No Clarity on Next Quad Leaders Summit, Sparking Questions About the Group’s Future

The Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting ended without clarity on when the next Quad Summit (meeting of heads of states) will be held. This sparked speculation that the Quad, which includes Australia, India, Japan and the United States, may now revert to a Ministerial dialogue, as it was before it was upgraded in 2021, the Hindu reported. 

Unlike previous joint statements, this time the statement issued did not identify who would host the next Leaders’ Summit, the newspaper reported. The FMs didn’t hold a joint press conference but “held separate briefings…refuting questions on whether the Quad had lost some of its importance and whether leaders of the grouping were now engaging more with other multilateral formations.” The report said. 

The FMs pledged to boost critical mineral and energy cooperation and ramp up maritime surveillance across the Indo-Pacific to counter China in the region, the Hindu reported. 

China reacted saying cooperation among countries should not target any third party, news agency Reuters said, adding that  it “did not support the formation of exclusive cliques or ‌bloc confrontation” and the group should not “undermine mutual trust and cooperation ‌among regional countries,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao ⁠Ning, told press.

Diverging geopolitical interests among its members are making the group an “irrelevance” reported Irish Times, adding that Trump has shown little interest in the Quad since returning to the White House and his tariffs hit India and Japan hard, “while China’s tough response won his respect and an eagerness to make friends with Xi Jinping”, the newspaper said.

 “Washington has shifted its strategic focus away from the broader Indo-Pacific region to the so-called First Island Chain that runs through Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines….A new grouping known as the Squad emerged three years ago, made up of the US, Japan, Australia and the Philippines. It is focused on hard security, openly identifying China as the threat it is countering, and all its members are formal US allies,” the outlet said. 

Rubio Reminds India of $500 billion US Import Commitment, GTRI Seeks Govt Clarification in Light of US Top Court’s Tariff Verdict 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, while on a visit to India, posted on X that India had committed to purchasing $500 billion worth of American goods over the next five years, with a focus on energy, technology and agriculture. But research body The Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said that since Trump’s reciprocal tariff framework had collapsed after the US SC cancelled it, the economic logic of the India–US bilateral trade agreement (BTA) itself disappeared, and hence the question of the $500 billion purchase commitment was rendered irrelevant. 

“The Indian government must clarify its position on Rubio’s tweet. Large-scale imports of US energy, defence equipment, aircraft and agricultural products could further widen India’s trade deficit and intensify pressure on the rupee,” the Hindu quoted Ajay Srivastava of GTRI.

“This is a reminder that Washington's weaponised trade diplomacy under Trump is in many ways more coercive than even China’s much-criticized “debt-trap diplomacy,” the Outlook quoted the post on X of Brahma Chellaney, professor of Strategic Studies at the Center for Policy Research. He said that trade has become a blunt US instrument of economic coercion.

The $500 billion purchase pledge was part of the India-US Joint Statement issued on February 6, 2026, agreed as part of ongoing Bilateral Trade Agreement negotiations, under which the U.S. had offered to reduce its proposed reciprocal tariff on Indian exports from 25% to around 18% in exchange for a range of concessions from New Delhi, including the large-scale purchase commitment.

Since then to now the rupee has fallen 12% against the dollar amid rising import costs, higher oil prices and foreign investment outflows, the report said. GTRI warned that committing to large-scale purchases of US energy, defence equipment, aircraft and agricultural products at this juncture could significantly widen India's trade deficit and add pressure on an already strained foreign exchange position.

Meanwhile, the US team is visiting India from June 1-4 to finalise the details of the interim trade pact.

Draft Rules for VB-G RAM G Scheme That Replaces MNREGA to Take Effect on July 1; GDP, Forest Cover Among Factors for Funding

The Wire reported that new draft  norms for the centre's rural job guarantee scheme shifts financial costs from the Union to the states. Under MGNREGA, the centre used to pay the entire wage costs, whereas VB-G RAM G enacts a 60:40 split between the centre and the states. States now bear a considerably large proportion of the costs, the report said. 

Larger and poorer states will receive higher funding and from the second year onwards, an unspecified percentage of allocations will also be tied to 'performance criteria', judging how well states have implemented the scheme, the outlet said. 

The allocation formula is said to be based on metrics like the 2011 Census population, demographic performance, per capita Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), forest cover and Gross Domestic Product contribution. The law includes 125 days of wage employment per rural household annually but allows 60-day non-work period during peak agricultural sowing and harvesting seasons to ensure labor availability for farmers.

More Than Two Lakh People Sign Petition Against Great Nicobar Projects 

An online petition urging the Centre to withdraw the projects it has planned on Great Nicobar island garnered over 2.10 lakh signatures. The petition highlights the “extensive deforestation” that the projects will cause including the deforestation of 130 square kilometres of rainforest by felling 9.6 lakh trees, though some experts peg this number at close to one million, and that the port project will threaten biodiversity at Galathea Bay, in the southeastern part of the island, the Wire reported. 

The petition asks for sustainable alternatives for development on the island. 

The Union government projects on Great Nicobar Island, the southernmost island in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, include an international transshipment container terminal, an airport, a township and a power plant.

Citizens including biologists, social scientists, conservationists and retired civil servants have raised numerous concerns such as the government’s underestimation of the trees that are likely to be felled for the projects, a flawed Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), ignoring the dissent of local communities, and bypassing laws including the Forest Rights Act to provide permissions for the implementation of the projects, the outlet said. 

New Data Shows Rich Nations Likely Missed 2025 Goal to Double Adaptation Finance

New data on international climate finance for 2023 and 2024 shows that rich countries are highly unlikely to have met their pledge to double funding for adaptation in developing nations to around $40 billion a year by 2025 amid cuts to their overseas aid budgets, Climate Home News reported. 

The report said at the COP26 (Glasgow 2021),  all countries urged developed nations to at least double their funding for adaptation in developing countries from 2019 levels of around $20 billion by 2025. Funding for adaptation has lagged behind money to help reduce emissions and remains the dark spot even as the data showed overall climate finance rose to a record $136.7 billion in 2024.

UNEP warned last year that wealthy nations were likely to miss the adaptation finance target and the data released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that in 2024 adaptation finance was just under $35 billion.

The OECD, a policy forum for wealthy countries, said that meeting the doubling target would require "strong growth" of close to 20% in government funding for adaptation in 2025. 

The OECD's figures do not go up to 2025, but several nations announced cuts to climate finance last year. The most notable was the abandonment of US pledges to international climate funds by the new Trump administration but the UK, France, Germany and other wealthy European countries also pared back their contributions. 

Joe Thwaites, international finance director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said developed countries were "not on track" to meet the adaptation funding goal. 

UN General Assembly Backs “Climate Obligations” Set by World’s Top Court

The UN General Assembly adopted a "historic" resolution calling on countries to comply with their climate obligations, as directed by a landmark advisory issued last year by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), CHN reported. Last year in an opinion first requested by the Pacific island state of Vanuatu, the world's top court ruled that harming the climate by increasing fossil fuel production may constitute an "international wrongful act". This could result in affected countries claiming compensation from those responsible, the court said.

To follow up on the ICJ ruling, a dozen nations led by Vanuatu submitted a proposal to the UN's main deliberative body to recognise the advisory opinion and identify ways of implementing it. Several large oil-producing nations mounted a late push to weaken the text by introducing last-minute amendments, but the General Assembly rejected those and adopted the resolution with 141 countries in favour at a plenary session in New York.

The resolution urges countries to implement measures to cut carbon emissions, including by tripling renewable energy capacity, "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems", and phasing out "inefficient" fossil fuel subsidies. It also requests the UN Secretary-General to draft a report "containing ways to advance compliance with all obligations in relation to the court’s findings" by next year's UN General Assembly in September 2027.