'While many Chinese policy makers dismiss the political, economic and technological component of US-India relations, they express caution on the defence-related ties which also happens to be a major driver in US-India relations,' explains China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
Staffers were asked to dump their phones on a table for a "phone check", to prove they had nothing to hide.
B D Pande was Punjab's governor during Operation Bluestar. In this excerpt from his memoir, In the Service of Free India: Memoir of a Civil Servant, Pande reveals what really went on behind the scenes during those dark days in India's history.
'He is not the leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha or the Lok Sabha. He is just an MP.' 'In the order of precedence of the Republic of India, Rahul Gandhi is at 21st position,' says Sudhir Bisht.
'This was the first ever visit by a President in a re-election year so it sent a strong signal of the priority of the relationship and the desire to continue to strengthen it.'
'India appears to have stood its ground on strategic autonomy by resisting US pressure on Russia, China and Iran, but succumbed to the temptation to walk into a tighter embrace in defence cooperation, a high priority of the Trump administration,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The 74-year-old real estate mogul-turned politician, who radically changed politics in the corridors of power in Washington, DC over the past four tumultuous years, was impeached for a second time on the charges of 'incitement of insurrection' for the violent storming of the United States Capitol by his supporters just days before the end of his four-year term.
'This speech is going to be more of a punishment. I spoke too much this afternoon' A tireless Prime Minister Narendra Modi left over 700 notable luminaries in peals of laughter with his quick wit and sense of humour during a dinner and reception hosted by Indian Ambassador Subrahmanyam Jaishankar at the Taj-owned, The Pierre Hotel. In the presence of the who's who of desi Americans and US lawmakers, Modi once again thanked the Indian-Americans for their contributions and discussed his plans of developing India and the ties he hopes to nurture with America. Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com presents a sneak-peak into the festive, grand dinner.
'If you behave like a nail, the adversary will behave like a hammer.'
'It doesn't look as if any sensible, worldly wise, person is in charge in China.' 'If at all anybody is in charge, it can only be a bunch of bumpkins of whom Xi has become a puppet,' observes B S Raghavan, the veteran civil servant.
Kamal Nath argued that Modi had 'overexposed himself': By constantly pushing his own image on social media and on TV, attaching his name to multiple promises, Modi had become the face rivals could easily blame for India's chronic dysfunction.
'Women's voices are too high or too low, or they are seen as too short or too tall, or too fat or too thin, to be great leaders.' 'These judgments wear us down.'
Secretary Tillerson met with Foreign Secretary Jaishankar on Friday to discuss the US-India relationship and the agenda for Prime Minister Modi's meetings at the White House on June 26, a State Department spokesman said told PTI.
'The government and railways are looking after us, but I just want to get home.'
'Can he be the statesman that a divided nation needs?' 'Not remotely, but by following his gut, he may yet surprise the scores upon scores of naysayers,' says Vikram Johri.
Modi said India and Pakistan were together before 1947 and he was confident that the two neighbours can discuss their problems and solve them.
'We have never before seen an Indian prime minister's visit to the United States so heavily business-oriented and so packed with meetings with the US business community.' Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from Washington, DC.
We see none of the euphoric build-up customary to India's encounter with US presidents in recent times. This gives Modi wriggle room to work on the much-needed reset of India-US ties.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins his historic visit of the United States of America, here's a look at some landmark visits by Indian prime ministers to the United States of America.
Narendra Modi would have done well to take a few more months before he agreed to receive or call on heads of countries like Japan, China, and the US. The prime minister is to settle down in his job and it was too soon for him to have full awareness of the nuances of intricate international issues, says B S Raghavan.
'Progress demands regular senior-level attention from American leaders.' 'A leaders' summit is great, but we need sustained engagement to continue to forge new agreements and find new areas of cooperation.'
Spread over two days -- Friday and Saturday -- at a picturesque desert resort in Southern California, Obama, 51, and Xi, 59, had several rounds of meetings and a candle-lit dinner spread over nearly eight hours on a range of bilateral, regional and global issues.
Nehru's faith in science and technology, his genuine respect for Bhabha, and their burning ambition worked synergistically to place India on the nuclear map of the world. Atomic energy developed and prospered because of Nehru's vision fulfilled by Bhabha's mission, recalls K S Parthasarathy, former secretary of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, on the occasion of India's first prime minister's 119th birthday today.
Joe Biden will embark on his maiden visit to India as United States Vice President on July 22 to discuss key bilateral issues, including trade, energy and defence, to make Indo-US ties the most important strategic partnership of the 21st century.
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In the first official visit by a United States vice-president to India in three decades, Joe Biden arrived in India on Monday on a four-day tour aimed at boosting ties in key areas of trade, energy, defence and security. The US vice-president will hold meetings with top Indian leadership, including President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on Tuesday before flying out to Mumbai in the night.
During the World War, Singh fought alongside the Allied Forces in North West Frontier province, Eritrea, Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), Libya, Egypt and Italy.
'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.
Modi also said the people of India felt proud that President Xi has twice received him out of the capital.
'The josh is very high as we fight this global pandemic.'
Amidst reports of Congress' confabulations with the Rashtriya Janata Dal for a secular alliance in Bihar in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday took a dig at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for the Congress preferring Lalu Prasad over him and said such an 'opportunistic' alliance was not a cause of worry for it.
'President Kalam would always say -- this was one of his pet sentences -- that "If you don't do anything, there will be no difficulties but if you do things, there will be difficulties. You have to overcome them. Don't be afraid of difficulties".'
Is North Korea really dismantling its nuclear programme? Rajaram Panda explains the many challenges to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula.
Most successful and ambitious business leaders feel persuaded that they have no competent successor, says R G Vilakudi.
Mukund Rajan, who worked closely with Ratan Tata, recalls the unique experience of working with the corporate titan.
Since 1950 successive governments have tried various options but failed to reduce alienation amongst the people, for different reasons, of Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh. It is best to accept this reality and let each region charter its own path, within the framework of the Indian Constitution, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
'This is the first time that the Americans have agreed to refer to "cross-border terrorist attacks" in a joint statement.' 'No wonder Pakistan has called the joint statement "singularly unhelpful" and has blasted it, and its all-weather friend China has applauded Pakistan's frontline role in combating terrorism,' points out former foreign secretary Ambassador Kanwal Sibal.
'China was the elephant in the Oval Office and Trump would have sensed that Modi's foreign policy architecture has become disoriented sans the US' pivot to Asia,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Modi's investment in the relationship with Washington is the biggest deliverable of this visit. He means business and that's fantastic!'
From her thoughts on a black woman becoming First Lady to marital struggles with her husband Barack, Michelle Obama hasn't held back in her memoir, which is being praised as honest and telling, Becoming.
29 years ago this August, Pakistan's dictator, the general who made jihad part of Pakistani State policy, died in a mysterious air crash. Did the KGB, the then USSR's dreaded espionage agency, assassinate Zia-ul Haq? Was India's RA&W responsible for blowing Zia's military aircraft out of the skies? Was it Zia's many enemies in Pakistan's military? Was it a box of mangoes as Mohammad Hanif speculated in his fascinating novel about Zia's death? Or was the assassin someone else?
