New Delhi, Dec. 30 -- 2025 was perhaps the hardest year for India's external affairs ministry (MEA) with several events, processes and narratives getting out of manageable control. India started the year with a sense of comfort and friendships but India's global outlook at the end of year is much more pessimistic than it was at the start of the year.

The world order itself has undergone a significant change in 2025 as each country became more inward looking and one might say selfish and, on the liberal side, there seems to be no one thinking about the idea of order as such. It is China that seems to have emerged as the major thinker of what the world order should be like since it is a revisionist power and not hiding its great power ambi...