US, EU have shut down the use of their financial systems for Iranian crude trade.
India and Iran on Monday decided to jointly combat terror, radicalism and cyber crime as the two strategic partners signed 12 agreements including a "milestone" pact on developing the key Chabahar port for which India will provide $500 million.
Emphasising its right to act independently to safeguard security interests, Israel has expressed hopes that it may not have to unilaterally carry out an attack against Iran to foil its nuclear ambitions due to an unprecedented concentration of United States forces in the Persian Gulf.
India is busy building up its naval fleet, might add frigates, aircraft carriers, planes, submarines
The United States has said it will share with India transparently the results of its probe into the naval ship shooting incident that killed an Indian fisherman in the United Arab Emirates waters, even as the survivors disputed the Pentagon's claim that they were forewarned.
The Pentagon insisted that the United States naval ship had issued several warning to a fishing boat in the Persian Gulf before it fired shots killing an Indian fisherman and injuring three others.
Pakistan and China are disagreeing over whether Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has given the Chinese a gift, an entire naval base at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
'Movement of naval forces at sea is often more than just perfunctory deployment -- reading the messages that they send is important,' alerts Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
The Obama administration is moving ahead with a 'range of steps short of war' that it hopes will forestall an Israeli attack on Iran, while forcing Tehran to take more seriously negotiations that are all but stalemated, a media report on Monday said.
As a model of transport, the A380 strikes a parallel -- a shared fragility -- with giant container ships, observes Shyam G Menon.
Amid heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf, Britain on Sunday said it would not be "wise" for Israel to launch pre-emptive military strikes on Iran's atomic installations as it would have "enormous downsides."
As tensions mounted in the Persian Gulf, Pakistan on Thursday assured Iran that it will not provide any assistance to American forces in the event of a United States attack on Tehran.
'It looked as if India had been a major player in science at that time, raising the question when and why things changed,' says distinguished aerospace scientist Professor Roddam Narasimha.
Thirteen Iranians were rescued by a US Navy destroyer on Thursday, more than 40 days after their boat was commandeered by suspected Somali pirates in the northern Arabian Sea.
After drastically cutting imports from Iran, India is hoping to win waiver from US financial sanctions on its oil trade with Iran so as to continue to getting supplies from the Persian Gulf nation.
Resisting US pressure to further scale down oil imports from sanction-hit Iran, India on Monday made it clear that it has to look at the issue involved beyond the energy trade as it has "vital" security stakes in the Gulf region.
'It was the Mughals who first established standard units of measurement and maintained offices of meticulous record keepers and auditors, departing from the more haphazard methods of earlier regimes.' 'By the end of the 16th century, their revenue and judicial administrations exhibited an obsessive preoccupation with order, the efficient management of time, and a spirit of rational self-control -- all of them characteristics of early modernity,' point out Sheldon Pollock and Benjamin Ellman.
Clearing the way for oil refiners to pay Iran in Indian rupee, the Union Budget has exempted the payments made for crude oil purchased from the Persian Gulf nation, from any local tax.
India plans to further cut imports from Iran by 13 per cent next fiscal even though easing of US and western sanctions has made buying crude oil from the Persian Gulf nation easier.
A total of 40 stickers suspected to be part of an alleged terror plot by a group of Iranians have been found pasted along a route running close to a luxury hotel in downtown Bangkok, nearly a week after the triple explosions rocked the Thai capital.
We bring you a collection of some of the best photographs taken this week by ace photographers.
The United States is set to bolster its military presence in the Persian Gulf by posting combat forces in Kuwait to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran.
More than six months after a Reserve Bank of India order threw out a mechanism to pay for Iranian oil, Oil Minister S Jaipal Reddy on Tuesday said India is trying to ensure uninterrupted supplies of crude from the Persian Gulf nation.
'The potential of one such LAC engagement going out of control and leading to heavy casualties cannot be ruled out,' warns Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
After several years of travelling, Guru Nanak settled down at Kartarpur as a farmer. His followers were the first Sikhs of an order that was to prevail for many years to come. A fascinating excerpt from Sikh Heritage: A History of Valour and Devotion.
Private sector lender ICICI Bank on Monday launched I-Express, an instant cross-border money transfer option for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs).
In a repeat of the M V Wisdom episode, a much-smaller cargo vessel ran aground near the Juhu beach in north-west Mumbai on Sunday, officials said.
K K Mohammad, who took the US First Couple around Humayun's Tomb while explaining its history, tells Sheela Bhatt that the tour was a crash course in architecture and history for the Obamas.
"We have been importing 3 million barrels of crude oil per month from Iran. There is no change in that status... there has been no disruption in supplies... We continue to import same volumes (this month)," Essar Oil Managing Director and CEO Naresh Nayyar said.
The name 'Laila' which means dark-haired beauty or night in Persian was suggested by Pakistan to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) which is tasked by the World Meteorological Organisation to track and name cyclones in the northern Indian Ocean, an IMD official said.
"We are exploring if Indian oil firms can open accounts in banks like Dubai-based Noor Islamic Bank so they can undertake a direct transfer of money for oil they buy from Iran," a senior government official said.
The United States says its expects India to enforce United Nations sanctions against Iran but left it to that country to decide on steps to "convince" the Persian Gulf state to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Amjed Ullah Khan, who carried out investigations of his own and helped rescue 15 women from Hyderabad, tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com how the women get trapped in an underground slave market that 'sells' them to employers who force them to work for less or no pay and often under inhuman conditions.
Reader Sameer Shaikh sent us this photograph from Mumbai.
State-own oil explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and the Hinduja group have been offered 40 per cent stake in the development of phase-XII of the giant South Pars gas field of Iran.
Invoking India's "civilisational ties" with Iran, Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew in to Tehran on Sunday on a two-day visit, saying his talks with the Iranian leadership would provide him an opportunity to advance the "strategic partnership" between the two countries.
Ghulam Rasool Khan alias Khan Mirza, the Afghanistani national who was recently arrested in Purnia district in Bihar for his alleged links with the Taliban, holds a Pakistani passport.According to sources, police have recovered a Pakistani passport, issued in 2005, and a diary from Khan. Acting on a tip-off by the IB, the police arrested Khan in Purnia on January 13, and he was brought to Patna for further interrogation.
Designer Harangad Singh's line on the second day of Fashion Week, 'Khumor', was inspired by the ecstasy of divine passion. Take a look.
The USS John Paul Jones acted like a dog marking the lamp post, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Tipu Sultan is a controversial figure in Kodagu district as Kodavas (Coorgis), a martial race, believe thousands of their men and women were seized and held captive during his occupation and subjected to torture, death and forcible conversion to Islam.
