The close assembly election results in Kerala -- where the CPM is the single largest party but won't form the government -- is thanks only to VS's line, which insists that the primary obligation of the party is not merely toward electoral politics but toward the vast segments of dispossessed, marginalised, humiliated, impoverished people, says MK Bhadrakumar
Indian foreign policy is listlessly meandering. At times, it stands still lost in thoughts and then it dashes forward -- and the next thing you know, it begins dashing backward. The pantomime seems to be happening with no greater logic than that it creates the illusion of a flurry of activity -- and our PM feels good and dynamic, says M K Bhadrakumar.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would have his tete-a-tete with Obama in Bali in a surreal setting, says MK Bhadrakumar, and draws comparisons to the US-China encounter in Honolulu
The US is in desperate need to conjure up an ideology-driven relationship with India, to enable it to boost its arms exports to the Indian market, says M K Bhadrakumar.
Richard Holbrooke, who passed away on Monday, was probably inching toward his complete lifetime achievement -- as the architect of peace in Afghanistan and in South Asia, says M K Bhadrakumar.
While the United States is unlikely to launch an attack on Pakistan, the US military build-up on the Pak-Afghanistan border is the opening salvo to unfurl a "containment strategy" toward Pakistan, says M K Bhadrakumar
The "uncommitted" Malayali voter today has hardly any political choice available. Even if he were to choose the Congress-led UDF in the polls on April 13, he would be acutely conscious that five years hence he would have no choice but to revert to the communist-led LDF to run the successor government, writes M K Bhadrakumar
In a clutch of ice-cold words Dr Singh conveyed a great deal outright rejecting any third party mediation and disabusing any Pakistani notions to the effect that India was coming under US pressure over the Kashmir issue.
Ustad Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf, Afghan president Hamid Karzai's first choice as the speaker of the new Afghan parliament, is at once the perfect bridge the latter needs to reach out extensively in the Islamic world and Pakistan, says former diplomat MK Bhadrakumar, possibly the first and last India to have met Sayyaf in his native village
How should one interpret the new bonhomie between the two nations?
M K Bhadrakumar, who is in Kerala covering the election, offers his take on how the importance of politics is receding for the average Malayali.
The Headley case highlights that the Indian government proved incapable of assessing the geopolitical dimensions of the US-led war in Afghanistan, while Pakistan has shrewdly exploited the fallacies in India's foreign policy orientation to navigate itself to an unprecedented geopolitical positioning, writes M K Bhadrakumar.
M K Bhadrakmar, the former diplomat and strategic thinker, reviews the first day of President Obama's visit to India.
M K Bhadrakumar says helping Pakistan with flood relief may help America win some hearts and minds in that country.
In a fashion, his political life may yet be only beginning. Seared by the anguish of the past week's hellish experience, he may henceforth see things and India's political culture in a new, mature perspective. His 'homecoming' may have become complete.
With the agreement over processing of spent nuclear fuel, a major stumbling block for the 'operationalisation' of the Indo-US nuclear deal has been removed
India's options are few. Can it drop its insistence on taking the 26/11 file to its bitter end? No elected government in New Delhi can adopt a policy of 'kiss-and-make-up' on the 26/11 file, given the public mood in the country regarding the horrendous nature of the crime that the ISI perpetrated.
'The overall India-US relationship is entering a mature phase where the two countries can have different perceptions or specific interests with regard to regional or global issues and can still talk about an enduring economic partnership to mutual benefit.'
When China protested strongly over the August decision on J&K -- not once but twice -- we ignored it. And to compound matters, we simply turned our back and walked over to the 'Quad' alliance with the US, upgrading it to ministerial level, and thereafter began following the American footfalls on Taiwan and COVID-19 to taunt and humiliate Beijing, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The Obama administration must show the sagacity to cooperate with Karzai's strategy,' says M K Bhadrakumar.
China's profile as the South Asia's leading interlocutor highlights India's inability to lead its own sub-region. This is the stark message that the Indian establishment needs to cull from the Thimpu SAARC summit.
'Anyone who has known Meera Shankar would vouch that she is a proud Indian who never bats an eyelid in articulating her views and convictions.'
'It is crucial today to realise where we have reached in this 15 year-period in order to fully and properly assess the profundity of what General Rawat has said,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
From this point it really doesn't matter whether Sheila Dixit or Suresh Kalmadi retain their jobs or M S Gill and Jaipal Reddy must also bear equal responsibility. The damage has been done, says M K Bhadrakumar.
Some ministers have a different point of view from the current conventional wisdom in the Congress party and the UPA government.
M K Bhadrakumar on what the US and India should do to stabilise Afghanistan and rein in rogue elements in Pakistan.
'There is nothing necessarily fatal if a soldier develops a passion for politics. An Indian commentator pointed out that, after all, there is the precedent of Dwight Eisenhower. But then, the nagging worry remains whether in the South Asian clime, like the sapling brought in from distant China, Fonseka, a US Green Card holder, may blossom and outgrow the botanical garden that Sri Lankan democracy used to be.'
'There is little or no evidence that the return to representative rule in Pakistan last year means the supremacy of civilian government. The so-called permanent establishment remains in place -- the military, top echelons of bureaucracy and the intelligence agencies. The army continues to be in the driving seat with regard to foreign and defence policy, internal security and nuclear policy.'
Plainly put, this austerity drive is being carried too far and it has become a macabre Dickensian joke. Stop it and let us turn to serious business. Not only are the political class and their handmaidens in our media making much ado about nothing, they are insulting our common intelligence, says M K Bhadrakumar
The known unknowns in Prime Minister Modi's Saudi visit assume great significance, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Like autumn leaves, we are left with a huge, miserable-looking heap of broken dreams. Whoever thought a day would come when we couldn't even agree with the Americans as to who were the Taliban we both have been fighting against all these years?
Indians at large harbour a notion that their country is cherrypicking out of the American basket of goodies, but the policymakers in Delhi and the political leadership are well aware that it can only be a pipe dream since a military alliance with a superpower is a profound irrevocable commitment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Howdy Modi put a dagger into the heart of the 'bipartisan consensus' in the US regarding the relations with (Modi's) India, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The leadership needs to put all other government business aside, control the pandemic and save human lives. Searchlights are going to be held by the world community in the weeks and months ahead as the fatality rates start shooting up and Indians die like flies, warns Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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.
''There is the perennial worry in the Indian mind regarding the US 'hyphenating' India and Pakistan. Frankly, this is a completely nonsensical hypothesis. The US has always 'hyphenated' India and Pakistan and it couldn't have been otherwise,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'What has India got out of Howdy India in substantive terms?' asks Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The readouts by the Indian and Chinese sides on the meeting on Monday between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow bring out that divergences are crowding into the centrestage of their relationship, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Our leadership is holding a vision of steering India through an extremely volatile international environment with so many variables at work.
'Kejriwal has given not only Modi and Shah some food for thought, but also to jaded Opposition leaders who must now wonder whether taking on the BJP's majoritarianism by the horns, as they have been doing so far, is the appropriate strategy in such extraordinary times,' notes M K Bhadrakumar.
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