Countries in the region like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Maldives face serious existential threats from a mix of terrorist groups active in the region and elsewhere
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Wednesday
Here are some reactions from the world of sport on of widespread state-sponsored doping by Russian athletes at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
'When we have a terrorist outfit in a neighbouring nation, we need to do whatever we can to neutralise that threat,' says Ramananda Sengupta.
Hein Kiessling has the kind of access in Pakistan that journalists (and spies) would die for, says Kanika Datta.
If viewed as a part of the Al Qaeda's radicalisation effort to produce jihadists out of discontented Muslim youth in India, the call could well have a much larger dimension, both in the near as well as long term, directly impacting on national security, says Bibhu Prasad Routray.
'Already, there is talk of a possible extension for Raheel Sharif in the context of his perceived sterling, but incomplete work in the war against terror, as also the cleansing of crime and extortion networks in Karachi,' says Rana Banerji.
As Afghanistan gradually realises that there can be no long-term stability in the country as long as Pakistan is involved, the time has come for India to register its solidarity when it would be most appreciated, says former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
'Modi's victory is his own victory. Now what he has done thereafter, it seems to me, leads us to believe that he was a bit too prolific with his promises.' 'One achievement of Modi's I will praise is that he has put the fear of God among his ministers and officials.' 'Indira Gandhi's sentiment of controlling everything, centralising power in to her hands is the quality that persists in Modi' Veteran journalist Inder Malhotra casts his experienced gaze on one year of the Modi Sarkar.
20 years ago this day, May 11, 1998, India conducted its second nuclear test at Pokharan in Rajasthan. In a fascinating interview on Rediff.com, K Subrahmanyam revealed how Indian PMs reacted to nuclear ambitions.
Rajneesh Gupta's fascinating look at the routes RCB and Sunrisers Hyderabad took to the IPL 9 final.
Rajneesh Gupta gives us a list of noteworthy statistics from first-class and Ranji Trophy
In the digital handheld domain, content is not just a uni-dimensional exercise like it is in legacy media.
Was the Modi-Obama summit the panacea for all that troubles the India-US relationship?
The Geneva agreement is a signal, which at least Saudi Arabia and Israel are so reading, that normalisation of relations between US and Iran is not merely about the nuclear fuel cycle, says K C Singh.
To persist with talks in the face of continuing terrorism that puts hundreds of Indian lives at stake is not only naive but morally repugnant and ethically unacceptable. It is time to see through this charade and abandon a path of high risk and no returns, says Vivek Gumaste.
With an aggressive Opposition and unyielding government, important legislation could be the biggest casualty, as details of the helicopter contract surface.
'It is imperative to restore the dignity and authority of the services chiefs. Erosion of this has resulted in lowering of service efficiency. It is also time to end the practice of taking seniority as the sole criterion for appointing chiefs.'
During September, Maruti said it dispatched 1,375 units of the soon-to-be-launched sedan Ciaz.
As far as India is concerned, the danger is the potential of the IS to create mischief rather than its actual capability as of now, says Rajiv Kumar
'As the first leaders of their respective countries born after Indian Independence and the Chinese Liberation, Modi and Xi would be expected to have the ability to overcome the traditional mindsets and the hierarchical nature of their official/bureaucratic establishments,' say Alka Acharya and Jabin T Jacob.
'The parallels between 1914 and 2014 are striking. The crumbling of American and Russian hegemony, the rise of powerful terrorist groups, ferment in the Middle East and the rise of China... These closely mirror the world of 1914,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Obama's decision to end the US military involvement in the Afghan civil war needs to be welcomed as a positive development for regional security and stability. India, too, has a great opportunity opening up here if it plays its cards in sync with the spirit of the times rather than continuing to view the Afghan problem in zero-sum terms,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The Modi government's lurch toward America has not brought it any dividends so far. The Western world is simply not in a position to make big investments in India... India needs to take a leap of faith vis-a-vis China.'
For some, he is a visionary who grew his one-channel firm into a media giant by the sheer dint of his courage; for others, he is a compulsive risk-taker.
