President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday addressed the nation on the eve of the 68th Independence Day.
New Delhi and Beijing are the only two regional capitals that have commented on US President Donald Trump's speech on August 21 outlining the way forward in Afghanistan. The Indian foreign ministry statement was effusive in praise, while the Chinese statement has been one of cautious and guarded hope. Delhi has identified itself with Trump's Afghan strategy, whereas the Chinese stance is calibrated -- observant and objective, keeping a distance, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Sujatha Singh is the third senior official to have been dismissed by NDA.
Anti-nuclear activist S P Udayakumar, who has been called a threat to the economic security of India by the Intelligence Bureau, speaks to A Ganesh Nadar.
Eyeing greater cooperation with South East Asian countries on economic and security issues, India on Thursday announced a separate Mission for ASEAN region to be set up in Jakarta with a full-time resident Ambassador.
The new series claims GDP grew at seven per cent between April and June 2015, while gross value added (GVA) grew at 7.1 per cent.
'The government has sent a clear message to Pakistan: It is no longer business as usual.' 'The rules of the game have changed and a new game is at play,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'This is not a Sanjay Baru or Natwar Singh type of book. It's not a memoir. It's not a book to reveal conversations, real or imaginary. This is not a book to position myself at the centre of the world.' Jairam Ramesh on his stint as environment minister.
If Paris really meant to serve as a landmark in recognising equity in climate negotiations, it should have heralded the second phase of the Kyoto protocol. Instead we have all countries, India and China included, all signing up with voluntary commitments in what can only be seen as a race to the bottom, reports Darryl D'Monte.
2015 will be a real test for Modi govt.
The rally in Indian market is mainly due to resumption of foreign institutional investor inflows.
Excerpts from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at the Combined Commanders Conference on board the INS Vikramaditya at sea, off the coast of Kochi.
It has been said that by 2025, India could become among the top five economies in the world. If India does become a $5 trillion economy but gets all its rivers polluted, food chain poisoned and genetic pool depleted and biometric database of Indians sold or stolen at the behest of commercial czars, will it not be a pyrrhic economic victory, asks Gopal Krishna.
Raghuram Rajan rejected the argument that inflation has come down largely because of "good luck" stemming from low oil prices.
'China's growing nexus with Pakistan and the two countries' unresolved territorial disputes with India continue to pose a formidable national security threat to India,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Thirty-four years after he traveled to space, Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih that he looks forward to Gaganyan, India's first manned space mission in 2022.
Enrich a woman and you can enrich a nation. Hurt women, deny women equitable rights, and a nation's death sentence will soon commence, says Dr Krishan Jeyarajasingham.
'The choice of chief minister after the win is a pointer to what issues really mattered at the polls.' 'Perhaps, demonetisation was an electoral side issue -- a reflection of the disconnect between commentators in the cities and the realities on the ground,' says Somasekhar Sundaresan.
We're behaving like frogs in warm water. We swim around untroubled, cooled by our faith in Indian liberal democracy. We are blind to the bubbles popping around us, the bubbles warning of fundamental changes, says Mihir S Sharma.
The euphoria of Ab Ki Baar Modi Sarkar will fade quickly if the Modi government does not raise its game, and focus significant monetary resources and managerial skills on making India's infrastructure truly world-class, says Ram Kelkar.
'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).
'When he first came to office, my belief is that the PM's reading of the landscape was that, with a vanquished Congress and fragmented Opposition, he was looking at least at two terms in office. This reading perhaps allows for a more cautious, gradual approach.' 'It was only a matter of time before the government was forced to come face-to-face with a serious corruption scandal. This is not a commentary on the BJP, but a statement about India's political economy.' 'There is growing concern about the government's commitment to freedom of expression, religious tolerance, and an independent civil society. Thus far, the positive movement on strategic and economic matters has crowded out these concerns, but they are lingering beneath the surface.'
The former McKinsey India head is presently on board of many big Indian conglomerates.
'Continuity in a common agenda is essential, not to disrupt the progress achieved so far,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
After weighing all the costs and benefits, the next administration is likely to reduce and restructure assistance to Pakistan but not to end it altogether, says Daniel S Markey.
'When George Bush Senior decided in 1992 that India and the United States must start talking in this-now-changed world, who would have thought that 10, 15 years down the road, we will start looking at each other as strategic partners?'
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Given the 18-day government shutdown in the US and the likelihood for continued wrangling between the Democrats and the Republicans, it now looks like tapering may be off the table till the first quarter of 2014.
Addressing the plenary session of the 11th Asia-Europe Meeting Summit here in the Mongolian capital, Vice President Hamid Ansari said, "all our societies today face unprecedented levels of threat from terrorism in all its manifestations. The most recent example is what has happened, most unfortunately in France."
'The temptation of governments, to have a finger in the RBI pie will be just too great to resist, unless extensive amendments are carried out in the RBI Act treating it almost as the fourth branch of the government.'
With Beijing having had a profound rethink on India's admission as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the tectonic plates of the geopolitics of a massive swathe of the planet stretching from the Asia-Pacific to West Asia are dramatically shifting. That grating noise in the Central Asian steppes will be heard far and wide -- as far as North America, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'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).
Tamal Bandyopadhyay offers some unsolicited advice for a government wh,ich came to power, with brute majority and the nation's pragmatic chief money man.
The virus had broken out in the lead-up to the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang last Friday and led to some 1,200 security staff being quarantined. Organisers had to call in military personnel to replace them.
Rediff.com, present to you a dummy's guide to the historic vote that could shape British-EU ties for generations.
If the chemistry between Modi and Xi Jinping goes well, it will herald a new future not just for the region but for the world, says Tarun Vijay.
How has the Indian State, in principle and practice, given shape to the essential ingredients of the secular principle and composite culture?
What are the most worrisome aspects of climate change for India? Can they be solved?
'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.'
North Korea is unlikely to strike first, but its response in retaliation, if attacked, could be massive even at the expense of its own destruction, says Rajaram Panda.
'If one observes a common man passing a church or gurdwara or dargah, he instinctively bows his head. It is this prevalence of polytheism that has ensured that monotheists and minorities flourish in India. This may sound preposterous in wake of the recent communal clashes in Muzaffarnagar. But it must be understood that in a county of over one billion people that was at worst an aberration,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
