Just like China wants Trump to lose the US presidential poll, it may want Modi to lose the Lok Sabha polls. So months before the 2024 elections, China may take possession of an important area, say one of the Char Dhams, warns Sanjeev Nayyar.
The country's first woman defence minister sat in the rear seat behind the pilot and was wearing the pilot's G-suit.
In the past year, Beijing has hosted at least 70 delegations from India as part of its outreach to the Indian business community, youth leaders and Sangh Parivar affiliates
Nirmala Sitharaman has a God given opportunity to orchestrate a transformation in India's defence capabilities. One hopes she has her own counsel and does not overly let the PMO run her ship, says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
'At the first sign of rain, Mumbai's infrastructure begins crumbling.' 'The monsoon is the true test of the durability and effectiveness of any system.' 'What most don't realise is that the city is dead,' mourns N Suresh.
Pakistan made a tactical error in not investing enough in L K Advani, former R&AW chief A S Dulat tells Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
'Each of them is a setu (bridge) that links the government with the party, but their territories are different.'
'As general elections draw near, the BJP and the JD-U (in whatever form it is) will do a deal -- the state to the JD-U in return for support at the Centre for the BJP.'
'The Modi Model we see now is still the old Gujarat Model.' 'But with an acknowledgement that governing India is more challenging than governing Gujarat,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
'On a new kidney, her immune system still getting used to it, she took on the Pakistanis at the UN, held meetings with her counterparts from across the world, and presented a picture of incredible poise and dignity,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
When Syed Firdaus Ashraf received messages last weekend, asking him to boycott Chinese goods, he laughed.
BJP strategists know it may not repeat its 2014 performance in its traditionally strong bases in the north and the west. This is where the success in the north east and east is so important.
N Sathiya Moorthy goes back in time to dig up three cases that may not have any citation in legal text-books or lawyers' ready-reckoners quoted before courts but which may still have a bearing on the current case against the arrested activists.
President Pranab Mukherjee pays an emotional tribute to APJ Abdul Kalam
In any institution that has a passionate ideology, the moderate is always vulnerable to the person who is more extreme, because that is what the supporters want.
'It was India's good fortune to have a Vajpayee lead the government at this crucial moment in history.' 'By taking the N-decision he saved future generations of Indians from being 'Kosovoed' or 'Iraqed',' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'1998-1999 was the only year in the last quarter century that India had net-negative foreign investment.' 'Foreign money ran away from India that year because capital is a coward and does not like uncertainty of the sort produced by such casual treatment of a destructive technology,' says Aakar Patel.
'On corruption the Yadavs of UP and Bihar will find it very tough to give an answer to the accusations of the BJP and its supporters,' says Aakar Patel.
The Central bureau of Investigation on Tuesday filed a closure report in a seven-year-old case of alleged bribery in the Rs.1,150 crore Barak missile deal in which former Defence Minister George Fernandes and the then Naval Chief Admiral Sushil Kumar were accused.
Its governing allies are not happy on the economy and complain of ignored concerns but find themselves unable to be assertive.
'The nominations were not meant to last permanently, but depended on the government of the day.' 'There was no question of revoking it during Congress, Janata Dal or even Vajpayee's NDA rule.' 'But Modi is different.'
Non-Congressism is the answer to India's current difficulties, says Dr Shambhu Shrivastava, who gives a historical perspective of non-Congress experiments in 1967, 1977, 1989 and 1998.
'UP, Maharashtra, AP (including Telangana), Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, MP, Bihar, Karnataka and Kerala.' 'We chose these nine not only as being among the biggest, but also because in these states radical change is possible,' explains Shekhar Gupta.
'While China has been hiking its defence spending, India has done precious little in implementing the Manmohan Singh government's decision of raising a 90,000-strong China-centric Mountain Strike Corps,' says Rajeev Sharma.
Meraj Khalid Noor, who is popularly known as Bihar's Osama bin Laden for his uncanny resemblance with slain most-wanted Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, has said that he will contest the Lok Sabha polls against the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi.
The Rafale will surely be flying in Indian skies next year. But the way the BJP government has botched this will cast a shadow on defence acquisitions in the years to come.
Nitish Kumar's unanimous election to the top post at the party's National Executive meeting brought an end to the decade-old tenure of Sharad Yadav, who had ruled himself out for a fourth term.
The Congress kept sheltering Quattrochi, and the BJP was more intent on shielding the Hinduja brothers. The fact is that the two roads crisscrossed, and neither the truth prevailed nor did the law take its course, says Mohan Guruswamy.
Ideology and principle are always put to work to camouflage political ambition. Nitish Kumar is a past master at this. His acceptance of the NDA in the first place was aimed at the top spot of Bihar. Then Delhi became the goal, but Narendra Modi's rise as head of the campaign rang alarm bells. So Nitish suddenly remembered secularism, says Jaya Jaitly.
'Vajpayee was the first prime minister to visit the battlefield at the height of conflict,' recalls Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'It is hard to justify $225 million a plane for an increasingly obsolete mission.' The purchase of the 36 Rafales has changed little for the IAF.
'You won't find such an apathetic indecisive party in the world.'
Brigadier M P Bajwa (retd), commander of the troops that captured Tiger Hill, tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih how a band of young soldiers won the Kargil War's most famous battle with their blood and grit.
'Akhileshji has to protect his political turf and if it means confronting his father, snapping ties with him and forming another party, so be it.'
China's and India's nuclear doctrines mandate 'No First Use' of nuclear weapons, so use against each other seems unlikely.
'Karpoori Thakur must be remembered by people today who are tired of witnessing fractious politics where corruption, bigotry, hatred and violence seems to have become distressingly recurrent,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Were the May 1988 nuclear tests a success? 20 years after Pokharan, a look back at those decisive atomic tests through the eyes of someone who knew.
'For half a century, Delhi has not seen a truly powerful ruling party president.' 'The Cabinet, chief ministers, and even the heads of the most powerful departments and agencies now acknowledge where power lies, besides the prime minister's office,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed the Emergency, imposed in 1975, as the biggest blow to democracy and said its memories should be kept alive to draw lessons to further fortify the democratic framework and values in the country.
'I don't think we will need to support or get support from the Congress. I hope there is no such political exigency. The Congress will be gone from the political scene. There is no lesser evil. The BJP and Congress are the two sides of the same evil coin,' anti-Koodankulam nuclear plant activist and new AAP member S P Udaykumar tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar.
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