Taking a dig at China, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said 'some irresponsible nations' with their narrow partisan interests and hegemonic tendencies are coming up with wrong definitions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Modi had clearly not come to terms with the limits to a prime minister's powers, any prime minister's powers however strong numbers he may have in Parliament, observes Virendra Kapoor.
It is in no way a government of the economic Right. The Right is limited to religion and nationalism. The rest is as Left as the Congress or any other party, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'If it works, something good can come out of this tragedy for the common public good,' say Dr Prasad Gadgil and Dr Kunal Basu.
"Those who ruled for decades since Independence believed Dispur was too distant from Delhi. 'Dilli ab door nahi aapke darwaaze par hai' (Delhi is not far now, it stands at your doorstep," he told a massive gathering.
The culture of freebies burdens coming generations with the huge bill for the flagrant abuse of power by preceding governments, points out Virendra Kapoor.
Shrug off the yoke of the imperialism of Delhi. That is why the DMK manifesto offers what it offers: The promise that Tamil Nadu will, one day, become an independent republic, notes Aditi Phadnis.
The aftermath of Mani Ratnam's Ponniyin Selvan has led to an argument that there was no religion as Hinduism in Chola times.
Instead, there was only Saivism, Vaishnavism, etc, and that the Cholas were Saivites, and hence not Hindus, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Both statesmen possess a cultivated pugnacious style which they keep in reserve and can at will bring into play, and despite the mutual distrust in Russian-American relations, they are proponents of detente, quintessentially, who take their mission deadly seriously, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Breaking down silos and ensuring a more integrated governance process is just as important to performance.' 'It has been a major priority in the last six years, especially in national security,' External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar points out when delivering the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture-2020: India and the Post-Covid World.
Vietnam, which is involved in a territorial dispute with China, is keen to get it hands on the supersonic missiles that can be fired on land, water and under water.
'I can assure you the Ganga will be more polluted in 2030 than it is now.' 'What they are trying to do now is clean the Ganga without understanding how to do so.'
Shortage of ICU beds, oxygen, ventilators, vaccines, doctors, nurses and crematorium space in India has dominated headlines around the world in the past few weeks with Covid-19 cases surging beyond control and the government failing to deliver. Yes, election rallies, Kumbh Mela, blatant flouting of social distancing and mask protocols coupled with a messy vaccination process are said to be responsible for the health crisis of colossal proportions that India is facing today. But an analysis of Budget speeches made by finance ministers over 75 years also offers a glimpse of how low on the priority list healthcare has featured for the political class and policy-makers, which is a significant reason for the current situation.
'There will always be hiccups given that the Namami Gange programme is spread over different sectors and involves several agencies.'
'We need to be in a perpetual state of aggression, and able to swiftly change the goal posts to keep Pakistan in a state of imbalance,' argues Sanjeev Nayyar.
Colonel Ajay Kothiyal, Kirti Chakra, Shaurya Chakra, is one of the most decorated soldiers to join politics. He still has two bullets lodged inside his body sustained in a gun battle with terrorists in J&K.
No longer Bengal's finance minister, Amit Mitra, Mamata's principal chief advisor, will still advise and aid the 'chief minister and finance department on all matters relating to management of state finance', represent the 'state government in national and international events/meetings/committees' and examine 'important proposals/files and policy issues relating to financial matters referred to him for advice/views'.
'The Gujarat model was never an economic model; it was essentially a governance model.'
'Mr Modi identified what would help him win votes and got it done, like 24x7 power in three phases, better roads, more water, etc.'
'Good economic governance at state level is quite different from good governance at national level,' points out T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'Under National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval and now Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, India began to actively work on Pakistani internal faultlines with a possibility of the break-up of Pakistan as the only solution,' observes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'It may take two years for the economy to return to normal.' 'We should ensure that the vulnerable do not dig into their savings or give up their assets because that will set them back by several years.'
'The hardliners in Delhi are in for a big disappointment,' predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The Akali government is not responsible for the Punjab power crisis as Mr Sidhu is saying.'
'It is a testing time for our foreign policy which may involve a certain element of taking risks, assessing costs, and expecting failures,' asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Rajiv Kumar will continue as vice-chairman of the body, along with other full-time members V K Saraswat, Ramesh Chand and V K Paul.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
The displacements were a result of a combination of increasing hazard intensity, high population exposure and high levels of social and economic vulnerability, a report says.
The Southern Naval command on Wednesday called off its 14-day long rescue operations in flood-hit Kerala, saying there were no more requests for evacuation as waters receding in affected areas.
Gota has to decide if he could order elder brother Mahinda's arrest as the agent provocateur of Monday's violence. Then he has to prepare for an interim government, in which no one would now want to become a cabinet minister leave alone prime minister, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
The billions India invested in dams, schools, etc in Afghanistan will be gone. The Hindu and Sikh population of Afghanistan has already shrunk from some 200,000 to about 500, points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
The Modi government's defeat on farm laws underlines the perils of governing an entire continent-sized, diverse and federal nation like the chief minister of a state, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'What would we feel if we found the world behaving the way it has?' 'Forced to fight our own prolonged battle; nobody from outside really demanding that the war end or actively working to make it end, and above all, a completely toothless United Nations reduced to pleading for a halt to the violence,' notes Shyam G Menon, exactly a month after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
Rather than talking endlessly about lost and marginal opportunities, India's climate envoys need to start thinking bigger, says Mihir S Sharma.
The Pakistan Navy claimed in Islamabad that it used specialised skills to ward off the Indian submarine from entering Pakistani waters.
Schumer and Menendez said the months-long demonstrations have been met with orders from the central government and local authorities to shut off internet access in protest areas, cut off water and electricity supplies for the tens of thousands living in protest camps, and impede the work of journalists reporting on the protests.
With Bihar battling floods despite receiving less than normal rains, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking the Centre's intervention as he insisted that desilting the river Ganga is the only solution to avoid the almost annual occurrence of floods.
'China has gone too long as a rogue power, trashing international norms, agreements, and treaties as if they were not the paper they were written on.' 'The ill-advised attack on Ladakh may be the beginning of the end of that nonsense,' advocates Rajeev Srinivasan.
What we have in the Congress is a useful glue to hold a non-cultural, unified Opposition together. That is the sacrifice the Congress must be willing to live with if showing the BJP the door is what the collective Opposition wants, observes Shyam G Menon.
The move will establish a level-playing field for domestic investments in start-ups compared to foreign-based sources.
Sources said the Telangana chief minister was busy with preparations for the launch of his ambitious Rs 80,000 crore Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project that would end water woes in the state, while in a letter to Modi, the West Bengal chief minister had expressed her inability to attend the Niti Aayog meeting on June 15, saying it is "fruitless" as the body has no financial powers to support state plans.
Prime Minister Modi has certainly pulled back, and his political capital -- dependent as it is on an image that he knows best and never retreats -- may have taken a bit of a beating. But, equally, it is hard to say that the protesters have 'won', argues Mihir S Sharma.
