'On the LAC, China can undertake military action at any place with much fewer resources. It can do 'salami slicing'.'
President Xi Jinping on Monday vowed to build China's military into a "Great Wall of steel" to protect its sovereignty and developmental interests as he sought a bigger role for Beijing in global affairs, days after brokering a Saudi Arabia-Iran detente, regarded as a diplomatic coup.
'Doklam was almost like a trailer to what is happening in Ladakh today.' 'Modi failed to take note and failed to act,' observes Harishchandra Dighe.
Observers say China should re-address its policies towards India or else it will continue to face flare-ups increasing the tensions between the two countries at a time China's increasing tension with the US over Taiwan and the South China Sea besides the downturn in the Chinese economy which is hit hard by the zero-covid policy.
Till Thursday, everything was "going well", the chief minister said, adding that unfortunately, "the political meetings at the appropriate level" could not be confirmed.
China claims Taiwan as part of the mainland and vows to integrate what it calls the rebel province even by force.
Besides controlling the spread of the virus, a major task of the WHO team along with their Chinese counterparts was to come up with a standard medicine to cure the disease.
India's stiff labour laws were one key issue that Apple CEO Tim Cook discussed with Prime Minister Modi on his recent visit.
China on Friday announced sanctions on US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her immediate family members for her visit to Taiwan this week, disregarding the strident warnings from Beijing, asserting that it violated China's sovereignty and the "One China policy".
The Congress alleged that whenever an issue of national security comes up, the "prime minister hides behind his ministers".
The "opaque" electoral bonds scheme for funding political parties will "destroy democracy" as it promotes corruption and does not allow a level playing field between the ruling and opposition parties, the petitioners challenging the validity of the scheme told the Supreme Court, which on Tuesday observed election funding was a "complicated issue".
Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit won't be afraid to tangle with the toughest of them.
'Is Xi's China stable?'
'No one can say whether the regime will fall all at once or if its leaders are devising a new solid and competitive -- anything but democratic -- model.' A fascinating excerpt from Francois Bougon's Inside The Mind of Xi Jinping.
'The military officers at China's National People's Congress reflect Xi Jinping's preference for elevating politically reliable, younger, officers with good professional qualifications,' says former RAW officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
China on Monday said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's three-day visit from Tuesday is of great importance for deepening strategic partnership amid expectations that the two sides would sign some key pacts, including one to prevent incursions along the LAC.
The future challenger to Narendra Modi would be somebody who can bring the Hindus and Muslims together again. The Hindus as Hindus, not broken caste groups, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The decision to permit the third child came after this month's once-in-a-decade census showed that China's population grew at the slowest pace to 1.412 billion amid official projections that the decline may begin as early as next year.
'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.
Opposition parties on Tuesday questioned the "silence" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on the violent clash between Indian and Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh and asked them to take the nation into confidence on the matter, while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party asserted that India's borders will remain intact under Modi's leadership.
Esper also highlighted the 'increased' military cooperation with India and called it as 'one of the most important defence relationships of the 21th century'.
The Kerala Story is among a long list of films that invited bans and censorship.
China's National Health Commission on Thursday said the country reported only four new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, taking the total number to 82,862, while no death due to the disease was registered. The virus has claimed 4,633 lives in the country.
This is a high-stakes strategic conflict between a power which wants to preserve the status quo in its favour and one which wants to usurp that throne. The rest is all theatre, says Harsh V Pant.
China on Wednesday said it will take "strong and effective" countermeasures against the US and Taiwan for violating the "One-China policy", as the US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi successfully completed her visit to Taipei disregarding Beijing's vociferous threats.
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.
Union Minister Anurag Thakur hit out at Gandhi over his claims of being under surveillance by intelligence agencies and accused him of maligning India on foreign soil.
Xi, the most powerful leader in recent decades heading the ruling Communist Party and the military, will now be the first Chinese leader after the founder chairman Mao Zedong to remain in power lifelong.
'The mood in Beijing is already nervous and feverously watchful.' 'Developments in China will be scrutinised as intensely and nervously as the ones in Washington,' says Claude Smadja.
How China's all powerful Communist party bungled the response to the coronavirus crisis.
The operational alert allows troops to get acclimatised to high altitudes, renovate the bunkers and trenches from which they would fight, break out ammunition, and carry out the coordination needed to fight an integrated defensive battle.
'Unlike the Chinese army that has been largely a peace time force, the Indian Army is a battle hardened force,' explains Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Beijing on Tuesday on a three-day visit during which India and China are expected to ink several key pacts, including an agreement on a mechanism to prevent incursions by Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control.
The death toll climbed to 2,592 with 150 new fatalities while the total number of confirmed cases increased to over 77,000, health officials said on Monday.
The annual threat assessment of the US Intelligence Community released by the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) also said that the 'expanded military posture by both India and China along the disputed border elevates the risk of armed confrontation between two nuclear powers that might involve direct threats to US persons and interests and calls for US intervention'.
The official cited it as an example of 'how the Chinese military is trying to resolve issues through dialogue mechanisms'.
One Chinese source informed ANI that 10 million new infections are probably occurring daily in China.
China hiked its annual defence budget by 7.1 per cent.
Not all change is good, but this one is, applauds Shekhar Gupta.
The Chinese military on Thursday said it has conducted precision strikes over the Taiwan Strait and 'expected results' were achieved, in apparent retaliation to the United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei disregarding Beijing's vociferous warnings.
'We are seeing an era where only what Modi wishes is going to happen.' 'A clear message has now been sent to others that if this fate could befall on Nitin Gadkari, then just think what could happen to lesser mortals.'
