'Previous governments in India had reservations about working with Israel.' 'Modi has shed this tag.' 'Disengaging itself from its traditional and ideological foreign policy approach in the Middle East shall serve India's long-term interests.' Rajaram Panda explains why the significance of Modi's visit to the Jewish nation goes beyond markers like the first-ever visit to Israel by an Indian PM and 25 years of diplomatic ties.
India can stay relevant in Afghanistan not by being a bystander but by actively bolstering anti-Taliban forces monetarily, militarily and politically, say Lt Gen R K Sawhney and Sushant Sareen
Do Modi's foreign visits actually serve India or they nothing more than expensive tools for domestic positioning and image-building, asks Shehzad Poonawalla.
Migrants do many of the dirty and dangerous jobs in the region, from construction to the oil industry, transport and services
'I had to convince myself that I was steely enough to operate on a cold-blooded killer.' 'For all my medical experience, this was something I had never done!' 'If something happened to Charles, I knew my fate was sealed for me.' 'I would be called Doctor Death until I breathed my last.' 'Success was my only hope of escaping that fate.' A fascinating excerpt from heart surgeon Dr Raamesh Koirala's Charles Sobhraj, Inside The Heart Of The Bikini Killer.
Here are the things we know about Osama and his terror group from the documents.
Ahluwalia is not a great fan of the Uber model.
'Modi's visit is path breaking in the sense that India has come out of the closet and is prepared to deal with Israel openly and in a host of fields, military as well as civilian,' says P R Kumaraswamy, one of India's leading experts on the Middle-East, currently in Israel.
Indian Ambassador to the United States Dr S Jaishankar told Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa that it was "a very nice meeting and President Barack Obama was extremely cordial."
We must see New Delhi's position as a signal of competition to the Chinese grand design for the 21st century world, says Nitin Pai.
India on Tuesday supported Afghanistan's reconciliation process with the Taliban, but warned that it must not undermine the legitimacy of the Afghan government and should be within the internationally accepted "red lines".
The Indian Army and more recently the Indian Navy have already set up dedicated intelligence branches. It is surprising indeed that the IAF, where real time and timely intelligence is most vital for effective and safe prosecution of the air war, has still not done so itself, says Group Capt (retd) P I Muralidharan.
Bajrangi Bhaijaan is an overearnest, oversimplified, preposterously sweet and frequently schlocky film, which works because of a finely picked supporting cast, some sharp lines of dialogue and, most crucially, because of its overall heart, writes Raja Sen.
National Shiv Shankar Menon asserts that all is well in the India-US relationship. Aziz Haniffa reports from Washington, DC.
The American media, which demanded action by the Obama administration when a junior consular staff was detained in Lahore for killing two men, has attacked the Indian government for siding with its diplomat after her arrest and ill-treatment.
On the actor's 54th birthday on November 2, we write another tome about the boy with big dreams and a regrettable haircut, who defied incredible odds to become one of the most loved actors on the planet.
Does Mrs Donald Trump realise that her immediate predecessor, Michelle Obama, is not the only hard act to follow, wonders Kanika Datta.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins his historic visit of the United States of America, here's a look at some landmark visits by Indian prime ministers to the United States of America.
President Obama's coming visit to India has created quite a buzz, here is a look at all past visits of American Presidents to the country
Rediff.com lists a few other dramatic and frightful hostage situations that sent governments and security agencies into a tizzy.
Aziz Haniffa, who has covered every Indian Prime Minister's visit to the US since Rajiv Gandhi in 1985, gives us a peek into what's happening in Washington, DC on the eve of the Modi-Trump summit.
For the last 40 years, Modi fasts during Navratras devoted to Ma Amba. He drinks lukewarm water and sometime he eats a fruit a day.
'We are encouraged by what the prime minister said recently on these issues... We will keep a close eye on these issues. They are very important and as are other elements of our human rights and religious freedom.' 'So, absolutely, we'll keep a focus on them.'
If the radical Islamic movement had been largely peaceful, Headley would have probably found another way to ensure real life excitement.' 'But I really do believe that his relationship with radical Islam is real. Very real.' 'It was a match for his desires.'
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The Indian author had made a dramatic escape from the Taliban in 1995. She was the subject of a 2003 film called Escape From Taliban, starring Manisha Koirala.
North Korea is unlikely to strike first, but its response in retaliation, if attacked, could be massive even at the expense of its own destruction, says Rajaram Panda.
In a major breakthrough in China's worst terrorist attack at the Kunming railway station, police on Monday captured three militants from the restive Xinjiang province who fled the scene of slashing rampage that killed 33 people and injured 143 others.
While India is witnessing slowdown, many countries have not yet been able to come off the last decade's financial crisis.
The perfunctory management of external affairs has left India's foreign policy establishment largely unprepared to manage the consequences of dramatic international developments, says Nitin Pai.
'The Paris Conference is a decisive meeting on climate change.' 'Negotiating an agreement between 196 countries is indeed a challenge.' 'If we go beyond 2°C, the consequences will be extremely difficult to deal with.'The poor are the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change.'
Racing against time, rescuers on Sunday waded through tonnes of rubble of flattened homes and buildings in Nepal to look for survivors of the earthquake.
The external affairs ministry's files, as distinct from those of the ministry of defence or the agencies, at least from before 1974 should be declassified. And if select files that are more than 40 years old are not to be declassified, the ministry should follow explicit guidelines to justify taking such a view, says Jaimini Bhagwat.
The implications of the interim deal between Iran and the world's big powers go far beyond the nuclear programme, says Nitin Pai
The damage done to India's intelligence agencies and its ability to undertake covert operations is irreparable, says senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley
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To no one's surprise, the first question directed at Indian Ambassador to the United States Dr S Jaishankar -- at the end of his first public address since he assumed his duties in December -- was about the controversial Devyani Khobragade episode.
'Devyani -- she is a public servant and her personal life has already received far too much attention -- and her ambitious father now need to retreat to the background so that wiser diplomatic heads restore sanity to India-US relations as India prepares for parliamentary elections,' says Ambassador K C Singh.
Three Indian Air Force officers held as Prisoners of War in a jail in Rawalipindi made a heroic escape. They reached as far as the Pak-Afghan border in Pakistan's Wild West -- within sniffing distance of freedom -- only to realise that they had finally met their match. Or so it seemed. The three escapees were never feted for their audacious attempt 41 years and truly deserve official recognition. Why not honour them at least now, says MP Anil Kumar.
'Just how strong were the ties between the world's largest and oldest democracies that an incident involving a diplomat and a maid led to anger threatening the relationship itself? Or had the relationship been weakening in the past few years, masked by the empty symbolism of State dinners, asks Devesh Kapur.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's success at courting Indians abroad have been as much a result of his old contacts as efforts by a dedicated arm of the BJP abroad. Archis Mohan reports
Is Devyani Khobragade's arrest connected to India detaining an anti-piracy ship owned by a US security firm, asks Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
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