'What would we feel if we found the world behaving the way it has?' 'Forced to fight our own prolonged battle; nobody from outside really demanding that the war end or actively working to make it end, and above all, a completely toothless United Nations reduced to pleading for a halt to the violence,' notes Shyam G Menon, exactly a month after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
'Breaking down silos and ensuring a more integrated governance process is just as important to performance.' 'It has been a major priority in the last six years, especially in national security,' External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar points out when delivering the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture-2020: India and the Post-Covid World.
'It is a testing time for our foreign policy which may involve a certain element of taking risks, assessing costs, and expecting failures,' asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
'The Akali government is not responsible for the Punjab power crisis as Mr Sidhu is saying.'
'Under National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval and now Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, India began to actively work on Pakistani internal faultlines with a possibility of the break-up of Pakistan as the only solution,' observes Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Nitish Kumar has to eschew disastrous experiments with prohibition and reservations in the private sector. Unless he is dissuaded from pursuing these flawed measures, he will pave the way for Bihar to again become a part of the BIMARU group of sick states, says Amulya Ganguli.
The Modi government's defeat on farm laws underlines the perils of governing an entire continent-sized, diverse and federal nation like the chief minister of a state, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Rather than talking endlessly about lost and marginal opportunities, India's climate envoys need to start thinking bigger, says Mihir S Sharma.
'With just 2.4 per cent of global landmass, India houses six to eight per cent of planetary biodiversity and hence is a prime target of wildlife criminals.'
'The hardliners in Delhi are in for a big disappointment,' predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'It may take two years for the economy to return to normal.' 'We should ensure that the vulnerable do not dig into their savings or give up their assets because that will set them back by several years.'
The billions India invested in dams, schools, etc in Afghanistan will be gone. The Hindu and Sikh population of Afghanistan has already shrunk from some 200,000 to about 500, points out Rajeev Srinivasan.
What we have in the Congress is a useful glue to hold a non-cultural, unified Opposition together. That is the sacrifice the Congress must be willing to live with if showing the BJP the door is what the collective Opposition wants, observes Shyam G Menon.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
The National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs on Monday issued a four-page policy paper linked to Kashmir.
'There cannot be any compromise on that. After all, all instrumentalities of the State have been made to serve it. Why was the Constitution made? It was made to serve the cause of India.'
Silverline seems symptomatic of how Kerala -- its claimed education, awareness and all -- overlooks its real problems, notes Shyam G Menon.
The displacements were a result of a combination of increasing hazard intensity, high population exposure and high levels of social and economic vulnerability, a report says.
Prime Minister Modi has certainly pulled back, and his political capital -- dependent as it is on an image that he knows best and never retreats -- may have taken a bit of a beating. But, equally, it is hard to say that the protesters have 'won', argues Mihir S Sharma.
Schumer and Menendez said the months-long demonstrations have been met with orders from the central government and local authorities to shut off internet access in protest areas, cut off water and electricity supplies for the tens of thousands living in protest camps, and impede the work of journalists reporting on the protests.
'I can assure you the Ganga will be more polluted in 2030 than it is now.' 'What they are trying to do now is clean the Ganga without understanding how to do so.'
Vietnam, which is involved in a territorial dispute with China, is keen to get it hands on the supersonic missiles that can be fired on land, water and under water.
'We need to be in a perpetual state of aggression, and able to swiftly change the goal posts to keep Pakistan in a state of imbalance,' argues Sanjeev Nayyar.
Rajiv Kumar will continue as vice-chairman of the body, along with other full-time members V K Saraswat, Ramesh Chand and V K Paul.
The Tamil Nadu assembly on Tuesday once again adopted the anti-NEET Bill, returned days ago to the government by Governor RN Ravi, with the ruling Dravida Munentra Kazhagam and principal opposition All India Anna DK reaffirming their opposition to the test.
While those who attended 'Livelihoods in Lockdown' learnt a lot, was anyone from the government listening?
'The Gujarat model was never an economic model; it was essentially a governance model.'
'Mr Modi identified what would help him win votes and got it done, like 24x7 power in three phases, better roads, more water, etc.'
'Good economic governance at state level is quite different from good governance at national level,' points out T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
The Southern Naval command on Wednesday called off its 14-day long rescue operations in flood-hit Kerala, saying there were no more requests for evacuation as waters receding in affected areas.
'China has gone too long as a rogue power, trashing international norms, agreements, and treaties as if they were not the paper they were written on.' 'The ill-advised attack on Ladakh may be the beginning of the end of that nonsense,' advocates Rajeev Srinivasan.
The move will establish a level-playing field for domestic investments in start-ups compared to foreign-based sources.
The Pakistan Navy claimed in Islamabad that it used specialised skills to ward off the Indian submarine from entering Pakistani waters.
When Nitin Gadkari was president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the party had announced it would set up a separate ministry for handlooms and handicraft. Instead of doing that, the BJP government has abolished the only institution that took into account the voice of the weavers.
China's parliament on Thursday adopted the 14th Five-Year Plan, the mega blueprint containing billions of dollars worth of projects, including the controversial hydropower project on the Brahmaputra river in Tibet close to the Arunachal Pradesh border over which India has raised concerns.
'The Chinese are only about 160-170 km behind.' 'It will not take much time for them to bring their troops back, considering that they have better infrastructure -- and the weather is now favourable.' 'They can move in much faster as the terrain favours them.'
'Whoever owns the best chip industry will be the Saudi Arabia of the era of data,' predicts Rajeev Srinivasan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the government has no business to be in business and his administration is committed to privatising all PSUs barring the bare minimum in four strategic sectors. "It is government's duty to support enterprises and businesses. But it is not essential that it should own and run enterprises," he said. Modi also said the Centre's policy is to either monetise or modernise public sector enterprises, with the intent that the government has "no business to be in business".
Stalin's personal intervention in the Adheenam row may have contained the avoidable political damage and social tensions at least for now, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sources said the Telangana chief minister was busy with preparations for the launch of his ambitious Rs 80,000 crore Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project that would end water woes in the state, while in a letter to Modi, the West Bengal chief minister had expressed her inability to attend the Niti Aayog meeting on June 15, saying it is "fruitless" as the body has no financial powers to support state plans.
At a time when China is trying to make its foray into South Asia, India should use its shared history to strengthen its ties in the region, says Dr Rup Narayan Das.
To believe that the key job of his senior ministers is to ensure that his image be kept intact whatever be the outcome of his policies is to expect too much even of someone as ambitious as Narendra Modi, asserts Rashme Sehgal.
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