Xi Jinping's recent actions in South Asia have amply demonstrated the disastrous impact of China's embrace, observes Jayadeva Ranade, the retired senior RA&W officer and China expert.
Asserting that it has been a strong champion of equity, India on Thursday said developed countries should compensate developing nations for the effects their greenhouse gas emissions have had on climate.
Military sources said the research ship Shi Yan 1 forayed into Indian waters in September but was forced to retreat after it was suspected to be involved in spying.
In his opening remarks at the talks, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh asserted that India is confident of overcoming the challenges with a strong political will and an inherent capability of its people.
Though dubbed as the "war hero", the role of Rajapaksa in ending the conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam with the death of its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2009 is quite divisive as he stands accused of violating human rights, a charge he vehemently denies.
The meeting is taking place under the shadow of a fierce border row between India and China, both members of the influential bloc.
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Rediff.com shows you how people across the world cope with the unremitting July heat wave.
The warmest six years have all been since 2015, with 2016, 2019 and 2020 being the top three. The differences in average global temperatures among the three warmest years are indistinguishably small. The average global temperature in 2020 was about 14.9C, 1.2 ( 0.1) C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) level.
'When resources are few; when frugality demands repairing a broken thing rather than replacing it with a brand new and expensive option, enterprising commoners in rural and urban India improvise on a daily basis and solve their problems with whatever they have,' observes Shivanand Kanavi.
The record temperatures in May were accompanied by other extreme events, including very heavy precipitation in parts of Europe and the southern US, and widespread and severe coral reef bleaching.
'A fragile Sri Lanka will have a serious impact on the security of India.'
The story of Iceland is the story of life, notes Payal Singh Mohanka after a recent journey to that fascinating land.
Any form of entanglement with India or the US on the strategic plane will be anathema to Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa rulers, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The discovery of the plane wreckage that washed up on Reunion Island, believed to be from the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, may be consistent with a possible crash site in the South-East Indian Ocean, researchers say.
'People should realise that what we are fighting for today is actually for tomorrow, for future generations.'
India's negotiating posture at the multilateral negotiations should be aligned with a significantly transformed development strategy domestically.' 'The positions the country takes at the negotiations will then carry credibility, says Shyam Saran, former foreign secretary and India's chief negotiator on Climate Change 2007-2010.
Akshat Bansal's gender neutral collection repurposed marine plastic waste into fluid designs.
Savarkar believed Swarajya is more than the mere geographical independence of a stretch of earth called India. There was no point in fighting and sacrificing one's life for a Swarajya (mere territorial independence) at the cost of our Svatva (self-existence) or Hindutva itself! A revealing excerpt from Uday Mahurkar and Chirayu Pandit's Veer Savarkar: The Man Who Could Have Prevented Partition.
MH-60 Romeo Seahawks would add lethal capabilities of the Indian Navy, which experts say is the need of the hour given the aggressive behaviour of China in the Indian Ocean region.
'Modi's first foreign trip at the very outset of his second term as PM reinforces a growing impression that this regional tour underscores a shift in emphasis in India's foreign policy that was traditionally focused on the northern tier of countries to the Indian Ocean rim,' explains Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Chushul and Depsang are not vital in this game of Chinese checkers, the Indian Ocean Region is. Keeping our maritime prowess restricted has to be a key Chinese strategic interest and it would appear that the LAC affair has helped China achieve its aim, points out Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
The World Nature Photography Awards announced the winners of their 2020 competition, showcasing an array of talented photographers from around the world. The grand prize winner award went to Thomas Vijayan for his image of the endangered Bornean orangutan. Vijayan spent hours up a tree, waiting to see if one of the local orangutans would use it to cross over to a nearby island. Take a look at some of the jaw-dropping images.
In a boost for the country's surveillance capabilities to monitor activities of both military warships and merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), the 'Sindhu Netra' satellite developed by a team of young scientists from Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was successfully deployed in space on Sunday.
16-year-old Gaurvi Singhvi, who hails from Udaipur, crossed the English Channel in 13 hours and 26 minutes.
The P V Narasimha Rao government in the 1990s had been on the verge of bringing to India the ashes, believed to be the mortal remains of Subhas Chandra Bose now kept at the Renkoji Temple in Japan, but was dissuaded from doing so due to an intelligence report.
The next edition of the high-voltage Malabar naval exercise begins from August 26 to 29 off the coast of Guam amid mounting global concerns over China's growing military muscle-flexing in the Indo-Pacific region.
He said India would continue to actively pursue and promote its geo-political, strategic and economic interests on the seas, in particular the Indian Ocean.
The prime minister also pitched for respecting freedom of navigation against the backdrop of South China sea dispute.
'In our societal interest, all those measures, laws etc that are creating turmoil and turbulence should be immediately withdrawn, the government and all political leaders should win the trust of ordinary people and establish social harmony and peace that is so essential to progress and prosperity,' says the well-known Kannada poet Chennaveera Kanavi.
Anybody who's plugged in to the modern, globalised world will understand why, says Kanika Datta.
From Covid to climate change, Shankar Acharya's look at some of the trends and events that might shape 2022.
In a record time of 13 years, the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier Vikrant is now ready for formal induction into the Indian Navy.
"The Congress ideology...the ideology it follows has been existing in India for thousands of years. Just like the RSS has its icons, the Congress has its own icons... they are different icons. But, we have them, it is about bringing this ideological ocean and allowing our people to swim in it," he said.
The first phase of the Malabar exercises is due to begin in the Bay of Bengal off Visakhapatnam coast on Tuesday and end on November 6. The second phase of the mega exercise is scheduled to be held from November 17 to 20 in the Arabian sea.
'Tagore repeatedly denounced the "My country, right or wrong" attitude.' 'We often use the phrase "unity in diversity" like a cliche and often make diversity secondary, giving precedence to unity.' 'You do not have to shout from the rooftops that we are very tolerant.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Rajapaksa and said he looks forward to further deepen relations between the two nations.
A dramatic video footage of the tsunami hitting Palu shows the high waves sweeping away several buildings and then the large tilted mosque in the town, about 80km from the quake's epicentre.
China plans to send as many as eight satellites into space before 2020 to provide ocean and land data and supervise the marine environment, a senior official has said. The new satellites will greatly improve China's ability to observe and supervise the marine environment.
"Most worrisome are China's technological advances in the spheres of cyber and space domain, which often transcend beyond the military, to include critical national infrastructure as well," General Bipin Rawat said at the three-day Indian Air Force Conclave.
