BackIndia approaches 2026 amid a climate of sustained global uncertainty. Geopolitical fragmentation, armed conflict, sanctions escalation, and strategic decoupling are reshaping capital flows, supply chains, and regulatory priorities across jurisdictions. For businesses and investors, volatility is no longer episodic, it is structural. In this environment, India’s policy posture has shifted decisively toward resilience, strategic autonomy, and controlled openness, seeking to balance growth ambitions with national security, systemic stability, and regulatory discipline.
A defining response has also been India’s renewed emphasis on self‑reliance. The vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat has moved beyond industrial policy into the architecture of finance, technology, defence, data governance, and critical infrastructure. From semiconductor manufacturing and defence procurement to data centres, insurance, and digital governance, the state is actively shaping markets to reduce external dependencies while remaining globally integrated. Parallelly, global supply chains are being realigned away from concentration risk and toward trusted, diversified hubs, positioning India as a preferred destination for capital, capability centres, and long‑term manufacturing investments.
The relevance of Khaitan & Co’s Foresight, conceptualised to anticipate trajectories, lies precisely in such moments of flux. Several insights from earlier editions—spanning the maturation of the digital economy and competition law to heightened ESG scrutiny, foreign investment liberalisation, and institutional dispute resolution—have since moved from forecast to reality, underscoring the publication’s credibility as a forward‑looking guide.
The central theme of Foresight 2026 is transition with intent. Across regulation, enforcement, capital formation, and sectoral policy, India is moving from permissive growth to structured scale; from regulatory ambiguity to risk‑based scrutiny; and from capital inflows driven by opportunity to those anchored in compliance, governance, and operational substance. This shift is evident across deal financing, competition law, foreign investment, sanctions exposure, and digital regulation, which are all becoming increasingly anchored in resilience, transparency, and accountability.
In keeping with the times, this edition marks a methodological evolution. While Khaitan & Co has long experimented with legal tech and innovation, this is the first time that new‑age AI tools have been deployed at scale to enhance thought leadership. AI has supported research synthesis and audience‑centric structuring under rigorous professional oversight, while all analysis, judgment, and viewpoints remain firmly human‑led, grounded in the firm’s doctrinal knowledge and institutional expertise.
We remain committed to redefining legal excellence through insight rather than hindsight, and hope this edition serves as a trusted companion for doing business in India.