This was the first phone call between the two leaders after Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on January 20.
From the spread of coronavirus to International Women's Day, these 10 images sum up all the big stories from the previous week.
'My husband is no longer an Indian citizen. 'In 2017, he ceased to be an Indian citizen.' 'The safest place on earth for him is Antigua'
China will prioritise the development of a floating nuclear power platform in the coming five years.
After years of living with his family in a poky 110 sq. ft. 'house', textile worker Sambhaji Surve dreams of moving into a home four times the size once the Maharashtra government starts its ambitious redevelopment of the 39-acre Kamathipura shanty town in south-central Mumbai. Sharing his dream are about 8,000 other families hoping for a better life when the redevelopment project, part of the government's effort to redevelop old settlements and make life more livable for some residents, gets underway. The Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party aims to redevelop BDD Chawl and Dharavi but for Surve all the matters is Kamathipura where he arrived in the 1970s from Nasik to work in a textile mill. Kamathipura was originally built 150 years ago following construction of a causeway to connect the seven islands of Mumbai. From the British Raj to post-independence, it became infamous for slums and brothels.
Isolated heavy rainfall is also very likely over north Konkan region during the same period, it said.
Singh, in his address to the Indian-American community in San Francisco, also sent a subtle message to the United States that New Delhi does not believe in a diplomacy of 'zero-sum game' and its relationship with one country cannot be at the expense of the other.
You must visit these wonderful places across the globe to experience their rich and vibrant culture.
Gota has to decide if he could order elder brother Mahinda's arrest as the agent provocateur of Monday's violence. Then he has to prepare for an interim government, in which no one would now want to become a cabinet minister leave alone prime minister, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Leaders of the Indian community in Hong Kong had broached the idea of developing the Andaman and Nicobar islands for investment and setting up manufacturing units,' points out Rup Narayan Das.
From Covid to climate change, Shankar Acharya's look at some of the trends and events that might shape 2022.
Medals tally of the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.
Biden on Friday opened the first Quad Leaders' Summit held virtually and attended by Prime Minister Modi, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
Leading property developers, such as Oberoi Realty, Tata Realty and Infrastructure, and Hiranandani, have turned to redevelopment of existing buildings in the expensive parts of Mumbai as a way of augmenting revenue. Experts estimate that Mumbai's redevelopment projects could be worth Rs 30,000 crore. As such, they are not new. What is new is that the big developers are interested in them. Leading the race is Oberoi Realty, which has set up a separate team for these projects.
India achieved a major milestone in its vaccination programme against COVID-19 as the cumulative vaccine doses administered in the country surpassed the 200-crore mark on Sunday.
The aftermath of Mani Ratnam's Ponniyin Selvan has led to an argument that there was no religion as Hinduism in Chola times.
Instead, there was only Saivism, Vaishnavism, etc, and that the Cholas were Saivites, and hence not Hindus, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
India has got the second set of Swiss bank account details of its nationals and entities under the automatic exchange of information pact with Switzerland, marking a key milestone in the government's fight against black money allegedly stashed abroad.
'The Chinese are only about 160-170 km behind.' 'It will not take much time for them to bring their troops back, considering that they have better infrastructure -- and the weather is now favourable.' 'They can move in much faster as the terrain favours them.'
'There's no secret we're right in the hunt for the World Test Championship final following our two-nil win over India and having Trent and Kane fully fit and focussed for the upcoming series will be crucial.'
Coming ahead of the transition of power from Donald Trump's administration to President-elect Joe Biden's administration after the November 3 US presidential election, the detailed policy document highlights that China is undermining the security, autonomy and economic interests of many nations in the region.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that he had a productive meeting with visiting External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar during which they discussed the bilateral ties, COVID-19 relief efforts, India-China border situation and Afghanistan and vowed to work together to address areas of shared concern.
'Tambrahms do not demand or take dowry. UP and Bihar Brahmin girls can marry here without dowry.'
When the novel coronavirus outbreak hit China in late December and January, the government sprang into crisis mode. Hard-hit cities like Wuhan, where the outbreak began, went into complete lockdown. Millions worked from home or self-quarantined for weeks on end. New hospitals were built in a matter of days to treat the sheer number of patients. People who broke quarantine rules or lied about their travel history were detained. Soon, the virus spread over the globe, with many countries banning movement of citizens to some ordering sanitisation of public spaces. Take a look.
A powerful earthquake has rocked the city of Sapporo in northern Japan just hours after large parts of the south of the country was battered by the biggest typhoon to hit in 25 years. The 6.6 magnitude quake hit the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido early Thursday, triggering landslides, bringing down several houses, and killing eight persons. No tsunami warning was issued after the quake.
We salute the Mi-8 today on the occasion of the 32nd anniversary of Operation Cactus. Through its glorious service career, the Mi-8 left an indelible mark on the future by providing the IAF with a lineage of professional helicopter aircrew, says Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd).
India says the State of Arunachal Pradesh is its integral and inalienable part.
What are you looking at? Terry the grumpy giant turtle summed up the general feeling towards a year that has been particularly cruel to both travel and wildlife. A photo of him "flipping the bird" was recently named funniest animal photo in the Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2020. As the winner of the 2020 contest, Fitzpatrick won a safari in Masai Mara, Kenya, a Think Tank photography bag, and a Nikon camera. Scroll down to see some more hilarious images.
'If the Bangladesh-China relationship strengthens further, it can only be to India's detriment,' notes Vice Admiral Premvir Das.
Japan's confirmed coronavirus infections rose above 1,000 as Olympics organisers dismissed speculation that the Tokyo Summer Games could be cancelled.
'Today we can't confirm whether Chau is dead or not.' 'What is the guarantee that the Sentinelese killed him?'
The IMD has also issued a red-coded warning alert to the Odisha and West Bengal coasts.
'After we landed at Port-of-Spain, we had to take a charter flight to Guyana, but seven of our boys were stopped as they were not vaccinated. We tried to explain to the immigration officials that India had not started their vaccination yet but they instructed us to take the next flight out of the country'. The ICC had organised the Under-19 World Cup with the help of Cricket West Indies. In a challenging time like this, the Caribbean was not the best place to organise a big event like the U-19 WC, felt Indian team manager Lobzang G. Tenzing.
'Under General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping, Beijing has stepped up its aggressive foreign policy toward New Delhi. Since 2013, China has engaged in five major altercations with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC),' said a brief issued by US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
An unspecified number of people were evacuated from coastal areas of Odisha where Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore were likely to experience heavy rainfall accompanied by high-velocity winds, particularly on May 19 and 20, IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said.
'The MEA, hopefully, made it clear that the Indian PM can't be seen in Xi Jinping's company when China has, for all intents and purposes, annexed over 1,000 sq kms of Indian territory in eastern Ladakh, and essentially that the Wuhan spirit and the Mamallapuram spirit have turned into vinegar.'
'Sullivan and Jaishankar welcomed the cooperation in recent weeks that resulted in deliveries of over USD 500 million in COVID-19 relief supplies from the US federal and state governments, US companies and private citizens across America for the people of India'
Rediff readers shared these pictures from their travels.
India will be the most consequential partner for the US in the Indo-Pacific this century, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday ahead of the 2+2 ministerial dialogue between the two countries next week. Esper on Tuesday told a Washington audience that he and the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would be travelling to New Delhi next week for the 2+2 ministerial with their respective Indian counterparts Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
Asking the US to respect the efforts by China and India to resolve their boundary dispute peacefully, a top Chinese official on Monday said the two nations are wise enough to deal with it after the Pentagon accused Beijing of deploying more troops along the Sino-India borders.
It was the 12th day in a row that US military planes have approached the mainland coast, the report said.