The political-electoral calculus favours spending thousands of crores on vanity projects like Sardar Patel's statue and the Central Vista over building up our military to handle the confrontations and conflicts that loom large, points out Ajai Shukla.
'... so that the hospitals do not get overwhelmed. We have to avoid it at all costs.'
A feature of 'Third World-ism' is lack of accountability. Whether and how the Modi government is held to account politically is a matter for the future, observes T N Ninan.
' if Pakistani terrorists can attack states and regions which are far removed from Kashmir, we have got to recognize that there is a bigger problem out there'
Should we be exposing our women volunteers to the barbarity of actual combat?
'My thoughts come from the Nalanda Buddhist tradition and this body has lived on Indian dal, rice and chapattis during the last 51 years.' The Dalai Lama, who is 75 today, in an exclusive interview.
'Leaders of the Indian community in Hong Kong had broached the idea of developing the Andaman and Nicobar islands for investment and setting up manufacturing units,' points out Rup Narayan Das.
'There is a maturity of business acumen, maturity of management practices etc, that is what China doesn't have,' says Asia Society President Vishakha Desai.
The activist, who advises various farmer organisations, was arrested when Assam was witnessing widespread protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
You can make all the speeches you want, you cannot argue against 39 straight months of slowing, observes Aakar Patel.
Don't expect the synthetic stones to surpass natural ones anytime soon because the world's biggest miners of diamonds aren't looking to get into man-made diamonds.
Subtle and sharp, sarcastic and self-deprecating. And sometimes just downright rude. There are wife jokes, husband jokes, boss barbs, Modi jibes, weight gain worries and the inevitable China insults. Humour in all forms is the panacea it seems for people around the world who are united in their need to laugh or at least crack a smile in these troubled times.
DRDO chief G Satheesh Reddy Reddy is the first Indian to be appointed Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and of the Royal Aeronautical Society.
'Rightly or wrongly, 1962 got ascribed to Krishna Menon and him alone. That's unfair.' 'Certainly, he was one of the guilty men, but he was not the only guilty man. Mistakes were made all around.'
As Nepal undergoes a political transition, India on Friday pitched for implementing the country's Constitution by accommodating aspirations of all sections and assured it of all possible support amid China's efforts to gain ground in the Himalayan nation.
Much depends on the BJP's electoral performance in next year's assembly elections. If the party fares well in UP and some states like Goa and Gujarat, it will be able to fob off the attempt at a reappraisal of its Hindutva doctrine, observes Amulya Ganguli.
The keynote address will be given by United States President Donald Trump
The external affairs minister, a JNU alumnus, condemned the attack on the university campus. He said it's completely against the culture and tradition of the university.
A US Congress-constituted quasi-judicial body on Wednesday asked the Joe Biden Administration to designate four nations, including India, as "countries of particular concern", alleging that religious freedom conditions there in 2020 continued their negative trajectory.
While most economies contracted in the second quarter of 2020, the Chinese economy grew by 3.2 per cent.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday hit out at its rival parties in Jammu and Kashmir, saying their stand on a number of issues, including the demand for restoration of Article 370, is the same as that of countries like Pakistan, and asked the Congress if it agrees with the "anti-national" views of the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party over its support to them.
His statement comes two days after Pakistan's Science and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry admitted his country's role in the Pulwama attack during a debate in their National Assembly (Parliament).
'If there is a background of some kind of mutual understanding on how the dialogue process might develop in a mutually satisfactory manner...' 'If this understanding impacts positively on the ground situation...' 'As of now this is a heroic assumption. But it does not have to remain such.'
Illustrious international thinkers met at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2021 and many discussions addressed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world at large.
"The biggest challenge before us is that the 21st century belongs to Asia. But do we have this sentiment, I think that is the biggest challenge," he said.
From the standoff with China to the government's response to the farmers' protest, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh holds a freewheeling talk.
Modi, in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, wrote that the US and India are forging a deeper and stronger partnership that extends far beyond the Beltway and the Raisina Hill.
'That the two sides allowed such a situation to arise exposed the level of inaction and inefficiency in China-India border management.' 'The Modi-Xi meeting in Xiamen initiated a process to to avert such contingencies in the future.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's phone call to Trump will help restore a degree of sanity to Indian statecraft and diplomacy, notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Unless Indians learn to speak freely and fearlessly, 'true greatness will elude this nation, no matter how brilliant the individual at the helm may be,' says Aakar Patel.
Xi and Modi are scheduled to hold informal summit talks on Friday evening and on Saturday.
'Those leading the current political dispensation, whether at the central or the state level, must recognise the enormous risks that their divisive policies are creating for the national security and wellbeing of the country,' cautions former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
The Chinese leader will display his grip on the Communist party and chart his plans for his country's future.
United Nations General Assembly on Friday appointed Antonio Guterres as the UN Secretary General for a second term beginning January 1, 2022, days after the powerful Security Council unanimously recommended his name to the 193-member body for re-election.
In a historic feat for Indian mountaineering, 13-year-old Malavath Purna has become the youngest female climber to scale the Mount Everest.
'One of R&AW's greatest achievements is in projecting itself as benign.' 'This work -- done in tandem with the Diaspora and the MEA -- sells a story of India as mostly the victim.'
Former Union minister Suresh Prabhu would be India's Sherpa at the 14th meeting of the world's top economies in Osaka, Japan.
More than 30 vaccine candidates have been supported and they are in different stages of development. Three candidates are in advanced stage of Phase I, II and III trials, and more than four are in advanced pre-clinical development stage, Choubey said.
Iceland retained the top spot while Afghanistan is now the least peaceful country in the world.
'In China there is capital punishment for heritage theft. That is how they treat criminals, unlike us.' 'Here we treat them like it's a house-breaking theft.'
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