He said that India will work with Singapore to bring the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to early conclusion. He also said the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement has been reviewed and the two sides will work to further upgrade it.
'Curiously, Pinarayi's approach, stressing the imperatives of development, is robustly backed by Nitin Gadkari.'
'I stand next only to Gadkari, one of the few outstanding ministers in the Modi government, in applauding Pinarayi's political courage and vision,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The jobs that are being created now are the delivery boy jobs which are of extremely poor quality, or contractual jobs where you hire a person on a per piece basis.'
'This prime minister thinks he knows everything.' 'He has to consult, he has to talk and he has to mobilise the best people, but having seen him function, I have no expectations from him.'
'We don't know where he will go from here and how he will conduct his government.'
'This confrontation could have been avoided by a less arrogant administration that initially listened, used whatever negotiating skills they had and tried to be more credible,' observes Ramesh Menon.
Under constant attack from his political opponents, the public and the media, he is said to have withdrawn into a shell, says Anita Katyal
Arun Jaitley rejected the charge that the government is pro-rich.
Public intellectuals who frame the ideological antipathy between the RSS & Co and Jawaharlal Nehru in the light of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination and Hindu Raj alone, miss the point by a yard, argues Shaan Kashyap.
Modi said during the Congress-led regimes, terror attacks and bomb blasts would take place in Mumbai 'any time' and its coastline had become 'entry point' for terrorists.
The classic Third Year or Mid-Term Problem has afflicted all but two prime ministers who have lasted a full term, give or take a few months this way or that, points out T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
As the country readies to go to polls on July 25, one can't deny the role of the military, but there are other factors too.
Thousands of Thai anti-government protesters marched through Bangkok on Sunday to demand Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's resignation and garner support for a planned "siege" of the capital to foil snap polls next month.
'While all would agree on the need to be ready to launch cross-border strikes on terror camps, there is sharp disagreement on how best to do it.' 'Through IAF fighters, or surface-to-surface missiles?' 'Or should army Special Forces be created to do the job?' 'If air strikes are the agreed priority, additional funding must be made available for the purchase of fighters and missiles.' 'If it is to be Special Forces, the army must be facilitated in raising a Special Forces Command,' notes Ajai Shukla.
By castigating the reforms themselves because of the remediable and reversible defaults here and there in carrying them out, Yashwant Sinha is throwing out the baby along with the bath water, says B S Raghavan.
Markets hope the Budget will steer spending towards infrastructure.
Long-term capital gains tax may be scrapped and the burden of dividend distribution tax could perhaps be shifted from companies to shareholders. Also, the Budget could provide income tax relief for the salaried classes, while proposing tax sops for small, medium and micro enterprises.
There are a couple of proposals, however, whose goals are not easily achievable.
Raghuram Rajan said the passage of the GST Bill augurs well for the growing political consensus for economic reforms.
Pvt sector holds back, waits for key reforms
'The Maharashtrian Congressmen's decision to break away from their reluctant leaders in Delhi to side with the Shiv Sena is seemingly the first sign that the 'high command' is not as powerful as is believed,' says Amulya Ganguli.
Replying to the debate in Lok Sabha on Motion of Thanks to President Ram Nath Kovind's address to the Parliament, Modi said the Congress' 'arrogance' has not gone away despite multiple electoral defeats and its 'misdeeds' seem to indicate that it has made up its mind not to come to power for the next 100 years.
During the meeting, Obama expressed appreciation for Saudi Arabia's contributions to the campaign against ISIL, the White House said in a readout of the meeting.
The BJP's defeat in Delhi could turn into a larger national swing, but Prime Minister Modi and his party have enough time to tweak the party's policy agenda and project a more humble, secular, and inclusive image, say Ravi Agrawal and Harmeet Shah Singh
Slow pace of reforms in India is disappointing: Faber
Misuse of the Article 370 is the root cause of cross-border terrorism, he said.
The new numbers did not apparently pass consistency checks with production, inputs, or movements in the National Stock Exchange.
The absence of a clear underlying economic ideology in the Budget was quite evident, say experts.
'A breakthrough in eastern Ladakh leading to disengagement and creation of a buffer zone will obviate the need of military deployment through the winter months ahead,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Is Xi's China stable?'
'No one can say whether the regime will fall all at once or if its leaders are devising a new solid and competitive -- anything but democratic -- model.' A fascinating excerpt from Francois Bougon's Inside The Mind of Xi Jinping.
Formal negotiations are due to start in Athens on Friday.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her second Budget a little more than a month from now. Like any other FM, Sitharaman will depend on her team of bureaucrats and advisors to frame and present the Budget.
'Flattering press, nice photos, no major gaffes.' 'Both sides will be very happy as they are clearly measuring 'success' by a different yardstick than the world used in the past.'
The truth is that few ministries in the Modi sarkar are working on new and updated legislation of any kind.
The Indian economy is expected to return to the pre-crisis growth trajectory of about 9 per cent in a couple of years.
As the pandemic unfolded, the India-China relationship has come under severe stress. To restore normalcy, agreements between the two countries must be respected scrupulously in their entirety. Where the Line of Actual Control is concerned, any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo is unacceptable, declares External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Here are 10 global and domestic factors.
The US has been, historically, a sleeping partner in India-China relations. Today, any attempt by the Modi government to make a bilateral move to improve relations with Beijing could upset Biden's apple cart, notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
China remains the elephant in the room and has to be tamed, which the United States alone is unable to do and therefore calls allies to come on board.
'When growth drops precipitously from 7% to 4.5% in four quarters, it is for all practical purposes a recession' notes T N Ninan.
