle to Get on the Ballot
• May 3, 2024   •   25:33 The Protesters and the President
• May 2, 2024   •   29:13 Biden Loosens Up on Weed

Hosted by Michael Barbaro

Featuring Jonah E. Bromwich

Produced by Olivia Natt and Michael Simon Johnson

Edited by Lexie Diao

With Paige Cowett

Original music by Will Reid and Marion Lozano

Engineered by Alyssa Moxley

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

This episode contains descriptions of an alleged sexual liaison.

What happened when Stormy Daniels took the stand for eight hours in the first criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump?

Jonah Bromwich, one of the lead reporters covering the trial for The Times, was in the room.

On today’s episode

Jonah E. Bromwich , who covers criminal justice in New York for The New York Times.

Background reading

In a second day of cross-examination, Stormy Daniels resisted the implication she had tried to shake down Donald J. Trump by selling her story of a sexual liaison.

Here are six takeaways from Ms. Daniels’s earlier testimony.

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The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state criminal courts in Manhattan. More about Jonah E. Bromwich

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