Recommendation 173

India is keen to develop and extend a north-south transport corridor in collaboration with Russia and Iran (and others) to rival China’s Polar Silk Road. The corridor spans 7,200 kilometres through a network of roads, ships and railways running from Mumbai to St Petersburg via the Caspian Sea, with a potential extension to the Arctic. Nima Khorrami, a Research Associate at The Arctic Institute, explained that India’s interest in the corridor was motivated “by both strategic and status/prestige competition between the two Asian giants”. 200