'No, India and China were not about to go to all-out war over a few rocks of Galwan.' 'The full picture of what went on at the highest level between two heads of State will not be known for a very, very long time and rightly so,' points out Colonel Anil A Athale, former head of the history division, ministry of defence.
India and the UK have announced a series of defence cooperation initiatives, including a USD 468 million deal for the supply of lightweight multirole missile systems to enhance India's air defence capabilities.
'Putin dreams about his legacy. He wants to forcibly restore the Russian empire.' 'Unfortunately, after three years of large-scale war with massive human losses, Putin will not budge from his goal because human life is the cheapest resource in the Russian State.'
Sheela Bhatt, who is travelling with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his two-nation visit, analyses the outcome of crucial talks between the PM and his Chinese counterpart in Beijing.
Both India and China have realised that if border incursions keep reoccurring, other issues of mutual interest will remain unstable. Sheela Bhatt reports
The BDCA is yet another dose of insidious placebos administered on the people of India by their own government that has been in perpetual denial over the steady incremental loss of strategic Indian territory, says R N Ravi
The elephant in the room will permeate the conversations, predicts Rup Narayan Das.
With the Indian Army having blocked the PLA several kilometres inside India, hundreds of soldiers from both sides remain in a tense face-off.
The Indian position on the Russia-Ukraine war and the unconditional treaty between China and Russia appear to have caused some ripples in India-US relations and led to a reappraisal of India's usefulness to the US in the eventuality of a conflict with China, notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
United States President-elect Joseph Biden has always been a strong supporter of India and India-US partnership since his days in Senate and later as a Vice-President.
Most of India's reserves for war in the mountains have been sucked in by the standoff with China. A large part of India's airpower has also similarly been committed on the eastern border. By moving these reserves to the China border, India has been weakened vis-a-vis Pakistan. All in all, the nightmare scenario for India of a two-front war may well come true, warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Canada will supply uranium to energy-starved India beginning this year over a period of five years, a decision which was termed as a launch of a new era of bilateral cooperation and mutual trust by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
'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).
India and Vietnam on Monday inked seven pacts, including one to enhance cooperation in the strategic oil sector, as they called for "freedom" of navigation in the South China Sea, a remark which could irk China, which has been claiming territorial sovereignty over the high seas.
'The defence minister needs to focus on human resources-related issues at the same pace in 2017 as he did on acquisitions in 2016,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
Indian economy about to take-off
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