'The real challenge cannot be underestimated considering that this is still very much a "boutique relationship" -- a transactional relationship at its core based on its utility value to both countries -- but enveloped in an aura of romance,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Experts tell Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that a Modi government may be Asia oriented, but the US will remain a deep influence. Aziz Haniffa reports
'When it comes to India-Pakistan relations, seminal moments of progress invariably bring out saboteurs of peace -- whether we're talking about fresh provocations along the LoC, or even a terror attack in India.'
'The Senators were playing safe, not angering either the pro-India lobby or the pro-Pakistan lobby, but perhaps more importantly, the military-industrial complex -- the most powerful lobby of all -- which the majority of Senators are beholden to in terms of largesse to their campaign coffers.'
The controversial claim by head of the forensic medicine department at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences that pressure was brought upon him to manipulate the post mortem report on Shashi Tharoor's wife Sunanda Pushkar was debunked on Wednesday by the hospital in a new twist surrounding the mysterious death.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Coming down heavily on Pakistan, President Pranab Mukherjee has said unless it dismantles the terror infrastructure on its soil, there is no scope for progress in talks between the two countries.
In super-human acts of valour, Havildar Abdul Hamid personally knocked out five tanks over two days, effectively derailing the enemy offensive in the 1965 Indo-Pak War. 'Decades later, I realised not only how much the nation owed to this great son of India but also that my entire family was probably alive thanks to him,' says Vijay Dandapani.
BharatShakti.in Founder Nitin A Gokhale pays homage to Mr E N Rammohan and Colonel M B Ravindranath, two genuine Indian heroes who sadly passed into the ages on Sunday
What got the Jats of Haryana so furious?
The world had almost completely forgotten about Partition, and many never learned about it, says Guneeta Singh Bhalla, the woman who founded the 1947 Partition Archive.
Ahead of the eighth edition of the Indian Premier League here's a look at some records from the inaugural edition in 2008 still standing.
After receiving the United States backing on the issue of terrorism emanating from Pakistan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will meet Nawaz Sharif in New York on Sunday when he is likely to ask him to rein in terror elements operating from their soil and unleashing violence in India.
'The US-India relationship is in a different league altogether,' Obama administration officials tell Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in Washington, DC.
An MP's is a full-time job, so is the BCCI president's. How can Anurag Thakur do justice to both, asks Sudhir Bisht.
'The anti-Digital India campaign is a vindictive hatchet job rather than a fact based, rationally sound appraisal; a personal attack rather than issue based criticism; an ideological assault rather than altruistic effort. It must be called out for what it is,' says Vivek Gumaste.
By deeming October 31, Sardar Vallabhai Patel's birthday as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, the BJP has rightly made amends for the short shrift that the great leader received at the hands of the Congress. By the same token, the BJP cannot be seen as being petty towards Indira, a leader who despite her flaws, did render yeoman service to the nation, says Vivek Gumaste.
Any settlement with Pakistan won't last unless it comes with big power guarantees, says Shekhar Gupta.
'The softening of India's attitude towards Pakistan -- whatever the compelling reasons -- opens up the BJP to harsh scrutiny.' 'This is a high stakes gamble with the potential for devastating losses,' warns Vivek Gumaste.
The Al-Qaeda and its patrons seems to have outsourced, for the time being, the achieving of that larger, civilisationally retrograde goal of establishing an Islamic Caliphate in the Middle-East, to the ISIS. The symptoms are all similar; the difference lies only in the expressions, says Dr Anirban Ganguly.
It asked all nations to work together to expedite the adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism in the UN General Assembly without any further delay.
'The people of Pakistan and India will begin to understand what the bottom lines are. What India can accept maximum is known to Pakistan. What Pakistan can accept minimum is known to India.' 'In the absence of atmosphere you can't even talk, you can't think of writing agreements and frameworks. You have to have the right atmosphere. With the previous BJP government it had started and I hope the new BJP government will continue with that.'
To persist with talks in the face of continuing terrorism that puts hundreds of Indian lives at stake is not only naive but morally repugnant and ethically unacceptable. It is time to see through this charade and abandon a path of high risk and no returns, says Vivek Gumaste.
'We don't know what the reasons were that we gave back the Haji Pir Pass which was strategically very important. Today the entire infiltration into Kashmir takes place from that area. If we had retained that post that we had captured, things could have been different.' 'A lesson we need to learn is if you start losing the gains of war at the negotiating table, they become a disincentive for future wars,' says Lieutenant General D B Shekatkar (retd), reviewing the lessons from the 1965 War.
The Nobel Prize for Malala may have caused deep divisions across the globe and disturbed the peace, while the award to OPCW, though not without critics, may have served the cause of peace by eliminating a weapon of mass destruction from the face of the earth, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Read about Rishi Kapoor's page-turning debut, SRK's super-charged turn in Raees, Sridevi as potential Dhoom vamp, Sanjay Dutt's contribution to Andaz Apna Apna and more in Sukanya Verma's super-film week.
'Chetan Bhagat is not great literature. Is that like you write third rate books and people can't do much better than to read those third rate books. Is it really an achievement?'
To mark his 50th death anniversary, rediff.com has launched a special series to evaluate Jawaharlal Nehru's legacy.
'Our biggest problem has been keeping this country together.' 'Nation building is never easy. It is a very difficult task.' 'Even 70 years is not too long a time.'
'2016 was the age of convenience for Hindi movies; of down pat effrontery and planned feeling triumphing over attempts to discern something complexly beautiful,' says Sreehari Nair.
'Godse is no more, but the mindset which gave birth to such distorted philosophy is unfortunately still with us.'
'Dadri was an extension of the cultural fascism that was happening in the country.' 'All the people in the country suffered under the Emergency, but now we see one community trying to crush the other community. Do they know what is brewing in the minds of the other side? What is happening today can lead to a very dangerous situation in the country.' 'We have lost religious tolerance in today's India.' Writer Sarah Joseph on why she returned her Sahitya Akademi Award.
'While Television generally tends to Clarity,' says Sreehari Nair, 'Arnab Goswami's The Newshour Debate portrays our confusions. Each episode offers both the potency of an intensely-fought boxing match and the giddy pleasures of an orgy.'
'The original dream of people like Faiz was that Pakistan would be something different from the old India: Progressive, forward looking, democratic (if not socialist), tolerant, diverse and pluralistic.' 'I don't think anyone foresaw the catastrophe that Partition was to become.'
Dani Alves has blamed the media for Brazil's unsuccessful World Cup campaign but conceded that the team did not prepare properly ahead of the humiliating 7-1 defeat by Germany in the semi-final.
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