Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Myanmar is aimed at transforming the arch of Bay of Bengal into the Circle of Southeast Asia, says Anirban Ganguly.
The average Indian soldier remains as hardy as before but he is certainly confused with the pace of change occurring all around him. It is here that the leaders -- the officers -- will have to adapt themselves to the new reality, says Nikhil Gokhale
A sensational interview on India-China ties, with the man most qualified to answer.
China wants a code of conduct for troops on the India-China border areas. While the Indian side has reacted cautiously, it is not clear what effective additional protocols that the current proposed code will bring forth to usher stability in the border areas, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
'The message to India is (with attacks like Pathankot) basically what the Pakistani army is trying to test is how serious are you when it concerns the peace process with that country.'
Amid a spurt in terror attacks in various countries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said terrorism is the "gravest threat" to the world, "equally impacting" India and Mozambique which agreed to strengthen security and defence ties and bolster cooperation in food security.
The buck for the Gandamal tragedy should not stop with the school-in-charge Meena Kumari. She is just the face of a deeper malaise in Bihar, says Apoorvanand.
Dr Manmohan Singh would be faced with very few choices in Beijing given the Chinese conceived notions of the world today and India's low place in their calculus, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
Shuvajit was confident of making a huge difference in the lives of people in rural India.
'You cannot judge a government within a month. Give us five years' time.' 'At times, strict economic decisions have to be made for the good of the poor in the long run.' Dharmendra Pradhan, one of the Modi government's stars, speaks exclusively to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com about why the government is forced to roll out 'bitter medicine.'
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.
Chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian discusses the Budget, goods and services tax, Centre-state relationship and larger issues facing the economy
'After more than 20 years of understanding, nothing much seems to have been achieved. What the two countries have been trying to do is to manage the recurrence of border incursions. The two sides must address the disease, and not the symptom of the disease,' says Rup Narayan Das.
Today, the biggest challenge for any state is to evolve indigenous hardware options. It is important for the states like Germany, India etc to increase their stakes in the global IT setup and this could allow them to control the US domination, says Ajey Lele.
'China's excessive military aid to Pakistan is the real elephant in the room as far as Sino-Indian relations are concerned. India should be confident enough to accept a degree of closeness between China and Pakistan, since China may wish to use this link for its foray into the Muslim world.' 'But the Chinese must be realistic enough to know that as time passes, the tactic of using Pakistan as a proxy to check India will yield diminishing returns. The US tried it for 60 years but failed, so will China,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'How can Hindus protest efforts to ban an edition of the Gita in parts of Russia, and force a publisher to withdraw an academic critique of Hinduism, all in the same breath? It makes the Hindu community seem petty, self-serving, and hypocritical. Episodes like this allow Hinduism to be "owned" by the most conservative, intolerant, extremist voices. These people do not speak for me, and they certainly don't represent the form of Hinduism I practice and love," Princeton University's Hindu chaplain Vineet Chander tells Rediff.com's Arthur J Pais.
In anticipation of a verdict to be delivered by the International Tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on Tuesday, China has orchestrated a worldwide campaign to defuse its findings.
'As the first leaders of their respective countries born after Indian Independence and the Chinese Liberation, Modi and Xi would be expected to have the ability to overcome the traditional mindsets and the hierarchical nature of their official/bureaucratic establishments,' say Alka Acharya and Jabin T Jacob.
Admittedly, EVMs too have a UID number and any convergence of data can make the secret ballot system a party of history, warns Dr Gopal Krishna in the 5th part of his series against Aadhaar.
'J&K continues to have the highest concentration of military personnel anywhere in the world and the alienation of the Kashmiri has increased in the last ten years than ever before.'
In the final part of his interview with Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com, journalist Rajdeep Sardesai says the Congress lost the election in 2011, the year of Anna Hazare.
Arvind Subramanian talks about US and China's power play and where India figures in these dynamics.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who recently completed one year in office, has, in an exclusive interview with Smita Prakash, editor, ANI, said the opposition alleging that his government is a "suit boot ki sarkar" is definitely better and more acceptable than being labelled a "suitcase" (ki sarkar), and satirically added, that after ruling for sixty years, the Congress has suddenly remembered the poor.