<p>The Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) Forecast 2016 is a collection of writings on the near-term trajectories of a wide range of geographic and thematic issues covering Asia, the United States and Nuclear power and energy, authored by analysts and scholars from the Indian strategic community and beyond.</p><p>The introduction argues that in 2016, India is likely to hit a sweet spot and come to be seen – despite a host of domestic debilities and external vulnerabilities – as an island of growth and stability. This year, several countries whose internal dynamics are acutely relevant to India will undergo internal transitions of one sort or another.</p><div data-canvas-width="805.1999999999999">Leading the pack are the three countries that constitute India’s three cardinal external relationships: the US, China, and Pakistan. Three others – Myanmar, Afghanistan and Nepal – in India’s immediate neighbourhood too are experiencing protracted political transitions. Finally, there is an important evolving relationship with Brazil, a country three oceans and two hemispheres away that is experiencing severe internal turbulence and could well be heading towards transition.</div>