Australia’s ambitious roadmap focuses on deepening and diversifying its trade and investment ties with India identifying four "superhighways of growth" - clean energy, education and skills, agribusiness, and tourism.

Key highlights of the Roadmap

• Identifies nearly 50 specific opportunities to focus and accelerate Australia's engagement with India in several areas such as defence industries, sports, culture, space, and technology.
• Australia-India Trade and Investment Accelerator Fund: It will help Australian businesses unlock new commercial opportunities in India.
• Australia-India Business Exchange (AIBX) to accelerate B2B engagement.
• Reinvigorated Australia-India CEO Forum: To provide a key business-to-business mechanism to accelerate commercial engagement.
• Maitri ('friendship') Grants programme: To enhance P2P, B2B and cultural links between the two nations.

Evolving relationship between India and Australia

• Trade: Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) 2021 gave a boost to free trade with Australia aiming to place India among its top three export markets by 2035.
• Nuclear cooperation: Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement signed in 2014. 
• Strategic partnership: Australian Government in its National Defense Strategy (NDS) 2024 identified India as ‘top-tier security partner’ in the Indo-Pacific Region.
• Defense cooperation: Mutual Logistics Support Arrangement and Defense Science and Technology Implementing Arrangement have been signed.
  • AUSTRAHIND, AUSINDEX, Pitch Black are a joint military exercise between two countries.

Recently, intelligence officials from several countries—including representatives from the Five Eyes (FVEY) alliance—convened in Delhi.

About Five Eyes Intelligence (FVEY) Alliance 

• Its foundation was laid with the British-U.S. Communication Intelligence Agreement (BRUSA), signed in 1946 focussing on signals intelligence (SIGINT),
  • SIGNIT covers areas like traffic analysis, decryption, and acquisition of communication documents.
• Core Members: U.S.A., U.K. Canada (joined in 1948), Australia and New Zealand (both joined in 1956)
• Five Eyes Intelligence Oversight and Review Council (FIORC): It was created in 2016 as the “non-political intelligence oversight, review, and security entities” of the member countries. 
• Scope and Purpose: 

• Geopolitical Intelligence: Monitoring emerging threats, such as terrorism, Chinese influence, and cyber threats.
• Comprehensive Intelligence: Medical intelligence, counterterrorism, geospatial intelligence, etc.
• Continuous Cooperation: Intelligence products continuously shared through secret databases.

Philippines urged India to Join ‘Squad’ Alliance.

About Squad alliance

• An informal minilateral alliance involving the US, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines. 
• Aim: Address aggression and maintaining stability in the Indo-Pacific Ocean Region, etc. 
• It is different from Quad which consists of India, USA, Japan and Australia 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia plan to withdraw from the Ottawa convention owing to military threat from Russia.

About Ottawa Convention 

• Official Name: Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction
• Objective: Puts obligations on State parties to not use, develop, stockpile anti-personnel mines under any circumstances.
  • Further obligates them to destroy such mines. 
• Adopted at Oslo (1997), signed at Ottawa, opened for signature from 1997-1999, enforced in 1999. 
• Signatories: 133, India not a signatory.
• Depositary: Secretary-General of the United Nations.

The 10th edition of the Raisina Dialogue was recently held in New Delhi. 

Raisina Dialogue 2025

• Hosted by: Observer Research Foundation with the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
• About: India’s annual flagship conference on geopolitics and geo-economics, committed to addressing the most challenging issues facing the international community.
• Participation: Representatives from about 125 countries including Ministers, Heads of State and Governments, Academicians, Think Tanks, Youth, etc. 
• Theme (2025): "Kālachakra - People, Peace and Planet”.  
  • Discussions focussed on six thematic pillars like Green Trilemma, Digital Planet, etc.