Both Obama and Modi have taken bold steps towards laying the groundwork to give a big push to Indo-US trade, and now it's time to execute, says Bikash Mohapatra.
The Prime Minister tends to keep such decisions close to his chest.
'Political meetings will be a mere side show; the main show is economic investment and the business partnership. The success of Modi's US visit will be judged on the basis of India's ability to attract American investment and setting up of manufacturing in India to give jobs to millions,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Bharatiya Janata Party President Rajnath Singh, while keynoting a Capitol Hill conference on the topic of India, Afghanistan and Regional Security, has said that as long as Pakistan offers safe havens to the Taliban and terrorist groups within its territory, the United States-led war on terrorism would be a failure.
I still believe that it is a good thing that think tanks are mushrooming in Delhi. They provide a platform for discussion, even if they shed more heat than light. With Parliament almost incapable of serious debate, informed discussion and civilised discourse, where does this nation get its intellectual churn, asks Mohan Guruswamy.
The 'Smart Cities' project is one that has faced many hurdles.
The plan of UID/Aadhaar-based surveillance does not end with the collection of fingerprints and iris scan, it goes quite beyond it and poses a lethal threat to the idea of India, says Gopal Krishna.
'The ISI is bound to exploit narcoterrorism.'
'Electricity, better roads and uninterrupted water supply are problems for everyone in India, not Muslims alone.' 'Regional parties are solving these problems much better. And for that reason, Muslims favour regional parties.'
'Both India and Pakistan don't want to escalate tensions.' 'So no matter what is claimed before the public, the reality is slightly different.'
'Every single American act to weaken Syrian forces would only tilt the military balance in favour of ISIS whom Trump pledges to vanquish from the face of the earth,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Headley's testimony indicates to what extent the Pakistan government and its proxies can go to destroy not only Indian scientific talent but also international expertise.'
Both Rajini and Kamal have to first convince the Tamil Nadu voters that even if they are entering active politics relatively late in life, they are here to stay, and are serious about politics, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Naresh Chandra was most certainly among the greatest patriots two generations of Indian strategists have seen.
The US wants to split Sino-India ties, says the Chinese media.
'Poor home work, and a subsequent loss of nerve.' 'This sums up the Modi government's current travails, the stall in key sectors, fading momentum, irritability,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
At the prison, both Ranjan and Manglik's cell phones were pressed into service by the CBI. Why the CBI didn't bring its own equipment seems a mystery... Ranjan's cell handset was given to Indrani and Manglik dialed it. Indrani then spoke and her speech, that emanated from the phone, via speaker mode, was recorded.
Corporate Affairs Minister Sachin Pilot intoned, "Recent incidents will certainly dampen business confidence and investment sentiment, both domestic and foreign; and perhaps also negatively affect decision making by bureaucrats and policy makers."
A very delayed and subdued reaction, at a time when the non-aligned world had expected a big country like India to come out in support of rights and justice. It was yet another example of the mealy mouthed approach that has come to define Indian foreign policy, says Seema Mustafa.
Recognising the threat posed by outfits like the Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Dawood Ibrahim network, India and the United States have agreed to deepen cooperation in fighting terrorism and asked Pakistan to bring to justice the 2008 Mumbai attack perpetrators.
'Bolstering India's conventional military capability against China is in America's strategic interest,' says military historian Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The Army must always be balanced in response.' 'Rabble rousers will demand that it be given a free hand against anti-national elements in the streets. That is exactly what the adversaries want.' 'Burning the Kashmir Valley through the summer is their desire; the Army will never contribute to enhancing their aim,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd), who served as the General Officer Commanding 15 Corps in Kashmir.
They are shaken by the mass molestation in the city on New Year's Eve. But they are not waiting to be rescued. Nikita Puri reports.
'Most of the agitations are staged by the Opposition to disturb the peace of the state.'
Much of the pre-2014 peace in our hotspots is diminished. Kashmir is on the boil and the Northeast is anarchic, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The readouts by the Indian and Chinese sides on the meeting on Monday between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow bring out that divergences are crowding into the centrestage of their relationship, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The S&P BSE Sensex closed at 26,190, up by 43 points and Nifty50 settled above 7,950 to end at 7,963, up by 17 points
'It will make good sense for military men on that side of the table to be confronted by our own.'
'President Obama will make a historic visit to India in January, becoming the first US head of State to attend India's Republic Day and the only sitting US president to visit India twice.' 'There's little doubt the relationship has been re-energised, with renewed enthusiasm to take our partnership to the next level.'
'When he first came to office, my belief is that the PM's reading of the landscape was that, with a vanquished Congress and fragmented Opposition, he was looking at least at two terms in office. This reading perhaps allows for a more cautious, gradual approach.' 'It was only a matter of time before the government was forced to come face-to-face with a serious corruption scandal. This is not a commentary on the BJP, but a statement about India's political economy.' 'There is growing concern about the government's commitment to freedom of expression, religious tolerance, and an independent civil society. Thus far, the positive movement on strategic and economic matters has crowded out these concerns, but they are lingering beneath the surface.'
'Pakistan has responded with appropriate contempt -- hrowing our national dignity into the waste paper basket.'
Indeed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who as Gujarat chief minister was considered close to certain business groups and industrialists, has hardly been seen with any Indian business head.
'If the US intention was to use the FATF platform to isolate Pakistan and impose sanctions against it, that is not going to work when influential countries such as Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia will not lend support to the US campaign,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Just how strong were the ties between the world's largest and oldest democracies that an incident involving a diplomat and a maid led to anger threatening the relationship itself? Or had the relationship been weakening in the past few years, masked by the empty symbolism of State dinners, asks Devesh Kapur.
'The threat that India faces and the threat the United States faces is not just to the homeland, but to our people and to our institutions wherever they may be.' In an exclusive conversation with Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com, US Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Desai Biswal outlines the importance of Prime Minister Modi's visit for America.
Domestic investors have managed very well to minimise the impact caused by relentless selling by foreign portfolio investors.
Sanjeev Khanna stepped out of his usual sort of absent-minded personality to actively 'log into' the hearing, following the testimony alertly, at times standing up in the accused box to catch all of what was being said. His co-accused Peter Mukerjea and Indrani Mukerjea were less attentive, but were not switched off either.
The rankings were prepared after examining the volume of terrorist and rebel alerts, messaging traffic, videos, photos, incidents and the number of killed and injured in a country over the past 30 days.
'No private project will take off at such high interest rates'
Rahul attacked Modi and BJP, alleging that 'politics of divide and polarisation is radicalising people in India'.
