Moved by three-year-old Aylan Kurdi's death, Vidhya Ramalingam has kick-started a crowd-funding campaign to buy a rescue ship for immediate action in the Mediterranean.
'China need not worry about a truly 'resurgent India'.' 'It's not going to happen.'
India needs to come up with new ideas to make the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas more appealing to overseas Indians. The Diasporas talents should be used for the country's development, says Thomas Abraham, founder of the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin
'There is gradual rise in the number of nations viewing Pakistan as the nursery of global terror.'
Amazon committed a fresh investment of $3 billion, in addition to the $2 billion it announced in 2014.
With the signing of the pact, the Quad grouping of India, Japan, Australia and the US is set to gain more heft now, notes Dr Rajaram Panda.
Prime Ministers Modi and Abe enjoyed a close and empathetic relationship and this certainly gave a sustained momentum to the India-Japan strategic partnership. It is necessary for India to reach out and engage with his successor as early as possible, advises former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
'The sooner Pakistan and India face these geopolitical realities, the better it will be for their own security and prosperity,' observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
...but are we chasing yesterday's dreams, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
'Little did those in India's strategic community realise that any wise adversary in China's place and circumstances would only take the land route to disturb and trouble India.' 'It is along the land border that all of India's post-Cold War allies would be of little or no political and diplomatic, and least of all, military help,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
USAID looks forward to working with each to make financial inclusion a long-lasting and sustainable reality in India.
From Sri Lanka's most popular political family to its most despised -- going by the voices on the streets calling for the Rajapaksas' ouster -- what went wrong for the clan? Veteran Sri Lanka watcher N Sathiya Moorthy offers an insight.
'With two nuclear neighbours, how likely is it for our armed forces to battle in a contaminated environment that could include nuclear, biological or chemical attacks by the adversary?' 'Are we prepared for the threat?' Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd) explains the meaning and significance of Operation Vijay Prahar.
The Forbes 30 Under 30 list is harder to get into than Stanford or Harvard University. Meet the desis who made the cut this year.
The US is still a place for innovation and entrepreneurship, and it is good to see Indian Americans and immigrants contributing to this in a major way, says K V Seshasayee who visited the US after four years and found the gloom had dissipated.
'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.
'I would urge my Indian friends to look at how significant the overall support was.'
'All this talk of 'tactical nuclear weapons' or a limited nuclear war are 'false flags'! It looks like India and Pakistan are slowly but surely inching towards this realism,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Some Indians take the extreme view that everything was known to our ancients, but others go to the opposite extreme and consider everything Indian was superstition and rubbish.' 'Indian science was perhaps more rational than the European science of the time.'
Easy availability of drones has increased the complexity of security challenges and the Indian military is developing capabilities to effectively deal with the threats, be it from State-sponsored elements or by states themselves, Army Chief Gen M M Naravane said on Thursday.
'If push comes to shove, Pakistan does have the capability to make it difficult for the US and NATO forces to make even a withdrawal of troops out of Afghanistan in orderly fashion,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The Indian side has realised that not talking to Pakistan has not served any useful purpose.'
US admiral's suggestion for a revival of a strategic maritime quadrilateral with Japan, Australia and India leaves China livid, says Rajeev Sharma.
UAVs are an intrinsic part of today's technology driven battlefield. Indians don't seem to be taking the challenge with the degree of urgency that is required, says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
'If an 'informal meeting' with Xi Jinping materialises before the SCO summit in June, that itself could be regarded as a significant breakthrough in India-China relations,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah will soon get around to reworking their organisational set-up and administrative priorities to regain lost ground in the wake of the Delhi electoral debacle, but there's third course available to them as well. That is to introduce the presidential form of government, which prime ministers Indira Gandhi and A B Vajpayee flirted with before abandoning it. Will Modi go further than them? N Sathiya Moorthy analyses the scenario.
'Curiously, Pinarayi's approach, stressing the imperatives of development, is robustly backed by Nitin Gadkari.'
'I stand next only to Gadkari, one of the few outstanding ministers in the Modi government, in applauding Pinarayi's political courage and vision,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Considering the huge stakes, the Modi government is not averse to make more diplomatic efforts to see whatever it can salvage.
'Wealthy Indians don't give as much as Americans because they believe they must leave their wealth to their children.'
'Notwithstanding the realisation among the Indian leadership to build up its navy for the force's expanding role, the Indian Navy was allocated only 15% of the interim defence budget presented in Parliament in February 2019.' 'The outlay for the navy's capital acquisition is not even adequate to meet its committed liabilities,' points out Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
'The fact that Modi and Xi exuded confidence to accelerate the negotiations for a border settlement alone underscores that the Russia-India-China triangle has become very dynamic,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United States President Barack Obama will meet on Sunday, January 25, at Hyderabad House a few hours after the American leader's arrival in New Delhi.
The year is coming to an end and overall, it's been one hell of a year! We have had our share of ups and downs and we look forward to a better 2020. While we count down the days to the new year, let's also reflect on those who gave us strength to stand up in what we believe, the courageous who didn't bow down and the ones with gumption who inspired us to be better. We, Rediff.com, have selected 26 personalities, who we think are worthy of the title -- HERO OF THE YEAR -- and we want you, dear readers, to choose your hero!
Prasad appealed to US businesses to invest in the country in a big way specially in ambitious programmes like Make in India
'Like General Patton, possibly the greatest exponent of the art of war, Vajpayee had the ability to be always on the offensive,' assesses Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
While the DMK fears that the Congress with its poor strike rate will pull it down in the 2021 state elections, like it did five years ago, the ruling AIADMK is worried that the BJP may ultimately do a Bihar on it, relegating it to second place in Tamil Nadu, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had sought American assistance and wrote to the then US president John F Kennedy to provide India jet fighters to stem the Chinese tide of aggression during the 1962 Sino-India war, according to a new book.
'It would not be incorrect to say that the Chinese-Pakistani strategy of containing India began in the aftermath of the 1965 war.'
'It was India's good fortune to have a Vajpayee lead the government at this crucial moment in history.' 'By taking the N-decision he saved future generations of Indians from being 'Kosovoed' or 'Iraqed',' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The question really is whether the US can be persuaded to embark on a path of calibrated and stronger sanctions on Pakistan.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances