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.
'Like General Patton, possibly the greatest exponent of the art of war, Vajpayee had the ability to be always on the offensive,' assesses Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Manchester City made it five wins out of five in the Premier League and Cristiano Ronaldo scored five goals for Real Madrid but Chelsea and Juventus continued to struggle at the weekend as the Champions League looms.
Obviously having gotten the green light from the Prime Minister's Office in New Delhi that if they lobby the Speaker to address a joint session of Congress, which he has not been able to do despite his three visits to the US, the Congressmen informed Paul Ryan that 'It is our understanding that if invited, the prime minister would accept.'
He is regarded as one of the best fast bowlers of the modern era. Extreme pace with the ability to swing the ball both ways makes Dale Steyn a complete pacer. The South African speedster reflects on his 11-year old career at the international stage. How did the dream of playing cricket begin for you and when did it start taking shape? I was about 10 or so when I first came in contact with cricket. I was visiting my family in Zimbabwe and played the game in the backyard. And I remember when I got back to school after the vacations in January, everyone seemed to be playing this crazy sport called cricket. I joined the party and since then there has been no looking back. Why fast bowling? I did everything when I was growing up. I was an opening batter in primary school, but fast bowling was one thing that I was always better at than anybody else. I started playing Men's club cricket at a very young age. I was like this little 14-year old playing against full grown men who were 25 years and upwards. You know, you start to get this confidence that you can get grown men out. Your own teammates fill you up with a lot of confidence when they see you get a great batsman out. I was lucky enough to be a part of the Northern Titan Cricket Academy. This was the same time when the 2003 World Cup was on and I got a chance to bowl to all the international pros who came for practice, made them jump around a little bit and built confidence from there.
'No, that is not an abbreviation for the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha,' says T V R Shenoy, 'but for J Jayalalithaa-Mamata Banerjee-Mayawati-Mulayam Singh Yadav... If the AIADMK, the Trinamool Congress, and other regional forces do extremely well, we could be heading for a repetion of the 9th Lok Sabha (1989 to 1991) and the 11th Lok Sabha (1996 to 1998), each of which saw multiple prime ministers and neither of which lasted even half of its five-year term.'
Top seed Sameer, who won the Swiss Open earlier this year, had to dig deep into his reservoir to outwit compatriot Pratul Joshi 16-21, 26-24, 21-7 in 55 minutes. In another quarter-final, Gurusaidutt, a former Commonwealth Games bronze medallist, recovered from a game down to beat Malaysia's Lim Chi Wing 13-21, 22-20, 21-11 in 59 minutes.
Seven-times champion Serena Williams and Germany's Angelique Kerber will clash in the Ladies singles final at Wimbledon after registering easy victories in the semi-finals on Thursday. While Serena had things her way in a 6-2, 6-4 demolition of Germany's Julia Georges, Kerber beat Latvia's Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 6-3.
Manchester United's struggle to achieve a top-four finish continued on Tuesday as Zlatan Ibrahimovic came to their rescue with an added time penalty to salvage a 1-1 draw against Everton in their Premier League clash at Old Trafford.
Sukanya Verma looks back at actors, who have sported multiple looks in a single film.
An unidentified attacker in a car shot Nemtsov four times in the back as he crossed a bridge in view of the Kremlin
T Thomas, former chairman of Hindustan Unilever, passed away March 2.
England scored through Will Calnan's (25th minute) field strike and penalty corner conversion by Luke Taylor (44th) to register the comfortable win.
Aseem Chhabra introduces us to the best of Berlinale.
With Sundar Pichai becoming the CEO of Google, India has one more reason to cheer its prowess in the global IT sector.
Glimpses of I-Day celebrations across India.
In Rio, over 10,000 athletes will compete for the biggest prize in sport -- an Olympic gold medal.
An under pressure India will face their stiffest test in recent times when they try to bounce back in the three-match ODI series against a refreshed New Zealand in the must-win second game in Pune, on Wednesday.
With the year sprinting to a close, we bring you, in pictures, some of the best action from the sports world.
With a decelerating economy that weakens India's hands on geopolitical issues, it will be interesting to know which way this trip will go.
Battling choppy weather, power crisis, inundated streets and the odds, the students, with a few girls among them, survived through the tough times, keeping each other strong.
A cold snap in Europe and parts of America has caused chaos and crippled the lives of thousands. There have been over 20 weather-related deaths across Europe -- with snow continuing to fall across the continent. In America, Washington was blanketed in white after the US capital was hit by its first snow of the year. Here are glimpses from the snow bomb.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Friday
Barcelona's rampant trio of Neymar, Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi all found the net at the weekend and unsung Leicester City found themselves in the record books when their England striker Jamie Vardy scored for the 11th straight game.
Images from the EPL matches played on Saturday
Cricketing superpowers clash in an ODI series Sunday onwards. Rajeesh Gupta gives us all the numbers on India-Australia one day encounters.
Goli is a special child, born on 26/11 at the Cama hospital in Mumbai while the terrorists were raining bullets outside. Six years later, Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com finds a family determined to give their children the best life they can afford.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Diocese agrees to revoke molester priest's return to the priesthood and keep him away from children.
Hoffenheim ended champions Bayern Munich's 19-game winning streak in the Bundesliga on Saturday with a 3-3 draw after first taking the lead and then fighting back from two goals down.
In private, AIADMK spokespersons say that the raid on Chief Secretary P Ramamohana Rao might be aimed at weakening the AIADMK, and demotivating the party from selecting/electing Jayalalithaa's confidante, Sasikala Natarajan, as her successor -- first as party head then possibly in the government, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
US India Business Council has urged New Delhi and America to take steps to strengthen bilateral trade relationship to realise their 'true business potential'.
'What does Bhagwat think his militia will do once it is at the border?' 'What does Bhagwat imagine his Sangh followers will do that will protect Mother India?' asks Aakar Patel.
President Obama's coming visit to India has created quite a buzz, here is a look at all past visits of American Presidents to the country
Taking exception to Health Minister Harsh Vardhan not mentioning the death of healthcare workers due to Covid-19 in his statement in Parliament, the Indian Medical Association has published a list of 382 doctors who died due to the viral disease and demanded that they be treated as "martyrs".
Karnataka would have served no useful purpose by initiating a sensitive legal move in a sensational case, where its locus standi might have been confined to appealing against the high court verdict and not extend to a demand for stay of its application
Following his impressive batting show in India's 5-0 series win over Sri Lanka, where he was named the man of the series, Virat Kohli has moved to second place in the ICC ODI Rankings for batsmen.
'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.
