Dear all,
Happy Independence Day to everyone! To celebrate this, we thought we’d share some of our recent podcasts:
Filmed on the sidelines of Ideas for India with former actress Raajeshwari Loomba and Dharma Endowment Fund acting CEO Mitesh Sheth is our video (above) Is it cool to be Indian abroad?
Also filmed then is India’s Next Growth Chapter with Tim Willasey-Wilsey (Visiting Professor, King's College London; Former British diplomat) and our Member Vee Bharkhada (Insolvency Expert, Navigate Business Recovery). Scroll down for this episode, which has 88k views already.
We’re so grateful for the depth and breadth of the incredibly interesting work Bridge India Members do. Here’s a sample:
First, welcome to our newest Member Gaurav Gandhi, a tech founder based in West London. He says that beyond an unreasonable interest in all things India (food, books, philosophy, politics - usually all four in the same conversation), he cares a lot about mass education, philosophy and cultures.
Congratulations to Lavni Ventures a SEBI-registered Category II Alternative Investment Fund that backs early-stage, deep-tech startups building science-led solutions and reviews more than 400 deep-tech opportunities annually. Quest Global Engineering Services Limited, one of the largest independent pure-play engineering services companies in India, has announced a strategic investment in Lavni Ventures Fund II. The commitment is among the fund’s largest to date, signalling a deepening partnership between two organisations committed to advancing deep-tech innovations in sectors that include climate, energy, and health.
Congratulations to our Board Member Sangeeta Waldron for being a Finalist for the Change and Sustainability category at the British Book Awards. Winners will be revealed on Wed 16th Sept in London, with one outstanding title being crowned Business Book of the Year 2026. Read more here.
On a film theme this week:
Thanks to everyone that came last week to the conversation between Member Anuj Radia and Nayanika Mahtani, writer of Main Vaapas Aaunga (currently in the Netflix Top 10 globally, and Number 1 for India and Pakistan), including Co-founder of Emmay Entertainment Monisha Advani.
Congratulations to Member Aman Dhillon for hosting her first international event, in New York last week, for her film and arts programming platform ReelN.
Congratulations to Member Rajiv Kumar Awasti, who has been acting for over 15 years, for shooting scenes last week for the upcoming Ragini 3 with Tamanna Bhatia, and the Sourav Gnaguly biopic Dada, with Rajkummar Rao.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) election in June delivered a historic diplomatic shockwave when Germany failed to secure a non-permanent seat, revealing critical lessons for India’s own global ambitions. Berlin’s bid collapsed in the first round of voting at the UN General Assembly. It secured a mere 104 votes, well short of the required 127 two-thirds majority. Instead, its competitors within the Western European and Others Group, Portugal and Austria, easily clinched the available seats, with 134 and 131 votes, respectively.
This marks the first time since 1977 that Germany has lost an UNSC election, as fellow partners in the G4 coalition (India, Brazil, Germany, and Japan) advocate for text-based negotiations to expand permanent council seats. It’s important for India to examine Germany’s defeat closely as it starts the campaign for elections for its candidature of UNSC in 2028-29. The election outcome serves as a stark reminder that monetary contributions alone do not buy diplomatic loyalty, and structural shifts in aid paradigms can trigger a massive backlash among voting nations. Scroll down to reach this week’s Substack for more, developed in partnership with the South Asian Herald.
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This is consistently recognised by the South Asian community as the most prestigious and highly respected such Awards. Bridge India is Community Partner for the event. Sir Keir Starmer said of the last event “It is wonderful to see so many British Asian change-makers being recognised tonight by the team” where a net worth of over £30bn was amongst the guests. Book your tickets here.
When: 6pm-1am | Fri 18 September
Where: London Hilton on Park Lane
Who: 550 business leaders, entrepreneurs and others, with world-class entertainment and drinks flowing the while night
Book here: Click here | Get in touch for BI Member-only prices
A five-course tasting menu and welcome drink from Michelin-starred chef Atul Kochhar, inspirational speakers and an opportunity to hear about Pardada Pardadi, an Indian NGO that aims to socially uplift and economically empower girls and women in Uttar Pradesh through education, health and hygiene, community development and economic empowerment. In partnership with Network Tree.
What: Bridge India Diwali Dinner x Kanishka by Atul Kochhar
When: 6pm arrivals and welcome drinks, 6:30pm speeches, sit-down dinner, 8:30pm close
Where: Kanishka by Atul Kochhar, 17-19 Maddox Street, Mayfair, London, W1S 2QH (closest station Oxford Circus)
Dress code: Formal attire or ethnic wear encouraged
Tickets: £0 Corporate Members, £80 Members, £100 Non-Members | Details here
For decades, Berlin operated under the assumption that its status as a top-tier financial contributor coupled with its massive foreign aid machinery guaranteed automatic entry into the UNSC.
The General Assembly thoroughly dismantled this assumption. The election proved that when the ballots are secret, developing nations will not hesitate to humiliate a wealthy Western donor.
And so this has lessons for India.
India can’t rely solely on its status as the world’s fastest-growing major economy, its contribution to UN peacekeeping, or its expanding financial pledges to global initiatives. While New Delhi’s financial aid, digital public infrastructure partnerships, and vaccine diplomacy have built goodwill across the Global South, the German defeat proves that structural influence requires active, reciprocal, and localised diplomatic engagement rather than transactional expectations.
A pivotal factor in Germany’s diplomatic erosion was the sudden unwinding of its premier international development apparatus. Berlin cut its development budget by 20%, pivoting from grants to loans, and completely phasing out high-demand academic and development networks with the Global South.
This sudden retrenchment created a severe global backlash. When Election Day arrived, affected nations retaliated at the ballot box.
Beyond aid cuts, Germany’s defeat was accelerated by its rigid foreign policy alignment on contemporary global conflicts. Berlin’s uncompromising defence of Israel alienated crucial voting blocs across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Concurrently, its hyper-fixation on the Ukraine war was perceived by non-aligned states as Eurocentric, leading to a severe diplomatic backlash.
Diplomats noted that Russia capitalised on these frustrations, actively lobbying African and Global South delegations to deny Germany their votes. By contrast, Portugal and Austria positioned themselves effectively. Portugal leveraged its extensive diplomatic relationships across Lusophone African nations and maintained a highly balanced, nuanced stance on international conflicts. Austria capitalised heavily on its traditional, constitutional reputation for neutrality and its history as a trusted, non-aligned UN headquarters hub in Vienna.
India’s long-standing strategy of strategic autonomy is its greatest asset and must be fiercely guarded. If India veers too close to Western-centric security frameworks or fails to articulate a balanced position on volatile global issues, it risks alienating the very Global South nations whose collective votes are essential for structural UN reform.
India’s claim to a permanent seat rests on entirely different pillars than Germany’s: India represents nearly 1.4 billion people, is the world’s largest democracy, and serves as an indispensable voice for developing nations.
New Delhi must ensure that its bilateral campaigns remain distinct, highlighting its unique identity rather than tying its fate unconditionally to a rigid G4 four-nation package.
Amit Deshmukh from the South Asian Herald says, India’s Development Partnership Administration (DPA) must double down on its demand-driven, grant-heavy model that strictly respects recipient sovereignty.
Additionally, it should also outpace Western agencies by exporting high-utility, low-cost assets like Digital Public Infrastructure, such as Unified Payments Interface (UPI) stacks and digital identity frameworks, which yield immediate domestic dividends for partner nations.
And India must insulate its development funding from domestic economic fluctuations - not just Germany, but the UK and US have lost significant goodwill and trust in the Global South from their recent culls.
Austria and Portugal launched their UNSC campaigns years earlier than Germany. Berlin relied heavily on a late, high-intensity blitz led by its foreign ministry, assuming its international profile would carry it across the finish line. It didn’t work. Voting decisions were made quietly much before its blitz.
India must guard against this. It must systematically implement an aggressive, multi-year, omni-directional campaign that leaves no region overlooked.
Amit Deshmukh says the roadmap requires India to generously fund its development assistance and ensure it is demand-driven, maintain strategic autonomy by resisting pressure to join rigid security alliances and run its individual candidacy on a standalone platform that emphasises its distinct global credentials (as bureaucrats in today’s Delhi enclaves might say “determining what Indian or bharatiya flavour is”).
Special diplomatic focus must also be directed toward microstates and small island nations across the Caribbean, the Pacific, and Africa. In the UN General Assembly, the secret ballet vote of the smallest Pacific island nation carries the exact same weight as that of a global superpower, and these relationships must be nurtured well in advance.
This is an edited version of the original article in South Asian Herald. Read the original article here.
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