Data to oil, gas to goods: seamless sea-rail corridor from India to Europe

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement Saturday that a connectivity corridor spanning India to Europe via West Asia would be launched soon, entails an ambitious project than could leverage railway tracks and shipping corridors to help physically link up a vast stretch of the Eurasian subcontinent, and in the process improving digital connectivity and catalysing trade among countries, including energy products such as green hydrogen. Officially called the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, it is being positioned as a modern-day Spice Route, and more significantly, as a weighty ideological alternative to China's Belt and Road Initiative. The project involves the laying of…