If New Delhi finds itself out in the cold in Afghanistan, both the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA have only themselves to blame. Each has been in power for a full decade from 2001, without reaching out to the Taliban, points out Ajai Shukla.
Stalin, like his father M Karunanidhi did in 2004, may play the king-maker in a way -- not the king, unless the 2024 post-poll circumstances throws up a situation where he alone becomes acceptable to the rest, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Not allowing people to speak or listen is the biggest act of anti-nationalism,' says Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, one of India's finest poets.
Images that capture what it was like living through 2021.
India is actively involved in reducing carbon emissions.
A sensational interview on India-China ties, with the man most qualified to answer.
Since 2004 the Congress has hung onto power in a situation in which it was on track to be out of power. In each case, it effectively gamed the system through Constitutional coups, argues columnist Rajeev Srinivasan.
The Prime Minister's Office tweeted a picture of their meeting but shared no details about their talks.
Singh said this is a moment where we must stand together as a nation and be united in our response to this brazen threat.
"We want Mahatma Gandhi's India, return of our identity and honour which was given to us by the Indian Constitution and I am sure they have to return it with interest as well," PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti said.
Two US lawmakers write to the House Speaker asking to extend an invitation
'Modi's finest political legacy ought to be a border settlement with Beijing,' asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the 'person through which' prior information on India's air strikes in Balakot in Pakistan in 2019 was made available to Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami.
Addressing the Congress Working Committee, the president of the party said, ""Misfortunes do not come singly. India has been hit by a terrible economic crisis, a pandemic of huge proportions and, now, by a full-blown crisis on the borders with China. Much of each crisis is attributable to the mismanagement of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government and the wrong policies pursued by it."
The Modi leadership could lose Election 2024 if a communal flare-up becomes cause for all-round catastrophe, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
Top Pentagon officials have shown an understanding of India abstaining at the UN on resolutions against the Russian aggression against Ukraine but had a hard time pacifying many US lawmakers during a Congressional hearing on the Indo-Pacific on New Delhi's repeated abstention at the world body in New York.
'If you take pride only in being a nation with nuclear weapons and a strong military, then you think very differently from those nations that take pride in having wonderful universities and academic institutions.'
China has long coveted Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls Southern Tibet. But, as Venkataraghavan Subha Srinivasan explains, in 1947, the present state of Arunachal Pradesh constituted the North East Frontier Tract of Assam. When India adopted its Constitution on 26 January 1950, NEFT became 'a separate politico-administrative entity' although it was constitutionally still a part of Assam. Its administration was brought directly under the President of India with the Governor of Assam acting as his agent. A revealing excerpt from his book The Origin Story of India's States.
Two powerful US Senators have urged President Joe Biden not to impose provisions of the punitive Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act against India for buying the S-400 surface-to-air missile system from Russia.
The United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and NATO have expressed concern on the new law and warned of retaliatory measures.
It has been argued that India should have held back on disengagement from the Kailash Range, using that as a trump card to force Chinese concessions in areas such as Depsang, where they hold the advantage.
"If I was the foreign minister, I would have had contact with them. I would have gone out of my way and told my intelligence agency to make a contact quietly," former external affairs minister Natwar Singh said.
The Modi government has been put on notice.'Will it buckle under such pressure? These are times when the moral fibre of the leadership makes all the difference, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Centre decided to drop one of Mahatma Gandhi's favourite hymns Abide with me from this year's Beating Retreat ceremony as playing more Indian tunes would be appropriate in view of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, which celebrates the 75th year of India's Independence, government sources said on Sunday.
India, China and other countries that have been cutting their oil imports from Iran have reached a point where it is "very very difficult" to reduce any further without seriously impacting their economies, US Secretary of State John Kerry has told lawmakers.
Arvind Subramanian talks about US and China's power play and where India figures in these dynamics.
The Taliban's main challenge comes on the financial and economic front and there Pakistan doesn't have the capacity to be of any meaningful help, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The elephant in the room will permeate the conversations, predicts Rup Narayan Das.
JD-U sources conceded that the BJP's "Bihari martyrdom" line will give the coalition an edge or "at least help us combat anti-incumbency if the Opposition makes an issue of Nitish's governance".
India will either have to create a system in which certain geographical areas will wind up being permanent political outsiders at the Union level or it will have to create a system in which certain votes are weighted more heavily than others, observes Mihir S Sharma.
'He is not that crazy.' 'He is driven by a deep sense of Russian power have been diminished.'
India needs to be alert on how the Doklam standoff plays into the factional infighting in China's Communist Party, says Ambassador Shyam Saran, the former foreign secretary.
'Behind the BJP's anti-Congress crusade is an attempt to divert attention from the Ladakh standoff,' explains Amulya Ganguli.
'You have a chance to use this massive mandate to push through life changing reforms, transform India into a superpower because our nation's biggest strength are its people, and we the people are the most hardworking industrious and entrepreneurial the world has ever seen.' 'Arm us with a society which lives without fear, a governance where business can be conducted smoothly without greasing palms, instill in this great nation a sense of pride once again. Let this nation be bigger than you and the party.' Suparn Verma's impassioned appeal to Narendra Modi.
The Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal MPs, including his daughter Misa Bharti and Manoj Jha, also staged a protest at Mahatma Gandhi's statue inside the Parliament complex and contended that despite being the chief opposition party in Bihar and the single largest party in the Assembly, it was not invited.
'Mithun has showed Hindi cinema that a tall, dark man with a charming smile and a great physique can take the world on.'
The battle against militants fighting for separation of China's volatile Xinjiang province, bordering PoK and Afghanistan, is getting "tougher, fiercer and crueler than ever" due to the revival of pan-Islamic extremist groups, top Chinese leaders from the province said.
The telephonic talk between Modi and Xi came a day after Modi congratulated Xi on Chinese social media.
'War cannot resolve problems. So wisdom is to resolve diplomatically.'
Xi ordered country's 2.3 million-strong military to be absolutely loyal to the party, to focus on how to win in wars, to pioneer reforms and innovation, to scientifically manage commanding a unit, to lead troops in accordance with the strictest standards and to take the forefront in complying with laws and regulations.
