The highlight of the occasion, according to officials, is an address to a special gathering in the morning by President Xi Jinping, who cast himself in the mould of Mao Zedong, the founder of the Communist Party of China as it is officially called.
'To consider BRICS anything more than a temporary club with some common interests would be folly. The goal should be to induce others (Japan, ASEAN, South Africa) to align with us -- a non-threatening, democratic nation, rather than with malevolent China or waning America. For us to consider aligning with either China or the US would be absurd. India is just too big to be a sidekick,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
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
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
'Nehru was singularly clear sighted about the international political situation.'
'The fatal mistake for the USSR was the invasion of Afghanistan.' 'Quite possibly the fatal mistake for the Chinese empire is the assault on Ladakh,' observes Rajeev Srinivasan.
'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.'
'From the very start, PM Modi was insistent that visiting foreign leaders should be exposed to an India beyond its capital.' 'Through these experiences, he felt that the full Indian narrative would be much better understood across the world,' explains External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. A riveting excerpt from Bluekraft Digital Foundation's Modi@20: Dreams Meet Delivery.
'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).
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.
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.
'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.'
'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).
Rajeev Srinivasan on the disastrous after-effects of a made-up spying incident
Hockey greats Vasudevan Baskaran, M M Somaya and Mervyn Fernandis relive India's gold medal-winning campaign at the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
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.
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.
Russia has described the killing of Andrey Karlov at an art exhibition in Ankara as a terror attack.
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.
The world seems to have caught severe pneumonia, or worse, as China had flu.
Denmark's Superliga to resume on May 28 says Danish League Association
Shekhar Gupta has a question for Kanhaiya Kumar, but a bigger, more vital, one for the honourable judge.
With a decelerating economy that weakens India's hands on geopolitical issues, it will be interesting to know which way this trip will go.
'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.
'His secularism merely declared the equality of all religions in India under fundamental rights.'
Read the full transcript of President Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday at the US Capitol in Washington.
'Continuity in a common agenda is essential, not to disrupt the progress achieved so far,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'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.
'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 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.'
No one expects Nigeria to win, but by now everyone knows that shirt...
List of Wimbledon women's singles champions:
'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
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.
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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.
