'Those who follow the workings of the establishment believe that Indian diplomacy has managed more by the individual flair and brilliance of a few individuals than its systemic strength or organisational excellence.'
The differences between the rich and developing nations have always been at the core of the World Trade Organisation, set up in 1995 to facilitate greater trade flows across the world, and it came as a major breakthrough when the US and India reached a deal over food security issues in 2014.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had gone to China with a bagful of initiatives, but not all seems to have been fulfilled given China's reluctance to go the whole hog with him
'Under Justice Gogoi's tenure, the Supreme Court has gone from an institution that was at least formally committed to the protection of individual rights as its primary task, to an institution that speaks the language of the executive, and has become indistinguishable from the executive,' warns Gautam Bhatia.
'The past year has yielded extraordinary results in the strategic, commercial, and people-to-people components of the India-United States partnership, US Ambassador to India Richard Rahul Verma tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in an exclusive interview.
US President Barack Obama's plan to shield up to 4.7 million undocumented immigrants from deportation may be immensely significant, but only a comprehensive legislation from the Congress with a larger goal could do justice to immigrant expectations.
Diplomats agree that amid stormy relations with China and Pakistan, Modi has posted impressive foreign policy successes, notes Aditi Phadnis.
'Britain always had a very special relationship with the EU -- it always was an on/off relationship. It retained its own currency and visa.' 'Britain always had what you call in EU lingo 'opt out clauses', which other countries don't have.'
'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.
'The Modi-Xi and Modi-Obama meetings, with an interval of just 12 days, are juxtaposed superbly at a crucial point in the prime minister's life. Can Modi carve out a win-win situation with the superpower and the emerging superpower at the same time?'
The people who know Tibet will continue to fight the good fight. Long, hard, less than hopeful, but always peaceful.
'In the past the US has been reluctant to name Pakistan directly in an US-India joint statement.'
65,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees still live in Tamil Nadu. Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar discovers the challenges for the refugees to return home.
Here's your weekly digest of the craziest stories from around the world.
Biometric authentication is based on the unscientific and questionable assumption that there are parts of human body that does not age, wither and decay with the passage of time.
'People in Pakistan opened their homes and hearts to me because I was an Indian. I didn't feel alien at all and I felt as if I was in my own country.' 'I believe that there is a strong chance that the Taliban can win over Pakistan. In an era of ideological confusion these people (Taliban) thrive.' 'The Pakistani State is an enemy state not just for India but for Pakistan itself. By funding non-state actors, the Pakistani government is destroying itself.' Film-maker Hemal Trevedi speaks on her experiences when filming a documentary on Pakistani madrasas
The compulsions of domestic politics notwithstanding, India and Bangladesh script a new story in bilateral relations, say Nayanima Basu and Aditi Phadnis
This is the joint statement issued by the ministry of external affairs on the visit of US President Barack Obama to India.
'Naik is an outcome of an image-centric Islam, which is linked to the technological changes introduced by new media.' 'English educated upper middle class Muslims embraced Naik's image-centric Islam in the 1990s.' 'Television converted him into a religious object.'
