Observer Research Foundation

The Observer Research Foundation was established on 5 September 1990 in New Delhi as an independent, nonpartisan policy research institution. Beyond its New Delhi headquarters it operates regional centres in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai, plus a Washington DC office. In 2020 it ranked 20th globally among all think tanks and second among Asian institutions outside China, making it India's highest-ranked research foundation in international comparisons.

ORF's research brief is substantially broader than geopolitics alone. It runs dedicated centres covering energy and climate change, technology security, international trade and finance, critical minerals, digital infrastructure, maritime governance, and urbanisation. Its signature public event, the Raisina Dialogue, launched in 2016 and is organised jointly with India's Ministry of External Affairs as India's premier annual conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics. The MEA partnership reflects ORF's semi-official standing in India's strategic debate: the foundation operates independently but its analysis carries weight as a signal of what New Delhi's foreign-policy community is thinking. Funding comes from Indian corporate sources, international foundations including the Gates Foundation, and technology companies including Microsoft and Google.

On the Iran conflict, ORF analysts provided the most detailed independent Indian commentary on the Chabahar port waiver dispute, where India's IRCON International had operated the terminal under an OFAC exemption. When that waiver lapsed in April 2026 and operational control reverted to Iran, ORF researchers articulated the strategic consequences for India's connectivity ambitions toward Central Asia and Afghanistan, situating the episode within India's broader hedging posture: sustaining economic ties with Tehran while managing Washington's expectations.