Washington might occasionally make some noises about alleged human rights violations and related issues but commonality of interests will only see the Indo-US ties grow stronger, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Sunanda K Datta-Ray considers them sound in theory, but incapable of making any dent in the corruption that is India's way of life.
But why should India be talking to the Taliban in the first place? There is no love lost there. India will never forget or forgive the humiliation to which the Taliban subjected it in the IC-814 hijack, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Congress stalwart Murli Deora passed away on Monday morning after battling a prolonged illness. He was a politician who shared rapport across the political and corporate spectrum.
Sri Lanka crushed Afghanistan by 68 runs to win the gold medal in the men's Twenty20 cricket event at the Asian Games on Friday.
The perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attack, who shot dead 166 people, had confessed to details that should have been enough to hang him, but Pakistan enjoyed his anti-India rhetoric and let him spread his tentacles. A revealing excerpt from Khaled Ahmed's Pakistan's Terror Conundrum.
... and ONE man could be the reason for that, say scientists.
'As a nation we came up short, but that did not deter Kalam. He made it his life mission to exhort the young to greatness.'
The term, 'pro-Pakistani', is helpful for the BJP to depict its opponents as anti-nationals while the sedition law is handy for locking up or harassing the government's critics, points out Amulya Ganguli.
About 41,000 rooms are being provided for the Games and any failure to have them ready in time would be a potential blow to President Vladimir Putin's hopes that the Winter Olympics will show how far Russia has come since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa said that no country in the world is facing the kind of grave threat that India is confronted with.
'The irresistible Cuban cigars, which acquire their unique flavour as they are rolled on the thighs of Cuban women, have always been the ultimate temptation for cigar connoisseurs in the US.'
India's freedom, its rambling but working Constitution, its parliamentary democracy, its lumbering administrative machinery all have many a father, but its greatest claim to fame, especially today, that of being a modern state, is due to but one person: Its first and longest-serving prime minister, Nehru, says Shreekant Sambrani.
The journey of Afghan cricket from the refugee camps to World Cup is nothing short of a fairytale.
'When Sushma Swaraj was campaigning like a one-man army against Pakistan for the treatment meted out to Chetna Jadhav and her mother-in-law, India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval was secretly huddled with his Pakistani counterpart in Bangkok.' 'It is becoming impossible to make rational judgments about our government's Pakistan policies,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
She was capable of a level of human compassion that is rare today among politicians, recalls Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, who knew the Communist legend K R Gowri, who passed into the ages on May 11, from his childhood.
The battle to manage the international environment over Kashmir has just begun, but what is expected to help is the lifting of internal controls. All eyes are now on that exercise. Aditi Phadnis reports.
The US women's gymnastics team, anchored by all around world champion Simone Biles, won the team gold medal at the Olympics on Tuesday by the widest margin ever.
India must be aware that there is no question of the US fighting the Chinese on land. We have to fight our own battles, points out Virendra Kapoor.
'If the dimensions of the strategic partnership worked out by India and the US seem like a grand alliance targeted at you-know-who, China had better realise that it has fathered it,' says B S Raghavan, a long time observer of China.
Eurosceptics lined up to laud Greek democracy for disowning what some cast as the oligarchy
Barred from international competition, Russia is training its athletes at a series of special domestic tournaments and banking on hopes a doping ban will be lifted in time for this year's Rio Olympics.
What does the Taliban chief's death means for various stakeholders?
Bush's remains will lie in state in the US Capitol Rotunda till Wednesday, when he will be honoured with state funeral at the Washington National Cathedral.
Five nations, including Russia, whose doping records have risked weightlifting's place on the Olympic schedule have been limited to just two athletes for the 2020 Tokyo Games by the sport's governing body, according to a document seen by Reuters.
The Indian Air Force is probing the incident, an IAF source said.
With her trademark cotton sari and rubber slippers and her generous doles in rural Bengal, many describe Mamata Banerjee as "ultra left."
'It's amazing that a country that claims to be the world's largest democracy is getting into the business of micro-regulating personal and professional lives in this fashion,' says Devangshu Datta.
For two decades the US paid in blood and blood money for dependence on Pakistan to carry out one president's boast. Now, having been defeated by its proxies, another president will go into Rawalpindi's embrace to satisfy his constituents, predicts Shekhar Gupta.
List of French Open women's singles champions
Indians at large harbour a notion that their country is cherrypicking out of the American basket of goodies, but the policymakers in Delhi and the political leadership are well aware that it can only be a pipe dream since a military alliance with a superpower is a profound irrevocable commitment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Any normal human being, even if he is the American president, will find it hard, at least in the initial stages, to get over the gnawing feeling that Modi is Trump's man.' 'Modi should not be surprised if India and its requirements are treated as of low priority by Joe Biden,' warns B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
'It's a threat to whoever you want, and it includes China, and it includes Russia and it includes anybody else that wants to play that game. You can't do that. You can't play that game on me'
Now the the job of searching out and destroying enemy submarines in the waters off India's coast will fall to the navy's new fleet of a dozen Boeing P-8I aircraft, reports Ajai Shukla.
With the situation in Ladakh tense and no resolution in sight the trigger to take the India-US relationship to a transformational one is already there, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Two men said by Islamist militants to have carried out suicide attacks in south Russia appeared in a video donning explosive belts and warning Vladimir Putin to expect a "present" at the Sochi Winter Olympics from fighters following after them.
'It is time to not merely assert that Kashmir is an internal problem, but begin to act on it,' argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Nokia agreed in September to sell its devices and services business and license its patents to Microsoft for 5.44 billion euros after failing to recover from a late start in smartphones.
Legal hitches appear to have cropped up in the plans to set up two new reactors in the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project and a commercial agreement on it is unlikely to be signed at the Annual Summit between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday.
India's plan to buy futuristic tanks and infantry combat vehicles -- estimated to be worth Rs 80,000 crore to Rs 100,000 crore each -- will certainly intimidate Pakistan which already feels threatened by our vast tank strength.
