Seeking a peaceful and secure neighbourhood amidst threat of terrorism and extremism, India and Kyrgyzstan on Sunday signed four agreements including one on bolstering defence cooperation and holding annual joint military exercises.
The elements are all aligned to make India a global powerhouse, says IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
The fight over FYUP is between a highly controversial decision taken during the United Progressive Alliance rule and how the National Democratic Alliance government perceives it and how it is determined to resolve it in its own way, reports Sheela Bhatt.
Following is the full text of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech at the Central Party School in Beijing on Thursday:
Despite the recent electoral reverses, Rahul is getting ready to walk the fire once more. The question is whether he will get burned or burnished in the process, says Saroj Nagi.
The 'secularists'are more adept at the politics of intense and alarmingly exaggerated fear-mongering, as this kind of politics provides easy votes of Muslims without making them answerable for the concrete issues of poverty, unemployment, lawlessness, and of basic needs like roads, electricity, etc, which is exactly how Nitish Kumar was defeated in the elections, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'After the 2002 riots when the media and other political parties started blaming Modiji, thousands of people like us -- now, it must be crores of us -- started becoming staunch supporters of Modiji. The more you blamed him the more of our support he gained.' Pramod Singh of Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh is one of Narendra Modi's biggest fans and a member of Modi's India272 Web initiative, spreading the leader's message on social media and the Internet.
There are no permanent friends or foes in politics. It's true that the RJD supported us on the trust vote, but it doesn't mean we needed them, says Bihar new chief minister, Jitan Ram Manjhi.
'These ISIS terrorists want to smash Western civilisation, smash India. For the time being though, their main target would be the US and Europe.'
'Communalism and communal riots happened in India only during and due to colonialism. Pre-colonial India didn't have this problem of communal conflicts and religious strife.'
'Under Narendra Modi's leadership, we will be able to regain our rightful place in the community of nations,' veteran diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri, who joined the BJP on January 2, tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
'India is no longer the India of the '70s and the '80s.' 'It's a large country with the fastest growing economy.' 'In working with India, you just can't go and humiliate the nation publicly.' USIBC President Mukesh Aghi tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com about how he advises American companies to do business with India, what he thinks of Modi's government and the way forward for the India-US relationship.
'It's a humiliating time to be a human being.' It's a pity that the magnificent 17-year-old gorilla is dead. But it's not enough to hang our heads in shame or comfort ourselves with clicktivism, observes Bijoy Venugopal.
Arvind Subramanian talks about US and China's power play and where India figures in these dynamics.
In his penultimate State of the Union address, Barack Obama said that the economy is improving.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday addressed the first joint sitting of Parliament as mandatorily required under the Constitution after the general elections. The address is the political, economic and foreign policy road map of the Narendra Modi government and covers virtually all crucial areas.
What is Change really like in Bihar? Once seen as India's basket-case, what is its turnaround story like?
'They don't always agree with our governments, their teachers or their parents, but it is the conviction of their ideas, and their determination to share them with the world that, I believe, is one of the greatest sources of hope for our planet.' 'The colonisation of space, understanding the very building blocks of matter and the universe, utilising our understanding of the human genome to conquer disease -- these are the tasks waiting for a fellowship of minds to realise new triumphs in our collective destiny.'
A special episode of the Prime Minister's radio broadcast Mann ki Baat featuring US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was aired on Tuesday night. The 35-minute special broadcast of 'Mann Ki Baat', which marked the rapport between Modi and Obama, touched on issues ranging from public health and personal inspirations of the two leaders, both of whom have come up from simple beginnings to assume to top positions of the respective countries. What follows is a transcript of the Mann ki Baat episode.
'They do not want us to construct roads or to conduct health camps. I see no logic in their demands,' says West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.
'We have about Rs 4 lakh crore debt on a state budget of about Rs 1.5 lakh crore.' 'We are in a debt two-and-a-half times our annual budget,' says the banker who would have been Tamil Nadu's finance minister had the DMK won.
What is Change really like in Bihar? Once seen as India's basket-case, what is its turnaround story like? Archana Masih reports from India's other most talked about state.
'It is only because we were facing US threats that we were able to successfully develop a nuclear programme of our own.'
