'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).
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.
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.
'Modi has visited all these three countries (the UAE more than once, inexplicably) but has left out Kuwait and Oman, the two Gulf countries that are closest to India in their political, cultural and civilisational ethos,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
IMAGES from the 2020 Euro Qualifiers played on Monday
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.
'Wasn't it the PM's duty to reach out to the daily wagers of whom he claims to have been a part?' asks Jyoti Punwani.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who held extensive talks with Egyptian leadership on Monday, proposed to step up exchange of information and coordination to combat terrorism, both at the regional as well as global level
We get tangled up in our own crooked web on purchases, and the murky arms bazaar knows it, says Shekhar Gupta.
The contracts with Israel Aerospace Industries will condemn the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft to a marginal presence in the IAF's future fleet.
'IAF is expanding at a rapid pace'
'Is Ansari flagging a genuine concern? Is a rectification called for?' 'And finally: Do minorities matter?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
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.
Sam Manekshaw led the Indian Army to its greatest military victory this month 46 years ago. Lieutenant Colonel A K Shinde (retd), the field marshal's doctor for 35 years, tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih about the charming man behind the soldier's uniform.
In bilateral interfaces relations with China have also to be given due weight, opines Premvir Das
Sadly, governments and their agencies can't be trusted to use private data, or decryption methods responsibly, says Devangshu Dutta.
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 summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
From the political maelstrom in Washington to the humanitarian disaster in Yemen to the deadly unrest along the Israel-Gaza border, photographers captured a world in turbulent transition.
Marcus Rashford's penalty and a deflected strike from Mason Mount helped England come from a goal down to overcome top-ranked Belgium 2-1 at Wembley on Sunday and climb above them in their UEFA Nations League group.
A round-up of Saturday's qualifying matches for the Euro 2020 Finals.
Negotiations are underway to have a "more practical and effective" mechanism to prevent face-offs between Indian and Chinese troops on the Line of Actual Control and efforts are being made to have confidence building measures, Defence Minister A K Antony said on Monday.
'Clearly, from the Indian viewpoint, the US retrenchment from Asia cannot be happening as good news.' 'The abandonment of the US' pivot to Asia exposes the US-Indian partnership to be a mere transactional relationship,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
IMAGES from the Euro 2020 qualifiers played on Thursday
The defence ministry is finalising a decision to allow the FGM-148 Javelin missile, built by US companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, into a contest to supply the Indian Army with anti-tank guided missiles. This is bad news for Israelis
The Middle East's power house is about to get a new ruler who is only 31 and he may lead Saudi Arabia for decades, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'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).
A summary of Saturday night's matches in the Euro 2020 qualifiers.
Sergio Ramos equalled Iker Casillas's record of 167 appearances for Spain on an emotional night at Sporting Gijon's El Molinon stadium, which paid tribute to the late Spain and Sporting forward Quini before kickoff.
As the pandemic unfolded, the India-China relationship has come under severe stress. To restore normalcy, agreements between the two countries must be respected scrupulously in their entirety. Where the Line of Actual Control is concerned, any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo is unacceptable, declares External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
How will the Modi Sarkar's likely return affect other nations?
Do Modi's foreign visits actually serve India or they nothing more than expensive tools for domestic positioning and image-building, asks Shehzad Poonawalla.
'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.
'The Modi regime, after experimenting with its own versions of neighbourhood policy for 18 months, has now reached the exact stage where the Manmohan Singh government had left it in so far as our Pakistan policy is concerned,' says former senior RA&W officer Vappala Balachandran.
'The incidents have remained confined to the paramilitary forces on both sides with both the armies scrupulously avoiding getting involved. While this incident has been going on, the LOC has been reasonably quiet. Cross border firing achieves no tactical or strategic aims and is more a symptom of hostility. Unfortunately, India has to learn to live with this. Like Israel, we must construct shelters for the border populations and be ready to retaliate in kind,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
President Obama had no intention of risking a global conflagration on account of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, especially at a time when he was struggling to wind up the wars his predecessor had started, says T P Sreenivasan
Much of the pre-2014 peace in our hotspots is diminished. Kashmir is on the boil and the Northeast is anarchic, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Images from the 2018 World Cup qualifiers played in Europe on Monday
'If Indian armed forces entered Pakistan and succeeded in inflicting major damage on the Pakistani army and occupied territory in the Pakistani heartland, there is reason to think the Pakistani military would use some nuclear weapons against the incoming Indian forces to compel India to stop.'
The policy proposes a contingency plan to handle cyber attacks on vital installations and critical infrastructure.
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