To this end, India has recently committed USD 400 million in steel to construction of the railway connecting Chabahar and Zahedan, near Afghan border, the report said.
'China would rather tie us down; and bleed us as much as it can so that we aren't able to lift our heads to face them.'
The fact that the PLA patrol came nearly 20 km deep into what India perceives as its own territory and stayed put -- for four days -- has made the Eastern Command a little more cautious about Chinese intentions, reports RS Chauhan
'The public has unfair expectations from Mrs Swaraj who is in Islamabad primarily for the Heart of Asia Conference. To restore India's position among stakeholders on Afghanistan is a fair one but to expect her to do more on the Indo-Pak front without requisite preparatory work is unrealistic.'
'China is likely to help Pakistan in keeping the fire burning in J&K to bleed India for its own interests.' A fascinating excerpt from Lieutenant General K Himalay Singh's Making of a General: A Himalayan Echo.
'Given the present force levels, India cannot fight and win.' 'India can't hope to terminate the conflict on India's terms and impose the nation's will upon the adversaries,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'What should worry India and which needs to be expressed is Russia's simultaneous proximity to both China and Pakistan from a strategic angle. That hasn't happened ever before,' says Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
On the one side there is a strong 'chowkidar', on the other, a line of tainted people, the prime minister said.
Once the scheme is implemented 70-80 per cent of the freight would move along national highways as against the current 40 per cent, says Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari.
BSF troops guarding over 180 km of IB with Pakistan have strengthened their observation posts and 'listening posts' to keep a close watch against any intrusion by drones.
'Misplaced national priorities have brought the economy to a cul-de-sac,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The US election campaign has provided plenty of ammunition for the CCP to make its case that its political system is superior.
'In the Balakot operation, we had technology on our side, and we could launch precision stand of weapons with great accuracy.'
Just like China wants Trump to lose the US presidential poll, it may want Modi to lose the Lok Sabha polls. So months before the 2024 elections, China may take possession of an important area, say one of the Char Dhams, warns Sanjeev Nayyar.
'It was the Mughals who first established standard units of measurement and maintained offices of meticulous record keepers and auditors, departing from the more haphazard methods of earlier regimes.' 'By the end of the 16th century, their revenue and judicial administrations exhibited an obsessive preoccupation with order, the efficient management of time, and a spirit of rational self-control -- all of them characteristics of early modernity,' point out Sheldon Pollock and Benjamin Ellman.
Indian tennis star Sania Mirza received a confidence booster ahead of the US Open Grand Slam tournament beginning, on Monday, with a doubles title victory at the Connecticut Open with Monica Niculescu of Romania, in New Haven, USA.
'No amount of digression can hide deflect the fact that the PM's visit was badly conceived, planned and executed,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'News is rife that Pakistan will attack the next day. They have no idea that this is where they will take on the might of 1 Armoured Division of Pakistan in a three-day bloody battle that will be remembered in military history as the Battle of Asal Uttar.' Rachna Bisht Rawat salutes the brave men turned the tide of the '65 war.
The thrust will be on improving connectivity in economic corridors and remote and border areas with a view to hike trade and enable faster movement of cargo.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Tuesday
The India-Japan joint naval exercises are a strategic signal for China, observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
The Delhi police made several arrests of key members of banned Indian Mujahideen this year including its chief Tehseen Akhtar but faced major law and order challenges with Trilokpuri riots and a 100 per cent spurt in crime graph in the national capital.
India on Friday said the Nawaz Sharif government in Pakistan has given 'good signals" in normalising bilateral ties but cautioned against expecting "magic overnight".
Ever pragmatic, the Americans are convinced that the future is in the Indo-Pacific.
There is a new Indo-Pacific century, and India has to decide whether it has its eyes on the prize, says Rajeev Srinivasan.
Modi was expected to arrive in Wuhan in the evening on April 26 and join Xi in the informal summit at a picturesque location the next day.
'Over the last two decades, the India-French relationship has grown steadily, no major political difference having darkened the sky between Paris and Delhi,' says Claude Arpi.
The counter-insurgency operation on the Indo-Myanmar was under planning for the last three months. The June 4 ambush that killed 18 Indian soldiers only hastened the attack. Sheela Bhatt provides exclusive details of the planning for the operation.
India needs to build its Grand Narrative, and its cultural power, which conquered all of ASEAN (then known as Indo-China), needs to be forcefully projected while simultaneously hard economic and military power are also emphasised, says Rajeev Srinivasan.
An Indian-origin British billionaire businessman, accused plotting the murder his Indo-Swedish wife during their honeymoon in South Africa in 2010, told a court that he is bisexual as his trial for began in Cape Town on Monday.
Arjan Singh, the Marshal of the Indian Air Force, was a fearless and exceptional pilot and remained a source of inspiration to all personnel of the Armed Forces through the years.
Sri Lanka's main Tamil party on Sunday secured a landslide win in the historic provincial council polls held after a gap of 25 years in the former Tamil Tigers-ruled northern province, an outcome expected to give limited autonomy to the Tamils after the end of decades of ethnic war.
'It is crucial today to realise where we have reached in this 15 year-period in order to fully and properly assess the profundity of what General Rawat has said,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'When Modi was having his maiden meeting with Donald Trump, China is up to its old tricks again, by causing a distraction on the Doklam plateau,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
The extradition hearing of Indian-origin businessman Shrien Dewani, accused of plotting the murder of his Indo-Swedish wife during their honeymoon in South Africa, opened at court in London on Monday.
The ten-day-long Ganesh Chaturthi culminated on Sunday as thousands of devotees immersed idols of the elephant-headed deity.
'The general perspective -- certainly on Capitol Hill and Congress -- the love for India, the positive feeling for India still focuses on India as a democracy.' 'The more that Indian democracy and its pluralistic features is called into question by Indians, the more that same debate will replay back here.'
'Pakistan has worsted India in the Afghan proxy war and the defeat becomes a template of regional politics,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'What gives hope is that Modi's own leadership is vitally linked to his capacity to deliver on the economic front. Indeed, if he succeeds, India's foreign policies will have changed beyond recognition,' feels Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
In the lead up to this week Indo-US Strategic Dialogue, for which United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, will be coming to Delhi, the Indo-US defence engagement is even more intense than usual.
'I was present at a meeting where he decided to permit the IAF to strike at Pakistan positions in Kargil, with the caveat that they should not cross the LoC.' 'Confident that the Indian Army would succeed, Mr Vajpayee was positioning himself to tell the world after the Kargil conflict was won that India did not violate the 'sanctity' of the LoC,' recalls Ambassador G Parthasarathy, who served as India's envoy in Islamabad in that eventful year, 1999.
