When a Chinese warship entered Japanese waters, the Indian commander called on China to maintain discipline at sea. Dr Rajaram Panda explains the significance of the Malabar exercises between India, Japan and the US.
Minister for External Affairs Salman Khurshid speaks about the importance of the fourth edition of the India-US Strategic Dialogue, which he co-chaired with United States Secretary of State John Kerry in New Delhi
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Friday.
Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Thursday termed Narendra Modi administration's scheme to abolish 500 and 1,000-rupee notes as "a monumental management failure".
In a rare move that might end the chronic impasse between arch-enemies the United States and Iran, President Barack Obama could meet his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Russia and the US began second round of negotiations on securing Syria's chemical arsenal, hoping the high-stakes talks would lead to broader peace efforts, even as Damascus submitted application to UN for joining the chemical weapons convention.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the United States against any unilateral military stike on Syria, saying it would trigger a new wave of terrorism, result in the collapse of the United Nations and claim more innocent victims as the conflict could spread beyond Syria's borders.
'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
The new equation between 'Namo' and 'Barack' may well 'convert a good start into lasting progress.'
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins his historic visit of the United States of America, here's a look at some landmark visits by Indian prime ministers to the United States of America.
Is North Korea really dismantling its nuclear programme? Rajaram Panda explains the many challenges to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif continues his exhortation for US mediation in Kashmir, and harks back to his meeting with former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee when the latter had agreed to a resolution of Kashmir imbroglio; senior us officials assert there is 'absolutely no change in us policy' that Kashmir has to be resolved bilaterally. Aziz Haniffa reports.
The Sony World Photography Awards, an annual competition hosted by the World Photography Organisation, has announced the winners of its Open categories and National categories for 2017. This year's contest attracted 227,596 entries from 183 countries. Scroll down for a sensational selection of open winners and runners-up from the Sony awards.
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.
'It is in the interest of both sides that the visit of the US President is seen as being successful. Both sides have invested considerable political capital in it. This rapid exchange of visits and the decisions taken have to be justified, beyond the symbolism, which is no doubt important in itself. This opportunity to impart a fresh momentum to ties should not be missed,' says former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
'... for two reasons: the poor quality of education, and the low rate of female participation in the labour force.' 'Unless something is done quickly to remedy these problems, India will just have a large population of low-skill, low-wage, males trying and failing to feed their families adequately.'
'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.
India has built two top-secret facilities in Karnataka to enrich uranium in pursuit of its hydrogen bomb dream.
'From the beginning (I have told her) "Whatever it may be -- you are losing or winning -- on the ground you're not going to cry!" She never cried.' '"I don't want you to project that you are a loser. You are a winner".' Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com speaks to Leela Raj about her famous daughter, now in the West Indies for the women's T20 World Cup.
In a major breakthrough, the United Nations Security Council on Saturday voted unanimously on a resolution to destroy Syria's chemicals weapons stockpile and warned of strong action in case of non-compliance by Damascus.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Wednesday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaj Sharif on September 29 in New York will obviously send 'some significant signals' to Islamabad about India's concerns on cross-border terrorism.
For a start this award has a history of having less to do with actual contributions and more to do with some part of a larger agenda. Some pretty dubious people have received this. Many more were patently undeserving, says Mohan Guruswamy.
The following is the full text of US President Donald Trump's first address to a joint session of the Congress on February 28, as prepared for delivery and released by the White House press office.
'The question now is how long the exercise in perfection he created will last once his influence isn't there any longer,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'The ISI has given a stunning display of its capacity to do with impunity what it likes within Kabul. Incensed over the triumphalism of the hardliners in Kabul, the ISI has hit out; it is a typical ISI reflex action that Indians are familiar with,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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.
'We don't have to be the world's policeman. We don't have to impose our values. But we need to lead and when we pull back as we've done, you begin to see exactly what happens -- the voids are filled by threats of terror that countries have to suffer with, including India.'
Nepal made history when it qualified for its maiden major ICC event on Wednesday, progressing to the ICC World Twenty20 Bangladesh 2014 by virtue of a five wickets victory over Hong Kong in the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier UAE 2013 at Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
On her last day as India's envoy to the United States, Ambassador Nirupama Rao was felicitated by the Barck Obama administration at the State Department on Monday, with US Secretary of State John F Kerry thanking her for her service toward furthering the strategic partnership between the two nations.
Narendra Modi speaks to CNN's Fareed Zakaria in his first interview after becoming prime minister. The excerpts
Read the full transcript of President Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday at the US Capitol in Washington.
The climate conference on Saturday came out with an ambitious final draft that will commit USD 100 billion a year from 2020 to help developing countries.
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
The city readies itself for the biggest economic, political and social event of the year
'India is no longer the India of the '70s and the '80s.' 'It's a large country with the fastest growing economy.' 'In working with India, you just can't go and humiliate the nation publicly.' USIBC President Mukesh Aghi tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com about how he advises American companies to do business with India, what he thinks of Modi's government and the way forward for the India-US relationship.
'As in the Panchatantra tale of the cat and the monkeys, it is possible for the clever swing State to play off the two competing powers.'
'Devyani -- she is a public servant and her personal life has already received far too much attention -- and her ambitious father now need to retreat to the background so that wiser diplomatic heads restore sanity to India-US relations as India prepares for parliamentary elections,' says Ambassador K C Singh.
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.
It is easy to foretell that negotiating a comprehensive and final agreement on the Iran nuclear issue is by no means an easy task. It involves hard negotiations, but the hardest step has been taken, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, who was among the first group of foreigners to visit the the top-secret Arak plant hidden behind barren mountains south of Tehran.
'To consider BRICS anything more than a temporary club with some common interests would be folly. The goal should be to induce others (Japan, ASEAN, South Africa) to align with us -- a non-threatening, democratic nation, rather than with malevolent China or waning America. For us to consider aligning with either China or the US would be absurd. India is just too big to be a sidekick,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
