With an intent of deepening the bilateral strategic partnership, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has arrived in Washington for a Summit meeting with President Barack Obama, saying that India needs US on its side at a time when added thrust is being given to developmental programmes back home.
In spite of irritants and hiccups in the relationship, a few deliverables are expected of the prime minister's visit to China, says Rup Narayan Das.
'The call to isolate Pakistan on the ground of sponsoring and supporting terrorism, particularly when the UN has not even defined terrorism, is a wild goose chase.' 'The responses of the various countries to the Uri attack provides testimony to this fact.' 'No country, not even Russia, was willing to condemn Pakistan for this dastardly act,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
There was no breakthrough in US Secretary of State John F Kerry's India visit, but no breakdown either, says C Uday Bhaskar.
Hollande will be arriving in Chandigarh on January 24 where he is expected to be received by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
'Modi and Obama both had agendas that went beyond the nuclear deal. The threat from the chilly Himalayas had to be tackled in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.'
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif continues his exhortation for US mediation in Kashmir, and harks back to his meeting with former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee when the latter had agreed to a resolution of Kashmir imbroglio; senior us officials assert there is 'absolutely no change in us policy' that Kashmir has to be resolved bilaterally. Aziz Haniffa reports.
'Over the last two decades, the India-French relationship has grown steadily, no major political difference having darkened the sky between Paris and Delhi,' says Claude Arpi.
In recent years India-Japan relations have acquired rich economic content and strategic intents. Although the bilateral trade at $18 billion between the two countries is not very impressive and leaves much to be desired, the economic engagement between the two countries is both qualitatively and quantitatively noteworthy. India-Japan defence cooperation, however, has generated a lot interest among the strategic community in the context of rise of China. There has been a lot of speculation about India-Japan strategic partnership to hedge China, says Rup Narayan Das.
Amid souring ties, the president visited Beijing for three days. On his return to India, a hope of better ties has arisen, says senior correspondent R Rajagopalan, who travelled with Pranab Mukherjee to the Asian superpower.
The new equation between 'Namo' and 'Barack' may well 'convert a good start into lasting progress.'
'The threat that India faces and the threat the United States faces is not just to the homeland, but to our people and to our institutions wherever they may be.' In an exclusive conversation with Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com, US Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Desai Biswal outlines the importance of Prime Minister Modi's visit for America.
India on Wednesday hit out at China for demanding "solid evidence" for getting Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar banned by the United Nations
'This is a US-India effort and it is not necessarily to counterweight anyone.'
Reflecting the strong bipartisan support to the India-US relationship, the lawmakers welcomed the decision of the House Speaker Paul Ryan to invite Modi to address the joint meeting.
He said both countries are opening new areas of cooperation in the energy sector, telecommunications and science and technology and they have set up funds to facilitate investment in high technologies.
'Traditionally, the US tried to tamp down tensions whenever a crisis situation arose and deputed officials from Washington to travel to Delhi to counsel restraint.' 'This time around, no US envoy flew down to Delhi -- not even when tensions spiked and a flashpoint was reached last week,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
As 2018 draws to a close and the white noise of 24-hour news cycles and Twitter storms fade into the background, it is already clear that history will remember only a handful of those people, each of whom has taught us something about ourselves and the rapidly changing world in which we live.
Modi also made a call for European Union unity and said India would play a positive role in enhancing that through Germany.
'The biggest stumbling block will come from the traditionalists in the Pakistan army who have grown on a diet of anti-Indian propaganda and thinking on which much of their role -- both militarily and politically -- is centered upon.'
India looks less equal to China than 5 years ago, the strategic alliance with the US is hobbled by trade, and Pakistan is looking anything but chastened by Balakot. What has gone wrong? asks Shekhar Gupta.
Analysts agree China, Greece and US Fed developments need careful monitoring but India should gain, over time, from relative rise of the dollar and fall in commodity prices.
Elaborating on America and India's scope of engagement, Kerry said he has seen first-hand the transformation in Indo-US relationship as well as the ups and downs in the relationship. Kerry says the world's oldest and largest democracy were "finally beginning to captalise on our connections to each other." Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com reports after the media interaction with the US secretary of state.
The Chinese technical hold was set to lapse on Monday, and had China not raised further objection, the resolution designating Azhar as a terrorist could stand passed automatically. The hold has been extended for another six months.
'Big countries do not agree on every set of issues.' 'Look, one of the differences in the relationship is that when we do not agree, we are sitting down and talking to each other.'
'The Pakistani JIT's visit is the first ever experiment by the two South Asian neighbours to probe a terror attack 'jointly.' Well, it is not unlike the scenario wherein the thief himself is made an investigator,' says Rajeev Sharma.
'In India foreign policy is generally handled by the prime minister.' 'One can clearly see the Vajpayee stamp on all this.' 'Only a person with poetic imagination can weave such a complex web,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'If Islamic extremists regain power in Afghanistan, Pakistan will lead them to Kashmir as a fighting arena again. India needs to fortify Kashmir and prepare against these Islamic extremists before they come again.'
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who held extensive talks with Egyptian leadership on Monday, proposed to step up exchange of information and coordination to combat terrorism, both at the regional as well as global level
'We use the word "historic" perhaps too much, but the prime minister's visit certainly was historic in so many ways.'
'I will need a few more pictures, sir, can I get some time from you for a more extended photo shoot?' asked Singh. Modi, ever-obliging before the camera, laughed. 'Sure, but let us plan to do it after my swearing-in is over in May!' The Balakot effect was evident. A fascinating excerpt from Rajdeep Sardesai's 2019: How Modi Won India.
'If Myanmar falls to China, let it.' 'Sooner or later the rulers of the country will have to call New Delhi.'
'Clearly, from the Indian viewpoint, the US retrenchment from Asia cannot be happening as good news.' 'The abandonment of the US' pivot to Asia exposes the US-Indian partnership to be a mere transactional relationship,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
'The Modi-Xi and Modi-Obama meetings, with an interval of just 12 days, are juxtaposed superbly at a crucial point in the prime minister's life. Can Modi carve out a win-win situation with the superpower and the emerging superpower at the same time?'
While inaugurating the leadership summit of the US-India Business Council in Washington, DC, US Vice President Joe Biden said that there was no reason why the two largest democracies in the world should not continue to have a more productive relationship. Aziz Haniffa/ Rediff.com reports.
Some members of the Obama administration have worried that Pakistan's heightened anxieties about India might lead Islamabad to take reckless measures, so they have wanted New Delhi to pursue more diplomatic engagement with Islamabad.
'Modi's promise of change during the election campaign was on the domestic front, but his first year in office focused on foreign policy beyond all expectations,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The visit of Park Geun-Hye to India, though a symbolic one, will certainly give a further impetus to the strategic partnership between the two countries says Rup Narayan Das.
'While Piyush Goel, Dharmendra Pradhan, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and a clutch of former bureaucrats including R K Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri and K J Alphons are loyal BJP members, none of them fit the mould of party apparatchiks.' 'In fact, many of the latter kind have been shown the door or have been given reduced charges.' 'That goes to show the prime minister's comfort level in dealing with professionals and administrators and the trust he reposes in them,' says Shreekant Sambrani.
'India is going to maintain its ties to China, India is going to develop a strong relationship with the United States. It means that India is going to have the flexibility to pick and choose its friends.' 'That's traditional Indian foreign policy, and it's smart.' Former US ambassador to India Frank Wisner, one of America's sharpest minds on South Asia, tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com what Washington can expect from Narendra Modi's visit.
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