Xi, 68, holds China's all three power centres -- General-Secretary of the CPC, Chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission which is the overall high command of the military, and the Presidency is set to complete his second five-year tenure next year.
Xi's ascent to power and the quick consolidation of his leadership of the party with a shock anti-graft campaign securing the title of the "core leader" of the party bequeathed only to Mao has indeed forced his rivals in the party to submission and caught the attention of the world.
The highlight of the occasion, according to officials, is an address to a special gathering in the morning by President Xi Jinping, who cast himself in the mould of Mao Zedong, the founder of the Communist Party of China as it is officially called.
'Although Hong Kong weathered many a storm and displayed a remarkable resilience to bounce back, the developments in the territory have raised question marks with regard to its future stability and prosperity.' A revealing excerpt from Rup Narayan Das's Hong Kong Conundrum: Pangs of Transition.
'The killings are a worrisome escalation of tensions, but little is known about the immediate causes or results of the fight in Galwan and it is not possible, at this point, to assign blame'
One Chinese source informed ANI that 10 million new infections are probably occurring daily in China.
Chinese foreign policy will acquire a more ideological and less pragmatic character. It will be conducted with more nationalist overtones, predicts former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
I'm still rooting for you, because you may yet be able to do something good for Delhi. But you and your party will have to get a reality check and some discipline, says Mitali Saran.
Overt displays of physical machismo is the stamp of the strongman and it's a symptom that manifests itself in direct proportion to their sense of insecurity, says Kanika Datta.
Brilliant movies from China, Ethiopia, Austria and India line up for Mumbai.
Xi has already been elected as general secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China at its once-in-five-year congress in October last year.
Beijing should remember the advice of its celebrated military strategist Sun Tzu: 'Fight not unless the position is critical.'
'This is a film that speaks to the spirit of women who have been cast into the bottom of India's social hierarchy, and how they have navigated their way to redefine the meaning of power.'
The first priority for the new Tibetan administration in Dharamsala should be to look at Tibetan recruitment in the PLA, suggests Claude Arpi.
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.
President Xi Jinping was on Thursday elevated as the "core leader" of China's ruling Communist Party, conferring on him a status similar to that of party founder 'Chairman' Mao Zedong that dilutes the three-decade-old collective leadership principle to avoid personality cult.
China has been keeping tabs on the restive Tibet province through a 'grid' system and some 600 'convenience police posts' armed with high-tech equipment that monitor the daily life of the citizens of Lhasa and other Tibetan towns. Worse, 'volunteer security groups' known as 'Red Armband Patrols' are roaming around in order to get more information and 'classify' each and every citizen, says Claude Arpi
'Why has the peace been kept?' 'Basically because there is a balance.' 'Maybe they think that balance has changed.' 'People can make mistakes. People can miscalculate.' 'If that is the cause, then I think what we have done, matching their build-up, etc, it is giving a good account of ourselves in the face-offs.'
'An opportunity is at hand to think big and recast the India-China relationship on a new template, which would help the pursuit of our country's dream of major power status,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Another sobering number is that the total Chinese investment in India in the past 10 years amounts to $400 million.
There is a large population standing outside the coverage of primary healthcare, says Praveen Gupta of Raheja QBE.
India lacks China's culture of collective discipline, so what will provide the glue for people to cooperate rather than follow their raw survival instincts? asks Ravi Bhoothalingam.
'Why did your generals try to grab a few square kilometres of Indian territory in Ladakh?' 'And what happened to the hard work that you and Prime Minister Modi put into the Wuhan and Mamallapuram meets?' Claude Arpi writes a letter to Xi Jinping, China's self-styled supreme leader, who turns 68 today, June 15.
Life wasn't easy for Li Ka-shing, who fled China in 1940.
Thirty years after the massacre at Tiananmen Square, coerced collective amnesia envelops the Chinese nation about that horrific event. Claude Arpi glances back at how the student uprising could have changed the Middle Kingdom forever had the Chinese Communist party not traveled on the route of martial law.
'If Indians are as smart as their counterparts in university, and have equal opportunity, then what is the reason that we cannot produce inventions of quality that are recognised by the world?'
'India and China are at new inflection points, domestically and internationally. India needs to throw up a new leader whose vision is clear, experience laden with wisdom and articulation brimming with restraint and tolerance,' says Ambassador K C Singh.
We are witnessing a new phase where business leaders are realising globalisation has to take into account national identities and cultures, says Claude Smadja.
Manish Sabharwal is chairman of TeamLease, which has helped hire 1.4 million sales and customer service reps and logistics employees such as couriers for companies across India since it was founded in 2002.
A former Maoist speaks to Shobha Warrier
'Some Indians take the extreme view that everything was known to our ancients, but others go to the opposite extreme and consider everything Indian was superstition and rubbish.' 'Indian science was perhaps more rational than the European science of the time.'
'In the hands of a majoritarian government, with utter contempt for the cultural plurality and diversity of our great nation, the pipe dream of making Hindi the sole official language takes on nightmarish proportions.'
Modi will first stop in Rwanda for a two-day visit, then visit Uganda from July 24-25 and finally go to South Africa.
'It is a pattern of behaviour of the Chinese that whenever a Chinese leader visits India or an Indian leader visits China, some incidents take place.' 'When Modi visits China, we should look out for some similar demonstration by the Chinese.'
'It looked as if India had been a major player in science at that time, raising the question when and why things changed,' says distinguished aerospace scientist Professor Roddam Narasimha.
'My simple instruction to every IBM salesperson is, "When you go to the customer, use less of this (he points to his mouth) and more of this (ear)".' 'Talk less, listen more",' Karan Bajwa tells Raghu Krishnan.
Ever pragmatic, the Americans are convinced that the future is in the Indo-Pacific.
There is a new Indo-Pacific century, and India has to decide whether it has its eyes on the prize, says Rajeev Srinivasan.
Students' flagging interest in the written word is because of a generational digital divide, says Ajit Balakrishnan.
Vice-President Hamid Ansari embarks on an important Latin American visit, heralding that resource-rich continent's importance to India.
'When you come through the hassles and struggles of business life, your mind is wired differently.' 'You are more connected to reality,' Akali Dal MP Naresh Gujral tells Rahul Jacob and Archis Mohan
