'The Indian side has realised that not talking to Pakistan has not served any useful purpose.'
'The world needs India because it needs a voice that speaks of peace, non-violence and peaceful coexistence.' 'This vision and voice, this attitude and belief are what India has stood for over the last twenty millennia,' Vice President Venkaiah Naidu tells trainee diplomats.
'India should not be taken by surprise if the Biden administration seeks China's cooperation at some point,' alerts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
From January 2015, he has served as India's Ambassador to Poland, based in Warsaw, with concurrent accreditation to Lithuania.
The US has been, historically, a sleeping partner in India-China relations. Today, any attempt by the Modi government to make a bilateral move to improve relations with Beijing could upset Biden's apple cart, notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
What is the guarantee that another Trump will not arise and reach out to the American people directly? The fact of the matter is that Trump's support base remains the envy of any American politician, notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Poet, artist and award-winning diplomat Abhay K whose sixth book Candling the Light was released recently at the Sahitya Akademi in New Delhi tells Rediff about his life in the Indian Foreign Service and how he maintains a balance between his career and creative life.
'By treating Nepali politicians as shabby buffoons to be pampered one day and collared another day, India badly exposed itself.' 'A belief got entrenched in the Nepalese mind that we are a dangerous neighbour,' observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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.
"They should go wherever they want," Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar said on Thursday when asked of Prashant Kishor and Pavan Verma's repeated questions about the party's stand's on the newly enacted Citizenship Act.
It will not be to India's advantage to create misperceptions that it is bandwagoning with some Anglo-American project for regime change in Myanmar, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The deceased, Ashish Dahiya, was a resident of Sonipat, Haryana and was attending a pool side party with friends from the Indian foreign and revenue services.
He will be remembered not only as a writer but as one of the great chroniclers and interrogators of the history of our times, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Mahinda Rajapaksa is a democratically elected leader who received a massive mandate of 71% of votes, and he owes nothing to Delhi or Washington for staging his political comeback, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Russia is the only country that can act as facilitator for any eventual Chinese-Indian rapprochement,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
China is in no hurry to disengage at the border and the region and international community is moving on. The spectre of a long haul in Ladakh haunts India, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Biden is best qualified to address the root cause of the polarisation in American politics before it turns into terminal malignancy, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
"He will complete this tour as I have now accepted his apology," Rai added.
Any form of entanglement with India or the US on the strategic plane will be anathema to Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa rulers, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The US is not going to be able to mount a concerted 'Western strategy' against China or Russia in the present international milieu, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Analysts see BECA as a 'force multiplier' for India.' 'But China too is known to have such capabilities.' 'The military gap with China will continue to remain a fact of life, BECA notwithstanding,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
Atul Keshap would be 'a superb fit for Sri Lanka as he knows the ins and outs of the politics there and all the political players, including the new disposition in Colombo intimately,' US diplomatic sources in Washington, DC told Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com
'A breakthrough in eastern Ladakh leading to disengagement and creation of a buffer zone will obviate the need of military deployment through the winter months ahead,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The World Bank's executive board unanimously selected 63-year-old Malpass, who is currently Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs, as the bank's 13th President for a five-year term beginning April 9.
Dr Sambhu N Banik, commissioner, Human Rights Commission of Maryland, has been appointed a public member of the United States Agency for International Development's Foreign Service Performance and Evaluation Board for 2010.
If push comes to shove, Trump is probably planning to order the US army to clear his path for a second term. What if the armed forces refuse to obey their commander-in-chief?, asks Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Modi has visited all these three countries (the UAE more than once, inexplicably) but has left out Kuwait and Oman, the two Gulf countries that are closest to India in their political, cultural and civilisational ethos,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The hardliners in Delhi are in for a big disappointment,' predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Suri is currently serving as Indian High Commissioner in Canberra.
'KRN's journey from a humble cottage in Uzhavoor to Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi was no less spectacular than that of Abraham Lincoln from the log cabin to the White House'.
'Biden's promise of returning to 'normalcy' after Trump appears to mean that the same old politicians, who are responsible for the 'endless wars' in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, are being brought out of the woodwork after four years,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
In the shock after Nathuram Godse murdered Mahatma Gandhi that January evening 72 years ago today, a young American diplomat rushed to capture the assassin. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel traces the memorable life of Herbert Reiner, who History has sadly relegated to a footnote.
Both have been robustly muscular leaders who began as immensely charismatic politicians conveying an impression that they were makers of history, raring to go. Both have been hyperactive on the world stage. But in the final analysis, Abe is departing on a sombre note, unceremoniously and apologetically, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Trump was good for world peace. He didn't start a war anywhere, which is not something that can be said for most of his predecessors, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The attacks made clear to all the Gulf States that Pakistan was the nursery and sanctuary of extremist violence and that this violence threatened all the countries in the region.'
The corona deaths in India so far add up to 91,149 (September 24, 3.26 pm). It is seven-and-a-half times the number of Indian soldiers slain in all the wars (1947, 1961-1962, 1965, 1971 and 1999) in post-independent India's history, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
No book on South Asia published in recent years has received the kudos veteran diplomat Howard B Schaffer's The Limits of Influence: America's Role in Kashmir, published by Brookings Institution Press, elicited.In an interview with rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa, he explains why the Barack Obama administration should intervene in resolving the contentious Kashmir issue.
'The Modi government's grandstanding has hardened the reflexes in Beijing, Islamabad and Kathmandu and complicated India's relations with these three countries, which were even otherwise highly problematic.' 'Whatever prospects existed for a fair and balanced resolution of the territorial disputes may also have receded,' observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
S K Singh stood tall and made his voice heard as a diplomat and as a politician.
'What the northern Indian states lack is responsive politics based on the principles of development, social justice and equality.' 'A cut-and-paste job cannot make up for such lethal deficiency,' observes says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.