The Chinese had enough foreign reserves.
With Shanghai Cooperation Organisation set to admit India and Pakistan amid growing rancour over their Nuclear Supplies Group membership bid, a Chinese state-run daily expressed concern on Friday that the hostility between them may have a "negative effect" on the security grouping.
'Mann Ki Baat' is being broadcast by more than 500 broadcast centres of All India Radio.
The Chinese dependence is far from over, industry players are also citing a shortage of electronic toys in the country.
'It is commendable that India is able to persuade all sides.' 'It shows that India counts and finally, we are reaching a position where we can find a place in the sun at the global level.'
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
How does blatantly claiming Indian territory help to maintain 'peace in border regions', is a mystery that only China can explain, notes Claude Arpi.
It is on the exact spot where the Guru is said to have created 108 waterfalls, that the Yangtse clash took place between the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA on the night of December 9, 2022. As it had done in Ladakh in May 2020, the PLA tried to change the unmarked LAC in the Yangtse sector in Arunachal Pradesh. It was the most serious border incident since the Galwan Valley clash in June 2020, notes Claude Arpi.
The average age of those who died was 80.3, and 90 per cent of the fatalities were aged 65 or over, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
China on Thursday told Pakistan's new Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that it will always put its "all-weather ally" as a priority in its neighbourhood diplomacy as it praised his commitment to promote the USD 60 billion CPEC initiative.
After two decades, the SCO appears to be at a cross-roads with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, asserts Srikanth Kondapalli, the leading China expert.
Officials hint the visit could finally see a formal defence industrial road map being adopted by both nations.
There are signs of China's external behaviour becoming more aggressive in the coming years. If that happens, strategic implications for neighbours having territorial disputes with China can become deeper and imperatives can rise for the former to counteract, says D S Rajan
Such criticism by China of a foreign government official, particularly of a major power like the US, is very unusual. It is clear that China will come under increasing pressure certainly till the US presidential elections are held, observes former senior RA&W officer and China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
'The Weather Channel argues that India faces the gravest challenge: Climate change-induced health vulnerability.' 'This is an issue often neglected, alerts Claude Arpi: "Prolonged summers, unpredictable rains, floods, droughts, and rising sea levels are the harsh realities of climate change in the country. These factors increase the frequency and severity of illnesses, pushing people into poverty, and forcing migration".'
The scaling up of the India-US strategic partnership to the level of non-NATO ally with defence deals, sharing and transfer of defence technology, interoperability, joint collaboration and joint production of defence equipment has exacerbated Moscow's anxiety, notes Rup Narayan Das.
'The future of BRICS is under stress as Chinese attempts to expand the platform are being resisted by India and Brazil.' 'Beijing is focused on a quick expansion with the aim of giving the platform a distinctly anti-Western orientation, which New Delhi and Brasilia seem to have no interest in,' notes Harsh V Pant.
'The military aim in a future conflict, if it can't be avoided, should be to cause maximum damage to the adversary's war waging capability and capture limited amount of territory as a bargaining counter,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Most Indians have acquired hybrid immunity which means immunity developed through vaccines and also natural infection protecting them from different COVID-19 variants.
The warning came a day after China cautioned its students against going to the US for studies.
The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic's origin.
China is spending billions of dollars to improve infrastructure in Tibet and other parts of its border with India. Claude Arpi explains why New Delhi can't afford to ignore Beijing's plans.
'The world is watching carefully. The choices India makes today have consequences beyond its borders.'
Speaking at a press conference, Peter Ben Embarek, the head of the WHO mission in Wuhan, stated four hypotheses on how the virus spread but reiterated that "laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus into the human population".
The same team of scientists had last year dismissed the lab leak idea as a conspiracy theory in a report also published in The Lancet.
As India prepares to launch its vaccine drive on January 16, here is a look at the options:
The wet market was where a variety of live animals were traded until it was shut down following fears that the coronavirus had jumped to humans either from bats or pangolins.
China on Monday evaded queries on its role in the departure of ex-Central Investigation Agency operative Edward Snowden from Hong Kong even as it asked United States to explain the whistleblower's revelations of American cyber attacks on Chinese institutions.
Obed Hrangchal, a 28-year-old Indian Jew from Mizoram who immigrated to Israel in 2020, has won the Jewish state's kickboxing championship and is likely to represent the country in international competitions.
The gift is a special reproduction of the original research proposal she submitted for fellowship at Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla in May 1986.
No account of the 1962 war could be complete without Maxwell's authoritative analysis. Which is why we are reprinting this article which was run on Rediff.com in June 2001.
Indian mobile and Web consumers speak in 30 languages and around 1,600 dialects.
Three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology sought hospital care in November 2019, weeks before Beijing disclosed the COVID-19 pandemic, a United States media report said, citing a previously undisclosed American intelligence document that could add weight to growing calls for a full scale probe of whether the coronavirus may have escaped from China's top bio lab.
With the 21 unicorns collectively valued at $73.2 billion, India is the fourth biggest in terms of unicorns, behind the US, China and the UK, as per the Hurun Global Unicorn List.
Chinese officials have refuted allegations of the country's army assisting militants in northeast India, saying such charges are "absurd" and such a linkage is "impossible".
Why a new study suggests you wear a face mask when you speak to anyone.
'Since the bilateral deficit is a reality -- and a worry -- we need to find a way to deal with it,' says Ravi Bhoothalingam.
China, Russia, Iran and international terrorism form the 'big four' set of security threats in an era of dramatic change, Britain's chief spy said in a rare public speech on Tuesday.
Xi's ascent to power and the quick consolidation of his leadership of the party with a shock anti-graft campaign securing the title of the "core leader" of the party bequeathed only to Mao has indeed forced his rivals in the party to submission and caught the attention of the world.
Chinese hubris and the slippery slope it finds itself on have important lessons for authoritarian leaders elsewhere, including in India, observes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
