'How come with Nehru at the helm, India missed so many buses? He had such unchallenged power that he could have taken the country in any direction he wanted. The sad conclusion is inescapable that Nehru let things drift in true Hamletian ambivalence,' says B S Raghavan.
'No country can go from zero to hero at the Olympics.' 'A hundred Indians now feature in the world's top 25 and that's progress,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Foreign policy-making cannot be shifted out of Delhi and the regional satraps, who do not have a national perspective, should not be allowed to dominate foreign policy. But regional inputs should be integral to foreign policy-making at every step of the way,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
In a fresh bid to break the Bofors jinx, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday cleared proposal to acquire 814 artillery guns for Rs 15,750 crore.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's opinion piece in Canada's The Globe and Mail focuses on commercial cooperation in the civil nuclear energy sector.
Athens bowed to demands to phase out tax breaks for its islands.
Rangarajan said that growth has many dimensions to it.
The crisis remains acute with the country's banks already closed.
Narendra Modi's promise to allow states a bigger say in strategising and building foreign policy is unexceptionable, says TP Sreenivasan.
The target of $500 billion in bilateral trade by 2020 is doable, feels Anand Sharma.
The government has provided a long-term vision.
US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, newly elected co-chair of the influential Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, discusses her vision for US-India ties with Rediff.com's Monali Sarkar.
'We want to provide data, we want to provide consultation, but we don't want to lecture.' 'The consciousness about this issue in India is starting to get quite high and if we can help contribute to solving this air quality issue in a spirit of partnership with the Indians, it would be a big achievement.'
From May 26 onwards, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin accepting applications for work visas from H-IB spouses, reports Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com.
'One of the great assets that India has is its enormous intellectual content, enormous intellectual developmental content, and some of the things we need to be working on are unmanned systems, for example, the enormous opportunities for us to jointly partner and develop -- not simply sell our equipment to India -- but actually partner and develop in areas like drones, areas like advanced aircraft and even areas around certain missile systems, where we can have a win-win.'
Seeking a peaceful and secure neighbourhood amidst threat of terrorism and extremism, India and Kyrgyzstan on Sunday signed four agreements including one on bolstering defence cooperation and holding annual joint military exercises.
Gold demand in India is expected to be robust in 2014, likely leading to a further jump in smuggling if curbs on bullion imports remain, the World Gold Council (WGC) said.
New Delhi and Beijing are the only two regional capitals that have commented on US President Donald Trump's speech on August 21 outlining the way forward in Afghanistan. The Indian foreign ministry statement was effusive in praise, while the Chinese statement has been one of cautious and guarded hope. Delhi has identified itself with Trump's Afghan strategy, whereas the Chinese stance is calibrated -- observant and objective, keeping a distance, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'A collapsing Pakistan may well unleash its nuclear weapons as the last throw of the dice. With a nuclear arsenal of over 50 bombs, even a regional nuclear exchange can devastate the world.'
Much will depend on turnout, with younger Britons seen as more supportive of the European Union than their elders but less likely to vote.
'there is absolutely no question that the Hinduism of the mob-lynchers, the people who have actually gone and killed others because of what they are eating or how they are worshipping or the faith they belong to or what they're doing professionally, those are, to my mind, not Hindus at all.' 'Hinduism needs to be reclaimed for the Hindus who are not bigots.'
Rate-sensitive sectors like banks, realty and auto witnessed heavy selling pressure ahead of the RBI Monetary policy which is scheduled on September 29.
The differences between the US and China over rival free trade agreements being floated by them threatened to derail the APEC Summit which got off to a colourful start in Beijing China on Monday.
'The critics are getting carried away.' 'The challenge for the RBI is not any erosion of autonomy caused by demonetisation.' 'It's the whole attempt to reduce the RBI's stature and role that has been under way,' says T T Ram Mohan.
The three main regulators have different approaches to grievance redressal and different standards to stop harmful from coming pitched at the consumer.
'The US wants Modi to succeed because we want India to succeed. For our part, when India thinks of its partners in the world, we want it to think of the US first. That means positioning our country as the preferred provider of the key inputs that can help to propel India's rise.' 'The meeting between Modi and Obama is, and must be, an opportunity for true strategic dialogue -- not a scripted exchange of talking points, but an open discussion of the big questions. What kind of world do we want to live in? What are our true priorities? And most importantly, why does this partnership still matter?'
The government is following a path where it will not be irresponsible or profligate with public money but will intervene in the interest of the poor
The finance ministry has put out a revised draft in public domain.
The Politburo Standing Committee -- the most powerful body in China -- is unveiled, but in a break from Communist party convention, no successor to Xi Jinping is named.
As Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah form a joint government after contesting the presidential election against each other, Prakash Bhandari reports from Kabul on the problems facing the new, US-brokered arrangement.
Rahul Gandhi has the potential to grow into a good, effective, leader of the Opposition provided he puts his heart and soul into it, with a willingness to learn, says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant who worked closely with India's first three prime ministers.
'The path to a resolution of the ethnic conflict is likely to be complicated and controversial with the majority Sinhalese community, and will become less likely if delayed.' 'It will certainly give Rajapaksa fresh political oxygen with which to revive himself and rally the opposition.'
The following is the full text of US President Donald Trump's first address to a joint session of the Congress on February 28, as prepared for delivery and released by the White House press office.
What should concern the Indian citizen is not the fact that the world's biggest assault rifle purchase was scrapped. What should is the fact that the tender was for a type of rifle that has never been produced, says Nitin Pai.
In 2012-13, the Centre managed to cut fiscal deficit to 4.9% of GDP, lower than the Budget revised estimates of 5.2%
Hours ahead of his dinner with President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cautioned the United States against hasty withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, citing the mistakes it has committed while pulling out from Iraq.
Imagine being a part of a country, but being discriminated against by the majority community and atrocities being committed against you by the state. This is the deplorable conditions that the Rohingyas of Myanmar live in where they are cut off from their livelihoods and sources of income, unable to access markets, hospitals and schools, and have little or no access to relief aid. In order to understand the situation and the genesis of the tragedy unfolding, Rediff.com's Archana Masih speaks to Ambassador Vijay Nambiar, the United Nations' Chef de Cabinet (Chief of Staff), who had served a long stint with the UN in New York on the issue.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday addressed the first joint sitting of Parliament as mandatorily required under the Constitution after the general elections. The address is the political, economic and foreign policy road map of the Narendra Modi government and covers virtually all crucial areas.
Do Modi's foreign visits actually serve India or they nothing more than expensive tools for domestic positioning and image-building, asks Shehzad Poonawalla.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances