With the situation in Ladakh tense and no resolution in sight the trigger to take the India-US relationship to a transformational one is already there, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
The Emergency greatly influenced the RSS' makeover from a fringe force in the Indian political imagination to one that could have its own man sworn in as prime minister in two decades' time. A riveting excerpt from Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil's India's First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975-1977.
Here is a look at Kumar's previous statements, made after he quit the NDA alliance, which proves the adage: there are no permanent friends and enemies in politics.
'China wants to change the status quo of India's Northern Border and proves that it can do whatever it wants in what it perceives as its own territory,' states Claude Arpi.
India's national security strategy needs to be revised periodically since the global and regional geopolitical situation is dynamic, points out Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Arunabha Ghosh on why India will increasingly become an energy great power, but not an energy hegemon.
The development came a day after the protesting farmers rejected the Centre's offer to start talks as soon as they move to Burari and continued to stay put Singhu and Tikri borders of the national capital.
Many leaders from non-Hindi states, especially Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, had opposed the policy.
An aggressive Pyongyang is likely to force Seoul and Tokyo to build nuclear deterrents and thus thwart Beijing's ambitions.
'If there is one certainty in this visit, it is that Trump does not follow a script. He is unpredictable,' highlights Ambassador B S Prakash.
'For Muslims, India is now a Hindu Rashtra, no matter what kind of Constitution is still in place,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
Makarand Paranjape, poet and professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University on Monday took on students union president Kanhaiya Kumar who is facing sedition charge, asking him whether he checked his facts before delivering the much-celebrated speech.
The India-Japan joint naval exercises are a strategic signal for China, observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
'We have here the world's largest economy and dominant superpower thrashing about as it wrestles with its own decline.' 'It has become everything that China was supposed to be: A threat to the world order, and as a country that is not playing by the rules on trade, on climate change, international commitments and nuclear deals,' says T N Ninan.
'There are reports of political dissent mounting on Xi Jinping's handling of the Wuhan fallout.'
'How many Indian parents, still alive, really have documents of, their parents's date and place of birth? Not more than 27% of still alive Indians have got birth certificates,' points out Mohammad Sajjad.
'India in 2020 is a lot better prepared than in 1962.' 'It is no longer a pushover; and anything other than a crushing Chinese military victory will be a major loss of face for China,' observes Rajeev Srinivasan in the first of a three part column.
'Any conventional conflict could trigger a nuclear war with results that neither India nor Pakistan could survive easily.' >A revealing excerpt from Shuja Nawaz's The Battle For Pakistan: The Bitter US Friendship And A Tough Neighbourhood.
'In Kairana, the grand coalition was able to transfer its votes to a Muslim candidate in supposedly an era of anti-Muslim ambience.' 'Given this perspective, the Kairana result seems more significant than that of Gorakhpur and Phulpur a few months ago,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Nehru's hegemonic politics has been responsible for many ills, which undoubtedly includes Kashmir'
'This time, even the professedly secular parties have maintained a conscious distance from being identified with Muslims.' 'This could be interpreted as a success of the BJP campaign of what it has been calling 'minority appeasement', says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Modi's first foreign trip at the very outset of his second term as PM reinforces a growing impression that this regional tour underscores a shift in emphasis in India's foreign policy that was traditionally focused on the northern tier of countries to the Indian Ocean rim,' explains Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'In the name of pluralism-secularism, the kind of politics that was pursued revealed to many that it was basically a favour to Muslim conservatism and communalism -- a politics of minority-ism, rather than of secularism.' 'This is how significant sections of Hindus have been made to loathe the very idea of Indian secularism by now,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
All the fixes require either the enactment of a data-protection law, or the amendment of our existing competition law. This can take many years. However, there is an opportunity for the government to act immediately if it wishes to, says Sunil Abraham.
'Ambedkar's ideas have their own teeth -- if you don't have an appetite for them, you can't swallow them.'
The American oceanographic survey ship which controls the underwater drone seized by China had been spying against the Communist nation posing a threat to Chinese naval ships in the South China Sea, a state-run daily has said while claiming that such activities by the US Navy were "very rampant" in the strategic region.
India and Japan have a shared interest in countervailing China's hegemonic ambitions in Asia. Although neither has an interest in forming an overt anti-China alliance, Tokyo and New Delhi feel increasingly obligated to work together to find ways to guard against a muscular Beijing's power sliding into arrogance, says Brahma Chellaney.
This is the first time Pakistan and Kashmir have been brought into the narrative.
Music amidst conflict may sound like a great catch-line, and ageing conductors need such props, but it is not doing the people of Jammu and Kashmir any good, says Sherna Gandhy
Mehbooba Mufti is running an alliance that is unnatural -- and one she instinctively militates against. She needs to be responsible in what she says and does -- and her time starts now, says Aditi Phadnis.
Let Bihar be damned under its contradictions of having gone 'dry' and then having been submerged under flood, which is a recurrent phenomena? After all it is a godforsaken land, having lost its promises of overcoming its problems, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'What the BJP will have to ensure in order to score an ideological victory is to demonstrate not only its commitment to the rule of law -- which is the first prerequisite -- but to introduce a sense of compassion,' says Amulya Ganguli.
Iranian President Dr Hassan Rouhani Tuesday talked about the greater need for South-South cooperation, an issue closer to India's heart and expected to be addressed by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly this Saturday.
'Modi is the first BJP leader to try to include Dalits in its fold.' 'But the rank and file of his party is backward and want to bash up Muslims and Dalits whenever they have a chance.'
The absence of a clear underlying economic ideology in the Budget was quite evident, say experts.
Both India and South Korea will use President Park Geun-hye's visit to unveil a comprehensive programme for mutual benefit and impacting on regional security environment, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
'The book has immense value because it reveals the inner workings of the think-tank which appears to provide facts and insights to Modi, though he himself takes the final decisions and articulates them in his characteristic rhetorical style,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The world is still figuring out the man as he continues his enigmatic journey towards the first 100 days of his presidency.
In his approach to national problems and issues Vivekananda was perhaps the first one to call for a national struggle against the challenges of material existence. While recognising the need for re-discovering and rekindling the spiritual aim of existence, the Swami did not neglect to recognise the demands of the other existence as well, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
Talmiz Ahmad is a former Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE. In an interview with Aditi Phadnis, he says the disequilibrium in Iraq will continue to prevail. Ahmad also says there are indications that the US is now anxious to avoid intervening militarily in West Asia, and that this is the appropriate moment for Asia to assume responsibility for its own security. Edited excerpts:
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