Chinese President Xi Jinping has announced that the 2.3 million strong People's Liberation Army, the world's largest, will be trimmed by three lakh.
A new West Asia is emerging and India must engage at the highest level and help shape this change, says Saeed Naqvi
She faced off against former disciple-turned-defector Suvendu Adhikari in a very different contest. It's not land acquisition, but an ego clash that has acquired, tragically, communal overtones, explains Kanika Datta.
The veshti controversy in Tamil Nadu is not about the dress -- but a dress-code, which seems permissible in private homes and offices, but not in private clubs that are open only to well-heeled, and well-paying private members, observes N Sathiya Moorthy
'Biplab Deb said it was unfortunate.' 'If he continues to respond this way, then further damage will not happen.' 'But if under pressure from his party members he does not take action, then the future is dangerous.'
Hockey greats Vasudevan Baskaran, M M Somaya and Mervyn Fernandis relive India's gold medal-winning campaign at the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
'Nehru was singularly clear sighted about the international political situation.'
'The Pakistani denial was the greatest triumph of this strategy.' 'From now onwards Pakistan will always have to factor in the Indian reaction when it decides to back non-State actors like LeT,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were found collapsed after being poisoned last week. Both remain in a serious condition along with a police officer who came in contact with the same substance.
'Pakistan has been successful in convincing the rest of the world that the Pakistani nuclear terrorists are meant to target only India. This is myopia at its worst,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Iran is preparing for a trade and investment boom that could reshape the region after agreeing with world powers to curb its nuclear programme, paving the way for sanctions that have stifled its economy to be lifted.
'We should not flatter ourselves that China is fixated on encircling India. She has greater goals, becoming the pre-eminent power in the world, and India as a major power is dealt with as part of that strategy.'
Rajeev Srinivasan on the disastrous after-effects of a made-up spying incident
Russia has described the killing of Andrey Karlov at an art exhibition in Ankara as a terror attack.
Denmark's Superliga to resume on May 28 says Danish League Association
Triggering angry criticism from the West and even calls to boycott the Sochi games, Russia adopted in June a ban on homosexual "propaganda" among minors, a law denounced by critics as discriminatory and aimed at stifling dissent.
From 'Mera Wala Shah Rukh' to Salman's Being Hygienic ways, my super filmi week, says Sukanya Verma, has a lot on its mind.
S Jaishankar turned out to be a chip of the old block and that too, in modern parlance, a fully loaded chip. The father laid down the precepts of Indian strategy and diplomacy and the son put them into practice. T P Sreenivasan on India's new foreign secretary.
With a decelerating economy that weakens India's hands on geopolitical issues, it will be interesting to know which way this trip will go.
The world seems to have caught severe pneumonia, or worse, as China had flu.
'His secularism merely declared the equality of all religions in India under fundamental rights.'
Shekhar Gupta has a question for Kanhaiya Kumar, but a bigger, more vital, one for the honourable judge.
'She preserved national unity against great odds.'
Western businesses and diplomats in Delhi privately say Modi's reputation as a man of action has been hurt by setbacks on economic reform.
Read the full transcript of President Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday at the US Capitol in Washington.
'The danger today is that out of sheer fatigue and exasperation, the US might cut loose and exit from Afghanistan leaving it to the region to cope with the debris, which it is ill-equipped to handle,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Continuity in a common agenda is essential, not to disrupt the progress achieved so far,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
List of Wimbledon women's singles champions:
No one expects Nigeria to win, but by now everyone knows that shirt...
'Castro's huge appeal lies in the fact that he stood up to the Americans.' 'However, it becomes difficult to be judgmental about his legacy, because there are huge uncertainties about the future of the Cuba that he built,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The two leaders had some firm convictions in defence matters and are idolised by their respective people because they salved the scarred collective psyches of their societies.
'The days are gone when we only deal with India as the other side of the Pakistan coin or Pakistan as the other side of the India coin.'
'Modi's visit is path breaking in the sense that India has come out of the closet and is prepared to deal with Israel openly and in a host of fields, military as well as civilian,' says P R Kumaraswamy, one of India's leading experts on the Middle-East, currently in Israel.
'Sharapova has been a US resident since early in her career, which does bring in a question of how or why she is using a drug that is not licensed there'
DRDO's latest test towards developing an anti-ballistic missile shield, to protect Indian targets against nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles fired from Pakistan or China will provide a technology that is akin to striking a bullet with a bullet, say Ajai Shukla
'Surely, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will not be able to pay or compensate the Russians for deployment and use of Russian men and equipment,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
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Eminent free market economist Arvind Panagariya has been appointed to run Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new Policy Commission, set up to modernise economic strategy after decades of Soviet-style central planning.
'Why can't a person who has supervised military intelligence head RA&W?' 'Why can't one who has overseen national security planning become our NSA or chair the National Security Advisory Board?' asks Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
'The very fact that she survived her migration to Bollywood, where many young lives have been sacrificed or abandoned to the streets, bears testimony to her grit, determination and good fortune,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Amberish K Diwanji on Indian prime ministers and the seven-year itch.
