'Today the IFS remains remarkably small. With fewer than 800 professional diplomats and an annual budget of just over half a billion dollars in fiscal year 2006-2007, the service is stretched across 119 resident missions and 49 consulates around the world.'

Markey also singles out the state of India's think tanks and public universities to bring out the deficiency in what he calls foreign policy software. 'India's think tanks lack sufficient access to the information or resources required to conduct high-quality, policy-relevant scholarship and India's public universities are poorly funded, highly regulated, and fail to provide world-class education in the social sciences and other fields related to foreign policy.'

India's media and private firms -- leaders in debating the country's foreign policy agenda -- are not built to undertake sustained foreign policy research or training, Markey contends.

Markey is not content with making a critique; he offers a set of prescriptions that will enable India to play a bigger role in global affairs. He recommends that the government expand, reform, pay, and train the IFS to attract and retain high-calibre officers; encourage the growth of world-class social science research and teaching schools in India through partnerships with private Indian and US investors, universities, and foundations; and invest in Indian think-tanks and US-India exchange programmes that build capacity for foreign policy research.

One of his more radical suggestions include bringing non-career officers into the ministry of external affairs and other parts of the foreign policy establishment as term-limited fellows to improve outside understanding of the policy process.