Slated to be in India on December 8, Carter would travel to Japan, Bahrain, Israel, Italy and Great Britain before returning to the US on December 16. This is for the first time that an outgoing American Defence Secretary has included India in his itinerary for the final overseas trip.
'Will Pakistan allow R&AW and Indian armed force officers access to roam around their strategic bases?' 'Is there any precedent anywhere in the world of such permissions being granted?'
Stepping up its offensive, Israeli military killed 26 Palestinians, including eight members of a family, in overnight raids on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, taking the death toll to more than 300 in the 12-day long conflict that has displaced thousands.
'The response to savagery and mass injustice is never a persistent howl.' 'There will be, among the victims, those who choose to forget the scars, those who go on living, those who challenge the overall environment of sentimentality.' 'And the more effort you put into including these other voices, into assimilating these spoilsports, the more balanced your depiction of the tragedy in question will be,' observes Sreehari Nair.
In a break from protocol, Netanyahu received Modi at the Ben-Gurion International Airport.
The onus today is on China, but it also requires a little diplomatic finesse from India, backed by a modernised armed force, argues BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in this excerpt from his new book, Himalayan Challenge: India, China And The Quest For Peace.
However, the probe agencies stressed that all angles were being covered in the probe.
The United States and the United Kingdom on Thursday appeared to have backed down from an immediate punitive military strike against Syria, even as embattled President Bashar al-Assad vowed that his country would emerge "victorious" in any confrontation with America and its allies.
Aseem Chhabra lists his favourite films from the recent Toronto International Film Festival.
Although most of Kosovo is ethnically Albanian, many Serbs consider it their native homeland and a cradle of their culture. Some 13,000 people were killed in the 1998-1999 war, sparked by clashes between the forces of the rump Yugoslav state -- Serbia and Montenegro -- and Kosovo separatists. The conflict ended when NATO carried out an air campaign against Serbia.
TMC and other opposition party members rushed into the well of the House as Vaishnaw was called to make a statement over the issue.
Even while rejecting Israel Military Industries' petition, the court has effectively granted foreign vendors the constitutional right to be treated equally with Indian companies.
A weaker Russia, a sobered China at a time when Xi Jinping is manoeuvring to protect his third term prospects, a reunited West, a chaotic Pakistan. This is a perfect set of strategic circumstances. It is for India now to consummate this historic opportunity, argues Shekhar Gupta.
'The bigger challenge and dilemma for Pakistan would be if the US and Saudi Arabia go full throttle against Iran and enforce regime change in Tehran.' 'That would be bad news for Pakistan, especially with the current instability in Balochistan,' notes Brigadier Narender Kumar (retd).
Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip on Friday killed six persons, including a pregnant woman and two children, taking the Palestinian toll to 815, as the 18-day conflict threatens to spread to the West Bank after deaths of two youths in anti-Israel protests in north of Jerusalem.
Rediff.com present a comprehensive listing of the nuclear nations and their collective and active stockpile.
'Assuming the official defence allocations represent the true picture, the $142 billion figure still represents a phenomenal increase and surpasses that of Japan ($42 billion), India ($40 billion), South Korea ($33 billion) and several other Asian countries put together and shows that China is flexing its military muscle.'
The UK's health authorities have confirmed that a new and "most significant" variant of COVID-19 is officially under investigation in the country as the government on Friday added six countries to its travel ban red list from southern Africa, where B.1.1.529 strain was first identified.
'But India, increasingly, is not that far behind, which is a story I never expected to tell.'
The aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, formerly the Admiral Gorshkov, expected to join the Indian Navy later this year, is already late by five years and its price has risen three-fold, from $947 million (about Rs 5,735 crore) in 2004 to $2.3 billion (Rs 13,928.8 crore) today.
In a powerful signal to New Delhi that the United States is a reliable defense partner, Senators Mark Warner and John Cornyn introduced US-India Defense Technology and Partnership Act in Senate
'There has to be strikes on the ISI headquarters to raze it to the ground figuratively and otherwise,' says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
Massive Israeli shelling killed at least 50 people in the Hamas-ruled Gaza following the collapse of a 72-hour ceasefire shortly after it began on Friday, while two of its soldiers were killed and another was abducted by Palestinian militant groups.
'Another rejection of mediation between India and Pakistan will leave Mr Trump disappointed.' 'In that case, he is likely to point out the war-like situation on the border and press for direct talks which have been stalled on account of continuing terrorism from Pakistan,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Arpi deserves to be complimented for the commitment and hard work that have gone into this production. The frustrations of seeking reliable documentation from the catacombs of the Indian bureaucracy did not deter him from going after the best information available, and the result is one that he can take much satisfaction in. Ambassador Prabhat P Shukla, Member Advisory Council, Vivekananda International Foundation, reviews Claude Arpi's The End of an Era: India Exits Tibet.
A round-up of Wednesday's action in the UEFA Champions League.
The Long Range Surface to Air Missile jointly being developed by India and Israel is an answer to potential threats from Pakistan's anti-ship missile.
Here's a look at the events that shaped the world last week.
A grenade-dropping drone, 3D fly-on-the-wall radar to see through a 20-m-thick wall and a 'dogo robot' armed with remote pistol are some of the latest weaponry provided to the National Security Guard to undertake lethal counter-terror operations with a punch of stealth.
In bilateral interfaces relations with China have also to be given due weight, opines Premvir Das
Tarun Vijay, MP, salutes the General whom he adored as a great friend.
'Imran Khan would only have spoken with the full awareness of Modi's complex political personality.' 'He has the great advantage of being privy to the confidential exchanges between then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Modi during the latter's celebrated surprise visit to Lahore in December 2015 as well as the 'back channel' conversations between the national security advisors of the two countries,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The defence ministry on Friday scrapped a scam-tainted tender worth over Rs 6,000 crore to procure 197 light helicopters from foreign vendors and decided to allow indigenous players to manufacture these choppers for the armed forces.
Opposition parties on Monday staged a walkout in the Rajya Sabha after their demand for a resolution on Gaza was not accepted.
The population in Gaza has, for almost a decade, been facing Israel-created 'blockage' from the rest of the world. The isolation has given rise to tunnel phenomenon, an underground route for the procurement of essentials, says Ajey Lele
Extensive search operations are underway near Pandher village in Gurdaspur district of Punjab for the third day on Friday after locals claimed that two men in army fatigues were moving in a suspicious manner.
In the Middle East, which is already coping with the Qatar-Saudi Arabia tensions, comes another pressure point.
Two US warships fired at least 50 cruise missiles at the Ash Shai'rat airfield in Homs province in western Syria, from where the US administration believes Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad fired the chemical weapons against his own people, media reports said.
'One lesson to emerge out of the Modi-Putin summit is that India can be more self-confident that it possesses inherent strengths to leverage its interlocutors to influence Pakistani policies,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.