The game plan is to pressure India and China to come back and commit to further emissions cuts by next year's UN meeting. Neither China nor India has 2030 targets anywhere near in line with a 1.5 degree centigrade pathway, and so will be on the target list of nations under pressure to return next year with more ambition, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
It will not be to India's advantage to create misperceptions that it is bandwagoning with some Anglo-American project for regime change in Myanmar, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Modi forgot to ask Trump for anything that India may need -- and there is so much shortfall all around!', states Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The US has all along interfered in India-China issues. The objective is clear: Bring the Sino-Indian standoff to a flashpoint that would compel Modi government to take shelter under an American umbrella, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The corona deaths in India so far add up to 91,149 (September 24, 3.26 pm). It is seven-and-a-half times the number of Indian soldiers slain in all the wars (1947, 1961-1962, 1965, 1971 and 1999) in post-independent India's history, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'None of these three countries -- Turkey, Iran or Malaysia -- ever made a hostile move against India to support the Pakistan-based terrorist elements,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The US is not going to be able to mount a concerted 'Western strategy' against China or Russia in the present international milieu, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Tragically, compassion is in short supply in our ancient capital city, as the horrific violence in recent weeks testified,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The curtain is coming down on India's leadership role as a regional power even before the drama of the Asian Century truly began,' warns Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
India has fleshed out its approach toward the peace talks with the Taliban taking into account the inputs from John Kerry's visit as well as the consultations in Delhi the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan James Dobbins, says M K Bhadrakumar.
'Modi's finest political legacy ought to be a border settlement with Beijing,' asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Biden's promise of returning to 'normalcy' after Trump appears to mean that the same old politicians, who are responsible for the 'endless wars' in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, are being brought out of the woodwork after four years,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Indian diplomacy faltered amidst multiple failures of statecraft.' 'The functionaries responsible must be held to account for their abject failure,' asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
M K Bhadrakumar analyses the reason why Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is brimming with confidence since his trip to South African capital Durban.
Trump was good for world peace. He didn't start a war anywhere, which is not something that can be said for most of his predecessors, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Washington senses that the anchor sheet of India's strategic autonomy lies in its longstanding partnership with Russia, which remains firm and immutable despite the changes in world politics in the post-Cold War era,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.<
The downhill slide in the India-Pakistan relationship will suit one party eminently -- the Pakistani military, says M K Bhadrakumar
It is premature to make the assumption that Biden's policy toward China will not be a break with Trump, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The profound significance of the events of the past week lies in that the struggle for civilian supremacy has truly begun in Pakistan and its consequences are going to be far-reaching for India-Pakistan relations, says M K Bhadrakumar.
As the US readies to withdraw from the Afghan battlefield, it is moving closer to Pakistan to manage the post-withdrawal scenario. For India, it is a dangerous development fraught with serious security implications. Delhi needs to draw up contingency plans to deal with the situation, says retired Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The Delhi-Washington stalemate can end only if India's concern over trans-border terrorism is addressed.' 'The Indian security establishment expects a spike in terrorist attacks in the months ahead.' 'And there is every likelihood that India may retaliate against Pakistan at some point,' observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
How does India take to the mellowed Dr Kissinger? India's elites may have dropped their earlier allergy toward him, but they are on guard still, feels Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The shift toward a staunchly secular identity will help Congress to rebuild its trust and confidence with the minority communities, especially Muslim voters. Arguably, this is where the Congress' future also lies in national politics, observes M K Bhadrakumar.
It is a fallacy, which many of our pundits are prone to, to exaggerate the potential for confrontation and conflict between the US and China and to conceive fanciful notions of advantage for India in the downstream, says M K Bhadrakumar.
Pakistan's decision to reopen transit routes for Nato convoys holds big implications for the future trajectory of the US-Pakistan relationship and regional security -- and for Pakistan's domestic politics, says MK Bhadrakumar
Evidently, something has gone awry in India's regional strategies. Yet, one feels tempted to call this India's "BRICS moment". The Durban summit will show how far India is prepared to go in a new direction. MK Bhadrakumar examines
A course correction is urgently needed to arrest and reverse the free fall of the Indian-Russian relationship through the past decade, says MK Bhadrakumar
'Indian diplomacy should be allowed a free hand and politicians should step aside. It is difficult to see that happening, but it can happen -- and it should in the spirit of a mature democracy,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
With Modi's international image seriously damaged -- perhaps, irrecoverably -- and Indian foreign policy finding itself in drift, we move on to the New Year in a depressing scenario, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Both Mahinda Rajapaksa and Modi have learnt from their past mistakes. Modi has understood that Rajapaksa is a 'forever politician' that India has to live with, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Modi cannot drag India back into a primitive epoch resembling the religious wars in medieval Europe and at the same time claim to represent the aspirations of modernity among Indians,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'If a 'two-front war' develops, Iron Brother may only turn out to be a drag on the PLA, since Pakistan is in no position to wage a war with India,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'He has a splendid opportunity to capitalise on the CPEC and turn the economy around decisively, putting Pakistan firmly on a higher growth trajectory.' 'Indeed, under the Imran-Bajwa dispensation, there has been a noticeable whittling down of support to militant groups,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Who put the fear of god into Imran Khan and how it happened we do not know, but the great cricketer panicked and called Mahathir to regret that he cannot attend the KL Summit,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
It is apparent that an easing of tensions at the border and a disengagement of troops is on the cards, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Gotabaya will expect India to observe the red line.' 'He even dispensed with any gesture welcoming India as an interlocutor on the Tamil issue.' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The heart of the matter is that India is not Israel.'
Former diplomat and columnist M K Bhadrakumar appeared on the Rediff Chat to take questions on how India should steer the ship of foreign policy between two giants -- the United States and China.
An opinion is steadily gaining ground in Muslim countries in India's 'extended neighbourhood' that the Modi government is adopting State policies that are decidedly 'anti-Muslim', warns Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Like everyone else addicted to Kremlin politics, I too have a thesis.' 'Foreign policy is known to be Putin's forte -- and Russia's stability his obsession.' 'As we enter the 2020s, it is clear that an extraordinary turbulent decade lies ahead in world politics and it casts dark shadows on Russia's future,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
