International students are an asset to the cause of peace-building. However, during wars and pandemics their security becomes a critical concern, as witnessed in the cases of Ukraine and, more recently Iran and West Asia. During the recent India visit of French President Emmanuel Macron, an ambitious project to welcome 30,000 Indian students to France by 2030 made headlines. According to the NITI Aayog, for every international student who comes to India, twenty-five Indian students leave the country in search of better educational destinations. This represents a serious deficit in India’s public diplomacy. Any attempt to promote India as a global educational destination must involve attracting more students from neighbouring countries to foster regional understanding. Such engagement would also help India prepare better for hosting students from other parts of the world.

At the 1957 Moscow Conference of Workers and Communist Parties, Mao Zedong declared that the “East wind will prevail over the West.” However, the reality is that the East has not fully risen while the West refuses to retreat. The contemporary world is becoming increasingly complex, and state sovereignty faces unprecedented challenges. A fundamental principle of international relations is that “all geopolitics is local,” meaning that foreign policy and global power shifts are ultimately driven by domestic political dynamics. Traditionally, diplomacy has been dominated by state-to-state relations, but this has gradually evolved with the emergence of public diplomacy, where media, academia, sports, and cultural exchanges play significant roles in building durable international partnerships. Such engagement represents a more professional way to cultivate peace constituencies and international understanding.

Even today, despite strict immigration regimes, students and scientists continue to migrate toward Western countries. If India aspires to become a major destination........

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