India’s Ministry of External Affairs describes the roughly 10 million Indians in the GCC (Ministry of External Affairs 2026) as a “living bridge” between India and the Gulf (Ministry of External Affairs 2025). This article argues that the diaspora is a stratified network whose tiers are unequally visible in official data and that a middle…
India faces a shortage of about 9.4 million affordable homes in its cities, and building upwards is one of the few ways to close that gap on scarce urban land. Fire-safety rules are essential to protect residents, but they also influence building height, the number of homes a plot can hold and the cost of…
The Chairman of the CPPA shared his insights on India’s sodium-ion battery ecosystem in an article published by Dhanam Online. He discussed the challenges associated with developing the technology and highlighted policy measures that could strengthen domestic manufacturing. According to Dhanuraj, India’s dependence on China for hard carbon—a key material used in sodium-ion batteries—remains a…
Permitted Is Not Buildable: How FSI, Setbacks and Road-Width Rules Shape Housing Supply in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh Floor Space Index (FSI) is usually treated as the main lever for increasing urban housing supply, but this CPPR study shows that the floor area a plot can actually deliver depends on how FSI interacts…
ABOUT THE TOPIC Ahead of the 18th BRICS Summit, the Centre for Public Policy Analysis (CPPA), Kochi, in collaboration with Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU), Kottayam, organised a roundtable on “The 18th BRICS Summit: India’s Priorities and the Future of the Global South” on 8 September 2026. The discussion examined BRICS’s evolving role, India’s priorities during…
High-rise apartments are becoming increasingly important to Kerala’s urban housing landscape as urbanisation expands and the distinction between urban and rural areas continues to diminish. With limited developable land, a long coastline and extensive ecologically sensitive areas, the scope for horizontal expansion is constrained. Infopark (Kochi) and Technopark (Thiruvananthapuram, near Kazhakootam) created concentrated white-collar job…
The challenges in addressing hunger and poverty cannot be effectively met through general schemes devised solely at the central or state levels.India’s poor ranking in the recently published Global Hunger Index brought the focus back to discussions around poverty, hunger, and economic progress, among others. The Government of India and some experts contest the methodologies…
Sustained political will and timely implementation are essential to ensure that electoral promises translate into long-term dignity and security for Assam’s tea garden communities Constituting nearly 20 per cent of the electorate and influencing outcomes in over 35 constituencies, Assam’s tea community was the most courted voting bloc of the 2026 Assembly election cycle. The…
In Short: The resurgence of geopolitical conflict in the Middle East, punctuated by disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, has exposed the structural vulnerabilities inherent in India’s energy supply chains. With significant volumes of crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) delayed or stranded, the crisis has swiftly transmitted into domestic…
When geopolitical tensions escalate across the Gulf region, the consequences are felt in hundreds of households in Kerala, which depend on remittances to meet their daily needs. Early 2026 US-led military strikes on Iran and subsequent airspace closures over Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi exposed Kerala’s remittance vulnerability (Al Jazeera, 2026). This vulnerability is structurally…
