'Modi personally provides the higher direction of the ministry and the minister then works with bureaucrats on implementation,' points out Aakar Patel.
Indian Ambassador to the United States Dr S Jaishankar told Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa that it was "a very nice meeting and President Barack Obama was extremely cordial."
If and when India and Pakistan bilateral talks take place any issues concerning Jammu and Kashmir will not be on the table. Any future talks with Pakistan will be only about PoK, tactically or otherwise.
'I am not minimising either the seriousness or the complex nature of the current situation.' 'Naturally, we have to do what it takes to secure our borders.' 'We are talking to the Chinese, both through military channels and diplomatic ones.'
'In fact, they work in tandem.' 'When it comes to finding a solution, this must be predicated on honouring all agreements and understandings.' 'And not attempting to alter the status quo unilaterally.'
Among the other names tipped to make it to the Cabinet are Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sarbananda Sonowal, Baijayant Panda.
Whether it is Sri Lanka, Maldives, or Nepal, quietly but steadily, India has been reclaiming some of the ground it had lost to China, observes Aditi Phadnis.
'India should respect Maldivian nationalism and their desire to be not over-dependent on India.' 'India should not behave like a big brother towards Maldives as many times, we tend to behave like that.'
S Jaishankar turned out to be a chip of the old block and that too, in modern parlance, a fully loaded chip. The father laid down the precepts of Indian strategy and diplomacy and the son put them into practice. T P Sreenivasan on India's new foreign secretary.
'During Congress rule, the government used to get both the fishermen and the boats released whenever the Sri Lankan navy apprehended them.' 'Under BJP rule, only the fishermen are being released.'
India on Friday launched a no-holds-barred attack on Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for his 'uncivilised' outburst against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said the comments were a 'new low' even for that country.
Henry Kissinger once said, 'It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.' India will have to wait and see, observes Rajeev Srinivasan.
'For Trump, this maddening extravaganza will play out well in his election campaign, showing himself off as a hugely popular world leader,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The Indian government evacuated its citizens from the clutches of the Taliban and Covid-hit Wuhan, so I am not worried.'
For the first time in his political career, he failed to carry his party to even a working majority -- and again, for the first time in his career, he finds himself in a situation where he cannot rule by dictatorial fiat, points out Prem Panicker.
The camaraderie between Modi and Obama has taken the India-US relationship to unprecedented and transformative levels.
'This is a historic juncture when the US is in great need of an alliance with India to strengthen its hands in the fierce struggle with China in the Asian theatre,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'If the Chinese were keen to mend fences with India, they would merely have to withdraw their troops in Eastern Ladakh.' 'They have not done so and they have not said that they will do so.'
'Every index of the US-India relationship is pointing north. The time has come for us to set much more ambitious goals for ourselves,' says India's new Ambassador to the United States Dr S Jaishankar.
'I was amazed at how tasty it was.' 'They did a good job with millets and lentils, which Mr Modi liked.'
'The Pakistani side was so cocksure of itself that it had come to the table with a pre-set agenda -- an agenda of unilateralism, knowing full well that nothing was going to come out of these talks,' says Rajeev Sharma.
'This incident offers ammunition to those inside the US government and elsewhere who question the wisdom of trusting India, so it will have a lasting consequence no matter how it is managed.'
Prime Minister Modi has entrusted Amit Shah with the task of coordinating all the agencies with their power to monitor movement and phone calls, says R Rajagopalan.
Mr Modi might have questions to ask himself on the most formidable strategic challenge before India that he inherited from the United Progressive Alliance: The triangulation between China and Pakistan. The failure to break out of it, or even loosen it a bit, is something to reflect on, notes Shekhar Gupta.
'China seems more intent on creating a new world order rather than shaping the existing one.' 'India is of course, at this moment in time, aligned with the West-led order because of China's full-spectrum aggressive behaviour towards India.'
'Although perhaps not with a greater majority, and maybe even a slightly reduced majority in the Lok Sabha.'
Once the tanks roll back, a zero-based assessment of future equations with China is necessary. Given the conflict situations that China is imposing on India time and again, the red, amber and green lines of interactions with China need to be laid down and communicated in no uncertain terms, asserts Srikanth Kondapalli, the leading China expert.
We do not know, because there has been no discussion, no transparency and most likely no real thinking on this matter at our end, observes Aakar Patel.
'We've never really been in the situation of having a difficult time with the Chinese and an increasingly difficult time with the Russians along with a relationship with the Americans which is important.'
Monday, November 8, 2021, Lal Kishenchand Advani -- the politician who took the Bharatiya Janata Party from its parliamentary nadir in 1984, when it won just two Lok Sabha seats, to establishing the edifice for its present dominance in Indian politics -- will turn 94.
A wise politician would disarm his critics, try to take them along, co-opt them, or, at least, take the criticism in his stride. Developing a thick skin ought to be an essential part of any politician's toolkit, notes Virendra Kapoor.
China remains the elephant in the room and has to be tamed, which the United States alone is unable to do and therefore calls allies to come on board.
'Even as discord over US-India trade and commerce colours diplomatic relations, defence relations between the two countries remain on a firm footing,' points out Ajai Shukla.
US-India defence cooperation must not adversely affect the India-Russia interface, which has its own strategic meaning and content, asserts Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
India's soft power diplomacy came into play during this cataclysm affecting the world as the pandemic defies barriers and borders, notes Rup Narayan Das.
India-China relations have always attracted Parliament's attention and there have always been useful and productive and constructive discussions how to engage with China, notes Rup Narayan Das.
Indians at large harbour a notion that their country is cherrypicking out of the American basket of goodies, but the policymakers in Delhi and the political leadership are well aware that it can only be a pipe dream since a military alliance with a superpower is a profound irrevocable commitment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
As the pandemic unfolded, the India-China relationship has come under severe stress. To restore normalcy, agreements between the two countries must be respected scrupulously in their entirety. Where the Line of Actual Control is concerned, any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo is unacceptable, declares External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Heading G20 will give India a foreign affairs year like it has never had in history. You can trust Narendra Modi to exploit this to India's benefit. And, of course, to his own in his election year, explains Shekhar Gupta.
'Tehran,' Foreign Minister Zarif said, 'had expected the Modi government to be "more resilient" in the face of Washington's bullying,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Gotabaya will expect India to observe the red line.' 'He even dispensed with any gesture welcoming India as an interlocutor on the Tamil issue.' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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