Support for the dreaded Haqqani network across the militant group's historical stronghold in eastern Afghanistan is gradually turning into "resentment" as local leaders say the Haqqani supremo's war is for "Pakistani rupees and power" and they cannot follow him "blindly".
General Soleimani headed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's Quds Force and also served as Iran's pointman on Iraq.
'Trump's anti-trade, anti-immigrant rhetoric reminds me of Chinese history,' says A V Rajawade.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that countries like India, if it gets the exemption, would be asked to bring down their oil imports from Iran to zero in six months' time.
'Tehran,' Foreign Minister Zarif said, 'had expected the Modi government to be "more resilient" in the face of Washington's bullying,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The USS John Paul Jones acted like a dog marking the lamp post, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The government has to take a call on reducing or retaining the excise rate.
Pompeo defended the killing of Soleimani saying he was making efforts for an attack on Americans in the region.
With Modi's international image seriously damaged -- perhaps, irrecoverably -- and Indian foreign policy finding itself in drift, we move on to the New Year in a depressing scenario, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
"We have many relationships...they have a history. We will do what is in our national interest and part of that strategic partnership is the ability of each country to comprehend and appreciate the national interest of the other," Jaishankar said.
As a model of transport, the A380 strikes a parallel -- a shared fragility -- with giant container ships, observes Shyam G Menon.
The advance booking of Salman Khan's eagerly awaited film Jai Ho have started and although the sentiment regarding the movie is buoyant in markets such as Uttar Pradesh, metros such as Delhi and Mumbai have shown a softer response than usual.
India, China and other countries that have been cutting their oil imports from Iran have reached a point where it is "very very difficult" to reduce any further without seriously impacting their economies, US Secretary of State John Kerry has told lawmakers.
India would have responded differently to "Pakistan-sponsored" Mumbai terror attacks had there been a different "mix of people" at the helm, according to former foreign secretary and national security advisor Shivshankar Menon.
Higher crude oil prices also translate into better corporate earnings for India's top companies
'The ceremony on May 30 is all about Modi and there is the great risk that Imran Khan who is a rockstar among Indians might end up stealing the show,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Al Qaeda, the Islamic State or Daesh, as it is also called, will continue to exploit the fault lines and the many contradictions in the approaches of different countries, says Hardeep Puri.
Saudi Arabia on Sunday came under attack globally a day after it carried out mass execution of 47 people, including Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr who was a vocal critic of the government and the Saudi monarchy.
Investors accumulated quality stocks at valuable and attractive levels.
Picking up the pieces is not going to be easy for the families of the missing fishermen. More than the compensation, what they seek is closure, discovers A Ganesh Nadar in Kanyakumari, one of the districts worst affected by the cyclone fury.
When Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor-Khan decided to name their firstborn Taimur, Syed Firdaus Ashraf delved into history to bring back into focus the fierce warrior king who bore that name many centuries ago.
'It was incredibly heart-wrenching to see people waiting to be evacuated -- children, parents and grandparents. Many families did not get to leave together. An order of priority was drawn up, and the first ones to be evacuated were pregnant women, single and/or older women and dialysis patients. Most were happy to be on the plane but also very distressed to have left behind family and friends.'
Despite the Indian government's recent efforts anecdotal evidence indicates that there has been little change in the extortionist behaviour of a significant proportion of tax and police officials, says Jaimini Bhagwati.
Stellar rally in ITC shares along with strength in the Asian equities capped the downside.
"We should make it clear to Pakistan that any LeT attack upon our homeland, they will bear responsibility for that because of their close relationship between ISI and LeT," Congressman Peter King said during a Congressional hearing on Wednesday.
'If the almost literally heart-stopping Suez block has any positive outcome, it is to be hoped that it will accelerate the setting up of a fab (perhaps Taiwanese) in India,' asserts Rajeev Srinivasan.
The prime minister's visit to Washington should focus more on shopping for energy security and stopping the US from snooping on us, reigning in its popular and innocuously operated instruments to gather intelligence like Google, says Tarun Vijay.
'The osmosis between Hinduism and Islam that really gave birth to the Hindustani or Indo-Islamic civilisation was due to the conversation between Muslim mystics and yogis.'
When Mariappan approached the Indian embassy in Kuwait to get back his passport after deciding to leave his employer, he ended up in jail.
'India in 2020 is a lot better prepared than in 1962.' 'It is no longer a pushover; and anything other than a crushing Chinese military victory will be a major loss of face for China,' observes Rajeev Srinivasan in the first of a three part column.
New Delhi must indicate to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that it has a long-term strategy for his country. It should point out that Pakistan's present Afgan policy will destabilise Afghanistan and help Islamic State, says Gautam Sen.
India and Japan have a shared interest in countervailing China's hegemonic ambitions in Asia. Although neither has an interest in forming an overt anti-China alliance, Tokyo and New Delhi feel increasingly obligated to work together to find ways to guard against a muscular Beijing's power sliding into arrogance, says Brahma Chellaney.
FIFA vice president Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein has criticised soccer's world governing body FIFA for banning Iraq from hosting home internationals and called upon the organisation to do more for supporters in the Middle East.
'As in the Panchatantra tale of the cat and the monkeys, it is possible for the clever swing State to play off the two competing powers.'
Our problem is that we look at these words from a non-Indic perspective, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
The Saudi-Pakistan nuclear weapons cooperation is meant to sound alarm bells in Washington, reminding the Obama administration that its overtures to Iran would have serious negative consequences in terms of its ties with its closest allies in the region, says Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad. Exclusive to Rediff.com
'The people of the state can be won over by love, and not by swords.'
With Beijing having had a profound rethink on India's admission as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the tectonic plates of the geopolitics of a massive swathe of the planet stretching from the Asia-Pacific to West Asia are dramatically shifting. That grating noise in the Central Asian steppes will be heard far and wide -- as far as North America, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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