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External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar used the Silver Jubilee celebration of the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) on 15 September to lay out the foreign-policy challenges India will need to navigate over the coming decades.
Jaishankar outlined six key issues that Indian diplomacy will face, including the consequences of India's rapid growth, the global flow of talent and skills, communication and AI, the Global South, India's civilisational identity and strategic autonomy.
Addressing the valedictory session of the ICWA's Silver Jubilee as an Institution of National Importance, he said India's rapid growth would have a direct bearing on its global footprint, the intensity of its ties with other nations and its relevance to key global debates.
Noting that India's GDP has doubled in the last decade and capabilities have multiplied across many domains, he told the gathering: "We are viewed very differently by the world today." He added that this has a direct implication for India's footprint, for the intensity of its ties with other nations, and for its relevance to key global debates and that the country now counts more, influences more, but also carries greater responsibility.
Jaishankar also identified communication and narrative building as a key challenge for diplomacy amid rapid technological change, the digital era and the rise of social media.
On strategic autonomy, he said India's independent stance was an "intrinsic and fundamental feature" of its approach to world affairs : "in our DNA" and an "intuitive belief" and that there was no alternative to it.
He said these six perspectives needed to be viewed against a "radically transformed global landscape" that was becoming "more turbulent and uncertain by the day."
Jaishankar argued that India is "naturally designed for the multipolar world that awaits us all," and that its answer to extreme global competition is to "double down on multipolarity."
What this means for working professionals is more concrete than it sounds. The structural demand for Indian talent abroad is real and growing. In 2023 alone, nearly 600,000 Indians migrated to OECD countries , an 8% jump from the previous year making India the largest origin country for new migrants.
A FICCI-KPMG study predicts a global talent shortage of over 85.2 million people by 2030, which could result in an estimated $8.45 trillion in unrealised annual revenue. Top hiring destinations include the UK, Australia, Germany, Ireland, and Greece. At the same time, the UAE alone attracted about 178,000 highly skilled professionals in 2025 and now ranks among the top three destinations for highly skilled, STEM, and AI talent.
The sectors in demand are not abstract: technology, BFSI, manufacturing, renewable energy, and healthcare are leading hiring sectors, while AI, data analytics, cloud computing, and cybersecurity have emerged as the most in-demand skills. For Indian professionals, the window is open but it rewards people with current, demonstrable skills, not just credentials. National employability has reached 56.35% in 2026, up from 54.81% the previous year, and more than 90% of Indian employees have already begun working with generative AI tools. That shift is what global employers are starting to notice.
