After many false starts, India may well be at the inflexion point that Deng Xiaoping took China to post-1978. The window of opportunity is wide open right now, says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'The military aim in a future conflict, if it can't be avoided, should be to cause maximum damage to the adversary's war waging capability and capture limited amount of territory as a bargaining counter,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'If anyone is able to understand the importance of Modi's endeavours to revive the economy -- even against opposition from sections of his own saffron brotherhood -- it is the former prime minister,' says Amulya Ganguli.
The bogey of the 1962 defeat must be laid to rest with a finality that is unquestionable. The myth of Chinese invincibility is a tall tale that belongs to an era gone by, says Vivek Gumaste.
A resurgent Saina Nehwal and fast rising PV Sindhu, country's best women shuttlers, set up a summit clash against each other at the Syed Modi International badminton tournament in Lucknow.
The Indian economy can grow if it is delinked from the slow growth in the West and the deceleration in China, says Ashok K Lahiri.
No country has achieved a faster, deeper modern transformation than China, says former ambassador Kishan S Rana.
'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.
His challenge now may be coping with Alibaba's undoubted status as a whale in the world of e-commerce.
'To consider BRICS anything more than a temporary club with some common interests would be folly. The goal should be to induce others (Japan, ASEAN, South Africa) to align with us -- a non-threatening, democratic nation, rather than with malevolent China or waning America. For us to consider aligning with either China or the US would be absurd. India is just too big to be a sidekick,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'China, which had earlier blockaded New Delhi's bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group by citing the nuclear non-proliferation law, finds itself in an awkward position and international isolation.' 'India needs to pursue a policy of mediation between China and the Southeast Asian countries for regional security,' says Srikanth Kondapalli.
A proposed nuclear deal aims to stop Pakistan from building small tactical nuclear weapons that could fall into terrorist hands.
In the second and final part of his column, Col Anil Athale says the fight between forces of Indian nationalism and Macaulayism aided and abetted by West is going to be long, hard and dirty. The outcome will decide whether India becomes a superpower or continues to wallow in the swamp of underdevelopment.
An old fighter pilot remembers the best days of his life.
The best analysis of politics does not come out of air conditioned newsrooms, but from the voices on India's streets. Rakesh Kumar Singhal -- once an army jawan, then an ONGC employee, then a tea shopwallah -- reveals why he left the Congress for Modi.
One has to wonder what is so wrong with the European Union.
In a rare gesture, China's official media in Beijing on Tuesday extended its biggest coverage to an Indian political event projecting Narendra Modi's takeover as Prime Minister as a harbinger of "big boost" to China-India relations.
Sadly, for hundreds of millions in India, that inequality from their birth and the utterly inadequate schooling and health care they receive thereafter mean that the lottery is stacked against them.
'Nawaz Sharif knows a coup in 2016-2017 will not only complete Pakistan's isolation, but even a whiff of instability will frighten the world into imagining another Islamic State-zone, and this in a fully nuclearised subcontinent,' says Shekhar Gupta.
In the case of India, there are no specific references in China's white paper. However, there are several takeaways for India, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
'If we play our cards right, we may even benefit from the competition between the US and China as seen from increased investment from each of these countries into India.' 'The size of our market gives us an important lever of power which we shall have to play adroitly and intelligently,' points out Ambassador Gautam Bambawale -- who served as India's envoy to China -- in the Professor V M Dandekar Memorial Lecture 2019, delivered on March 8, 2019 in Pune.
Public interest centres on whether the two leaders might make headway in resolving the Sino-Indian boundary dispute.
For the fifth day in succession, a united opposition led by the Congress party on Friday created turmoil in Rajya Sabha demanding a reply from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on forcible religious conversions, leading to two adjournments before lunch.
One thing Beijing must understand is that India is not obsessed with being a threat to China but only wants a rightful place for itself in the world, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
The Modi PMO is like none other: It is staffed by people who are so low profile that the only dominant personality is the Prime Minister's.
In our special series re-visiting great Hindi film classics, we look back at Dev Anand and Asha Parekh's Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai (1961).
How did Greece, the country of Archimedes and Socrates and Plato and Pythagoras, come to such dire straits, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
Govinda returns with Aa Gaya Hero.
'The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.' Former RA&W official Jayadeva Ranade explains what China's military reforms mean for the world.
Anil Shastri, one of the late prime minister's six children, recounts memories of his father.
'India is a huge market for Chinese goods. I don't think a war stands to logic when you have economic compulsions, but then Chinese are known to do illogical things.'
All the three issues raised by China at the Modi-Xi meeting are either intractable or peripheral to the bilateral relations and suggest conventional methods to placate the other side without yielding much, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
'Because of the impact the movement has had, people will think twice before misbehaving because you don't know who will turn out to be another Tanushree Dutta.'
One couldn't help feeling a certain melancholy viewing these now vagrant documents and photographs that would never be rightfully cherished. The pictures spoke to you. They offered slices of extinguished lives. They breathed sadness too, for what could have been and will never be. The sweet promises that Life made and insolently, arrogantly never kept.
The ripping off the lid, that Mekhail did, on the chain of episodes that lead up to his sister's murder, while condemning Indrani for her actions, for the first time, paradoxically, allowed a more human -- if flawed and complicated -- picture to emerge of Indrani, allegedly The Woman Who Killed Her Own Daughter and shocked a nation.
'The parents have seen the documentary. They have liked the documentary. They called me to say, "Aap log himmat mat hariye (You don't lose heart)".' 'After that I don't care what people think. I got goose bumps when they said, "Aap log piche mat hathiye (You people don't back off)".'
Read what the ex-chief of R&AW, A S Dulat, told our readers on Rediff Chat!
There are signs of China's external behaviour becoming more aggressive in the coming years. If that happens, strategic implications for neighbours having territorial disputes with China can become deeper and imperatives can rise for the former to counteract, says D S Rajan
Article 370 is a golden cage that keeps Kashmiris trapped in a stifling environment, deters other Indians from investing in the state perpetuating its economic penury and expressly hinders the understanding of India; all under the false premise of preserving a narrow parochial identity, says Vivek Gumaste.
"Everyone knows me because of that terrible tragedy. My memories of Mosul only bring me sadness. How can I be proud about my fame? I lost everything there," Harjit Masih told Rediff.com's Swarupa Dutt over the phone.
