Israel's dogged refusal to permit entry of computer communication equipment, which was to have been gifted to a Palestinian university by President Pranab Mukherjee, has introduced an irritant into his landmark visit to the Jeweish state starting on Tuesday.
The Saudi-Pakistan nuclear weapons cooperation is meant to sound alarm bells in Washington, reminding the Obama administration that its overtures to Iran would have serious negative consequences in terms of its ties with its closest allies in the region, says Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad. Exclusive to Rediff.com
Argentina will play at Jerusalem's Teddy Kollek Stadium on Saturday night in a World Cup warm-up match that has attracted huge interest among the Israeli fans, mainly because of Messi's planned participation. But the Palestinians are not happy that the match will be held in Jerusalem and Palestinian FA chief Jibril Rajoub wrote to Claudio Tapia, the head of the Argentinian FA, last week accusing Israel of using the match as a "political tool".
A new version of jihad is attracting "small but steady stream" of Indians to join Islamic State movement in Syria, Former National Security Advisor M K Narayanan has warned.
India needs to consider whether the Donald Trump administration can actually deliver, observes former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
'The Pakistani military has encouraged and supported terrorist organisations, especially in Kashmir, as a means of waging proxy war against the Indian military and the country's superior economic resources.' 'The evidence is irrefutable with the recent killing of 46 paramilitary troops being just the latest example.'
"No leader or policymaker involved will claim to have gotten everything right in the region, Iraq especially," he said.
Asserting that there are terror groups that are instruments of state's policy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said terrorism uses diverse motivations cannot be justified.
Where paneer came to India from... How sambar got its name... Gulab jamun does not have Indian roots...
'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).
At an online book release event, former vice president Hamid Ansari lays to rest the controversies surrounding his tenure.
Ahead of Modi's two-day visit, the capital city Dhaka is having a festive look with streets adorned with life-size cutouts of Modi.
'In India foreign policy is generally handled by the prime minister.' 'One can clearly see the Vajpayee stamp on all this.' 'Only a person with poetic imagination can weave such a complex web,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The travesty of recent Indian strategic thought is it emerges not from our brains, but from whatever part of the anatomy that secretes the prickliest hormones,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Indians must remember that Pakistanis hate losing to India, at war or in cricket, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
'For a long time Pakistan dreamt that India would break up and that it would be the predominant power in the region,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
"Modi's great victory was very much based on these Reaganesque principles, so I think this is a global revolt, and we are very fortunate and proud to be the news site that is reporting that throughout the world," he said, according to the transcripts of his Skype address released by Buzzfeed.
'While India's 'secularism' is a matter of cultural values rooted in Hinduism, the Western concept became one of rights rooted in legal rights. India would be secular with or without Article 25 of the Constitution,' says T V R Shenoy.
Because of India's weak fiscal position, the plethora of debt-burdened infrastructure companies and the poor asset quality of public sector banks, economic growth in 2015-16 may be limited to about six per cent, say Shankar Acharya.
The US intends to break up India's strategic partnership with Russia and to continue to interfere in Indian-Iranian relations, apart from inserting itself into the Sino-Indian bilateral discourse, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, analysing the US defence secretary's visit to India.
The developments in Af-Pak region, particularly the fall out of Pak political paralysis, would make President Xi Jinping's task a little more complicated, says Colonel R Hariharan.
'It is time we Indians stop our internal bickering and present a united front to Chinese machinations,' advises Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
One has to wonder what is so wrong with the European Union.
Protectionism and a rollback of regulation. Defusion of tensions with Russia and a lowering of geo-political risks. Looser fiscal policy and tighter monetary policy. At least Donald Trump can't be faulted for not trying something different where existing policies have disappointed, says T T Ram Mohan.
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.
The vice-president will be the second Indian to be accorded the honour at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Nikhil Lakshman reports.
The two countries also decided to expand trade and commercial ties holding that there are opportunities to exploit untapped economic potential in the two countries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have secured a rare concession from Pakistan that 'terrorism' and not the issue of Kashmir be the central theme of the India-Pakistan dialogue.
A day after media reports stated that 39 Indians in Iraq had been killed by terrorists belonging to the Islamic State, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in Rajya Sabha said that there was no evidence to corroborate the same.
In a significant development in the war against militant group Islamic State, Iraqi forces have retaken control of Ramadi from the Islamic State with the United States also hailing their victory.
This new Silk Road has the potential to once again have a lasting impact on the commerce and culture of this region for generations to come
Hours ahead of his dinner with President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cautioned the United States against hasty withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, citing the mistakes it has committed while pulling out from Iraq.
Tripura's popular chief minister shows up the failures of the elitist central leadership of India's Left, says Devesh Kapur
Rediff.com's Indrani Dey digs up chilling details of the ongoing investigation in the Bardhaman blast case, which exposed the a militant network that had been operating in West Bengal since many years.
Substantial gains can still be made with good policies and initiatives.
'The reason why Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have attended the President's iftar was not merely to break a fast with the faithful, but more importantly to broker an understanding with India's second largest set of citizens,' says Shehzad Poonawalla.
'Will the new government, largely of the BJP, whose manifesto proclaimed "India shall remain a natural home for persecuted Hindus and they shall be welcome to seek refuge here" and whose patrons never tire of the glories of our civilisation in antiquity, stand up for these long-lost cousins, the Yazidis in Iraq?'
If Aylan Kurdi was a Bangladeshi boy on the border with Assam or West Bengal, would you call him an infiltrator, asks Mango Indian.
While it took the Congress nearly a half century to earn the hatred of other political outfits, the BJP appears set to reach there in around six years, says Arun Bhatnagar, former secretary to the GoI.
'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.
