Why India needs to stop playing catch-up on global stage

The world is getting accustomed to navigating choppy geopolitical waters. We have stepped into a new world. It feels normal to wake up and smell Truth Social. It feels normal for our discourse to no longer extol the virtues of free trade or globalisation, but to include threats of mass annihilation.
We have accepted that we will be overtaken by AI. China was merely a strategic challenge that could be managed by a like-minded group of countries. The US, as a ‘free radical’, appears to have made space for China at the summit of global power, leaving its friends scrambling for cover. The world’s most unnecessary war has taught us that nuclear weapons are cool again, the only proven deterrent against external invasion.